Broadstairs 2 Folkestone 5
1 | David Faldon (174) | ½-½ | Jim Bayford (178 ) |
2 | Nick McBride (173) | 0-1 | Martin Cutford (173) |
3 | Bob Page (135) | 0-1 | David Shire (168) |
4 | Paul Carfrae (133) | 0-1 | Kevin Smyth (163) |
5 | Richard Clement (e130) | 0-1 | John Atherton (163) |
6 | Andy Flood (106) | ½-½ | Tayfun Demirbilek (155) |
7 | Michael Doyle (81) | 1-0 | Robert Twigg (70) |
David Faldon writes:
The match got off to a cold start, not surprising for early January, but after an hour or so hats and gloves could be discarded and the pieces started to fly. Nick’s game on board 2 was especially violent with sacrifices on both sides and the pieces seemingly randomly scattered in the far corners of the board – but unfortunately for Nick his opponent had played much of it before and this proved decisive in the long run. The games on boards 4 and 7 were more one-sided with white doing all the pressing. Paul (black on board 4) defended hard but in vain while Michael (white on board 7) calmly brought home the point. Andy (black on board 6) then took a draw by perpetual check against his highly-rated opponent. That left us 1½-2½ down, but at that stage we still had a real hope of getting something positive from the match. David (board 1) had a very good position and both Bob on board 3 and Richard on board 5 (playing his first game for the club) were holding on tenaciously in difficult endings. In the end, though, none of the results went our way and we lost the match 2-5. Still, not an awful result against a Folkestone team packed with strong players on the middle boards. Many thanks to everyone who played, and especially to Bob and Paul for driving. Congratulations to Folkestone on their victory. They made us feel very welcome and even provided tea!