Broadstairs Chess Club’s fourth match against Bridge in a month resulted in a narrow 3 – 2 Mick Croft Cup win and an overall encounter of honours evens. Bridge registered wins in the Millar Cup and the Walker Shield competitions, with Broadstairs triumphant in the Hargreaves Shield and the Mick Croft Cup.
The match saw another first to finish impressive win by Samuel Marsden with Black on Board 2 that gave Broadstairs a 1 – 0 lead before Bridge fought back to lead 2 – 1 with Broadstairs defeats (Paul and Nik ) on Boards 1 and 4.
Bob Cronin’s victory evened things up, so the result was dependent on the Board 3 match between Andrew Flood and Zachery Stonier. A poor opening by white saw Broadstairs go a piece down (Knight for Pawn) but resulted in an exposed Black King. Black though had a clear advantage and superiority going into the middle game. One weak backwards move by Black allowed the momentum and attacking play to switch in favour of Broadstairs and the White pieces attacking the King and threatening mate or loss of Black’s Queen to the extent that Black resigned and Broadstairs progressed to the next round with the narrowest of wins 3 -2.
| Broadstairs | Result | Bridge |
| Paul Carfrae (1747) | 0 -1 | (2194) Richard Eales |
| Samuel Masden (1742) | 1 – 0 | (1670) Mats Nordgren |
| Andrew Flood (1638) | 1 – 0 | (1521) Zachary Stonier |
| Nik Loginov (1436) | 0 – 1 | (1500) Zhang Hanshuo |
| Bob Cronin (1405) | 1 – 0 | (1417) Graeme Boxall |
| Total (7968) | 3 – 2 | (8302) |