Revenge is a wonderful dish. And that's what Metropolitan feasted on last night as they admonished us for having the temerity to smash them up a few weeks ago. On paper, we were extremely evenly matched and until the last 10 minutes of the session, 4-4 looked likely. But on this occasion, it didn't quite happen for us. Full power to them though - they've now blown the relegation scrap wide open.
No full game this time as the unrecorded time scramble accounted for at least 30% of it. Besides, the first couple of hours were interesting enough.
George Dickson (178) - (185) Philip J. Makepeace
1. d4 d5 2. Bf4 e6 3. e3 Bd6 4. Bg3 h5!?
Like my fellow students the day before, an attempt to wake the city up.
5. Bd3 h4 6. Bxd6 Qxd6 7. Qg4 Kf8!?
7... Ne7 is definitely playable. However, with the centre pretty fixed and Rex staring down a vacant file, I was fairly comfortable with playing this.
8. Nd2 Nc6 9. c3 e5 10. dxe5 Nxe5 11. Qe2 Nxd3+ 12. Qxd3 Ne7 13. O-O-O
Not sure why, given that I'm bearing down on the kingside, but I was surprised by this decision. I suppose I overestimated how much influence the bishop would have on the otherwise vacant diagonal.
13... Bf5 14. Qe2 Qg6 15. e4 dxe4 16. f3 e3 17. Qxe3 Qa6 18. a3 Rd8 19. Ne2 Nd5 20. Qc5+ Kg8 21. Rhe1 Rh6 22. Nd4 Bd3 23. c4
There are so many fruity tactical tries here that just don't work. I was very close to playing 23... b6 24. Qb5 Nc3 25. bxc3 (25. Qxa6 Na2 mate) Qxa3 but the white queen can block on b2.
23... Nf4 24. Ne4?
What I'd expected, but it allows a crushing reply that I didn't even consider: 24... Rh5!
Any sensible queen move leaves the d4 knight en prise, while Nf5 or Ng5 leave the c4 pawn to be captured with check after the rook hoovers it up.
As it was, in deepening time trouble, I steered it into this advantageous ending.
And couldn't convert it in the face of inspired defence that I have, alas, been unable to reconstruct. Well played George.
Boards 3 and 8 were quickish draws, while grading favourite Graeme fell foul of a brave decision to play for a win on Board 6. Dick continued his great start to the season and Dan's game never looked like anything other than a draw.
Unfortunately, Tom Villiers and Stuart Farnan, back after a lengthy hiatus, couldn't get it done, so our unbeaten start is over. Tom's game in particular looked insane - I'll try to cover it on these pages at some point.
METROPOLITAN 1 | ECF | Result | ECF | MUSWELL HILL | |
1 | Cengiz Hasman | 199 | ½ - ½ | 188 | Dan Hall |
2 | George Dickson | 178 | ½ - ½ | 185 | Phil Makepeace |
3 | Petr Vachtfeidl | 173 | ½ - ½ | 170 | Oliver Butt |
4 | Manuel Perez Carballo | 183 | 1 - 0 | 177 | Stuart Farnan |
5 | D. Ian Calvert | 168 | 0 - 1 | 162 | Dick House |
6 | Noel Stewart | 149 | 1 - 0 | 158 | Graeme Jenkins |
7 | Andrew McGuinness | 159 | 1 - 0 | 160 | Tom Villiers |
8 | John Kitchen | 147 | ½ - ½ | 150 | Tom Peet |
Average 169.5 | 5 - 3 | Average 168.8 |
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