Game of the Week returns with a key game from last week’s crucial Millar Cup match against Margate. This is an excellent game from David Faldon and it is thanks to Trefor Owens that we have it. Trefor, who was on the next board and witnessed it, described it as ‘a brilliant, attacking masterpiece’, and sent it in but while David thought this was ‘overgenerous’ he conceded that it ‘pretty efficient from move 31 onwards’! Play it through and decide for yourself. Thanks to David for his notes.

 

White:  David Faldon (178)    Black:  Harry Sharples (149)

Millar Cup v Margate

Broadstairs’ success in winning the Millar Cup owes much to David Faldon. I don’t know what his overall record is on Board 1 but he has not lost many games in the all the years he has played for the club. He beats the lower-graded players and invariably draws against the stronger ones. It’s a standing joke in the club that a team captain cannot stand down until he wins his respective league competition. On that basis we knew that we could all sleep at night because Broadstairs would never win the Millar Cup so David had a job for life. Perhaps when we finally re-group – the club is shut for a minimum of four weeks because of the coronavirus but realistically it will be longer – David might have forgotten all about it and decide to carry on regardless.

As he wrote in his notes above, David’s victory gave Broadstairs a 3½-2½ lead ‘with just Chris Stampe to finish’ and in his match report he said that once he had finished his game, he rushed over ‘just in time to see that Chris was a queen up and about to win’. Well, that doesn’t tell the whole story because a few moves earlier this was the position:

White:  John Clarke (92)    Black:  Chris Stampe (141)

Millar Cup v Margate

Black to play and win.

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