Broadstairs first match of the season commenced with a short trip to nearby Margate. Past seasons always resulted in a close match and Thursday night proved no exception.
The League’s new time control meant that the match finished a little earlier than normal just after 10.00 pm.
The games on all 4 Boards were close , a tactical positional game was taking place on Board 3 with no exchange of pieces until around mover fourteen. A blunder in a constrained position resulted in the loss of a pawn and then a Knight fork on the Queen and King and a black resignation and an early point for Broadstairs.
Broadstairs were out-rated on Board 1 where Peter McGill was improving his position going one and then two pawns up, and finally developing a winning position to square the match at 1 – 1.
In the remaining games Broadstairs (B2) with Dominic Blundell playing black was a pawn up and Paul Verrall (B4) with black was struggling in what was fast becoming a lost game. On Board 4 Margate (Roy McAloney) advanced his pawn to convert it into a Queen and Paul had to sacrifice his Queen for some minor pieces as white sought to get checkmate. Like Monty Python’s black knight Paul was battling on, and miraculously turned the game around pinning his opponents white Queen against his white King forcing an exchange of the Queen for his rook followed by a Rook and King fork with his Knight to capture his opponents, Rook. With some clever manoeuvres Paul was converting his own pawn to Queen upon which his opponent resigned, and so an almost certain lost game was won and Broadstairs were 2 – 1 up.
Attention then turned to the final game on Board 2 where Dominic (Broadstairs) remained a pawn up with the only other pieces on the board being the Kings and Queens. Colin Gregory’s (Margate) m offered up his Queen for exchange, which unfortunately Dominic accepted, which resulted in the white King and Margate having the advantage of the tempo and a more centralised position enabling the King to take the two black central pawns and soon after black resigned.
The result was a 2 – 2 draw and another close match between Broadstairs and Margate.
| Margate | Broadstairs | |
| Peter McGill 1854 | 1 – 0 | Paul Carfrae 1668 |
| Colin Gregory 1654 | 1 – 0 | Dominic Blundell 1659 |
| Leon Garfield 1451 | 0 – 1 | Andy Flood 1594 |
| Roy McAloney 1412 | 0 – 1 | Paul Verrall 1435 |