Broadstairs Chess Club fielded their strongest available team against Bridge in the Hargreaves Shield requiring just 1 point, the equivalent to 1 win on either of the 4 boards, to secure winning the Hargreaves for another consecutive year.
Early on the Broadstairs team had the advantage on 3 of the 4 games, and it came as no surprise that the first game to finish was on Board 1 when Manoj (Kent County Intermediate Champion) won his match and secured the necessary point. Having gained an early exchange advantage, he took it through to the end game. The other matches continued through to within minutes of the 11.00pm closing deadline.
The last game to finish was Paul Carfrae who eventually lost on time, something almost unheard of for Paul. An exchange up for 2 pawns, he appeared to have the advantage before an erroneous forcing move by Paul, whilst under time pressure resulted in his opponent converting a pawn into a Queen, before the flag went down on Paul’s clock and game.
Andrew Flood secured at least a match draw for Broadstairs in the second game to finish. A very close game went into the end game stage with white having a minor disadvantage of all even but having an isolated pawn. Black was able to attack and remove the pawn and then advance his own extra pawn to convert to a Queen and then mate his opponent.
Board 3 saw Broadstairs in a dominant position right the way through to the final moves of what seemed to be a certain won end game. A tired move and rare error by Dominic resulted in Gary Hilleard (ex Broadstairs) managing the greatest of escapes securing a match draw for Bridge. Gary not only avoided losing, which appeared 3 moves earlier to be an impossibility, he actually won the game . Such is chess
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Bridge
2 – 2
Broadstairs
Peter Blundell 1698
0 – 1
Manor Nataragan 1780
Alan Evans 1680
1 – 0
Paul Carfrae 1683
Gary Hilleard 1623
1 – 0
Dominic Blundell 1630
Zach Stonier 1566
0 – 1
Andrew Flood 1593