Broadstairs  2         Folkestone   2 

1	Bob Page (135)	1-0	James Smith (96)
2	Paul Carfrae (133)	0-1	David Erwee (96)
3	Richard Clement (e130)	1-0	Benjamin Kiss (95)
4	Andy Flood (106)	0-1	Andrew Haycock (87)

Bob Page writes:

This was meant the day that Broadstairs celebrated winning the Hargreaves Shield, returning home like Caesar from the wars. Alas, it was something of a horror show that could have been a lot worse but for Richard’s late victory that enabled us to scrape a draw. We arrived with a strong side and had every reason to be confident: we were unbeaten, Folkestone were bottom of the league with four defeats in five. What could possibly go wrong? It all began promisingly: on Board 1 Black lost a pawn then the exchange and soon after the game. 1-0 up at 9.00. However, all was not well elsewhere. Paul was a piece down on Board 2, Richard’s game on Board 3 looked tight and on Board 4 Andy was undeveloped and under pressure. When Paul won his piece back with a typically cunning tactic, things were looking up but soon after he miscalculated in a level position, lost a rook and resigned. By now Richard was a pawn ahead but in a tricky double rook and pawns ending and was falling behind on the clock. Victory in the match now seemed unlikely but defeat was unthinkable so for the next hour Andy was forced to die the death of a thousand cuts until eventually, facing mate, he was forced to resign. We then all gathered nervously around Richard’s game as his clock reached the last fifteen minutes. Fortunately, his opponent (with more time) panicked, swapped off one set of rooks and Richard finished off neatly to seal an inauspicious draw for Broadstairs. As the table below shows, we are still in a strong position and a point against Bridge in our final match will be enough but after this result we are taking nothing for granted.

Team	Play	Won	Draw	Lost	For	Against	Points	SP	MP	IM
Broadstairs	5	3	2	0	14	6	8	0	0	0
Margate	5	3	0	2	12	8	6	0	0	0
Bridge	4	1	1	2	7	9	3	0	0	0
Folkestone	6	1	1	4	7	17	3	0	0	0

                                                 Broadstairs  3         Margate   1 

1	Bob Page (135)	1-0	Colin Gregory (122)
2	Paul Carfrae (133)	½-½	Clive Le Baigue (118)
3	Andy Flood (106)	½-½	Paul Ruffle (e109)
4	Michael Doyle (81)	1-0	John Clarke (104)

Andy Flood writes:

As a consequence of the worst flu epidemic in seven years, a slightly weakened unbeaten Broadstairs team visited second place Margate with Mike Doyle standing in at very short notice to play on board 4 . In fact he was the first to finish his game. Playing black against the higher graded John Clarke, he managed to drive his opponent’s king into the centre of the board before achieving a checkmate. Broadstairs were soon to go 2–0 up with Bob Page maintaining his 100% Hargreaves win record, going a piece up and generally outplaying Colin Gregory, his opponent on the top board. A tight game was being played out on board 3 between Andrew Flood and Paul Ruffle, a former Broadstairs player of 10 years ago who had recently returned to playing chess. With white having an advanced pawn to the 6^th rank and with perhaps a miniscule advantage, a draw was agreed which secured the Broadstairs win. The team left Paul Carfrae to play on against Margate’s Clive Le Baigue, the Broadstairs Christmas quiz champion. With Clive already a pawn up through some very clever earlier play, he subsequently went a further two pawns up. However Paul’s solid end game play was proving an obstacle and with the time control looming and just over a minute left on his clock, Clive offered a draw which was accepted.

Broadstairs  3     Woodnesborough A  1 

1	Reg Pidduck (107)	0-1	Steve Garrett (e79)
2	Andy Flood (106)	1-0	Oli Garrett (e53)
3	Bob Cronin (104)	1-0	George Allen (36)
4	Michael Doyle (81)	1-0	Sarah Garrett (e25)

Reg Pidduck writes:

BOARD 4. OUR RED HOT CAPTAIN. Sarah Garrett,  playing her first game, was unlucky to come up against our red hot captain Michael Doyle and lost after eight moves with a Queen and Bishop mate. 1-0 up

BOARD 3. RELIABLE BOB. Young George also  had an early bath with Bob finishing by 8 o’ clock.  2-0 up

BOARD 2. STAR OF THE NIGHT.  What a fight young eight-year-old Oli put up against Andy. Although Andy had gone a knight up early on, Oli did not allow him to make any mistakes as Andy had to slowly find the right moves to avoid the young star coming back at him, Andy finally winning. 3-0 up

BOARD 1. WELL PREPARED STEVE. Steve and I had already drawn in our previous encounter. So we were both up for a return match. Steve had anticipated my playing a Dutch against his 1.d4 and had planned his game. For the first 24 moves I felt I was okay but needed to press and made a bad move on my 25th which Steve pounced on and from then on pounded my King all the way from f7 over to a7  finishing with a mate. Well played, Steve.

We have now played four, won three and lost one in our quest for the Walker Shield.

 

                                               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!

                            Broadstairs  2½         Bridge A   4½ 

1	David Faldon (174)	0-1	Vishnu Singh (205 )
2	Nick McBride (173)	1-0	Shany Rezvany (167)
3	Bob Page (135)	0-1	James Essinger (164)
4	Paul Carfrae (133)	0-1	Robert Collopy (156)
5	John Couzens (116)	0-1	Tim Spencer (121)
6	Reg Pidduck (107)	½-½	Peter Blundell (120)
7	Andy Flood (106)	1-0	Ian Redmond (75)

David Faldon writes:

The match got off to a bad start for us when our boards 1 and 3 both lost quickly in different ways, neither good. But Nick on board 2 soon had us back in the match with a quick mating attack after a wild passage of play. The surviving players calmly ignored all the bloodshed on boards 1 to 3 and set themselves up for a long hard slog of proper chess. Due to my accident on board one I had more time than usual to watch the bottom four boards and great fun it was. All four games were hard fought with lots of cheeky tactical ideas. In the end only Andy and Reg had any success. Reg carefully withstood a bit of pressure and came out with a level position. Andy won a tricky rook and pawn ending the hard way, swapping off into a pawn ending where both sides were going to queen a pawn each, the crucial difference being that Andy’s pawn would queen with check. Brilliant! Anyway, congratulations to Bridge on their victory and many thanks to all of our players for putting up stiff resistance (except me).