Last night we welcomed the friendly, and strong, Folkestone team. After a couple of withdrawals we had to shuffle the team, in fact the player on Board 7 was going to be the first ‘free’ club member to walk through the door. That honour went to Fredy, who was thrown in at the deep end
Fredy was the first to finish, after an interesting middlegame his opponent had just too much experience and scored a deserved point for the visitors. Next to finish was Trefor, playing a very strong opponent. Trefor managed to gain an initiative from the opening and won the exchange with a tricky combination.
So the score was once again level at 1-1
Making a cup of tea I walked past Reg’s board to witness a very brutal and correct attack from his opponent. Reg battled to defend but was overpowered with his King stuck in the centre. Soon after Manoj continued his excellent form with a very nicely played King’s Indian, stopping any action from his opponent before storming through on the queenside
2 -2
At this point Arnaud was offered a draw, but declined as a win would serve the team better
The other two games both looked interesting and close, on another day both could have been drawn but it is much more difficult defending a slightly worse position that being the aggressor. Paul fought really hard but never found the counter play so badly needed; in the end his opponent found a nice series of moves to, eventually, force resignation. This left Andy battling in a Rook and Pawn ending, Andy appeared to be holding firm until retreating with his King and falling into passive defence. Andy found a way to create his own counter play but his opponent’s central connected pawns won the day.
This takes us back to Arnaud, who had held a slight edge for most of the game against one of the strongest players in the league. The players agreed a draw once the match result had been determined, Arnaud can be very proud of his play, he led the team on top board superbly
| Arnaud Wisman | 0.5 – 0.5 | Jim Bayford |
| Trefor Owens | 1 – 0 | Martin Cutmore |
| Manoj Natarajan | 1 – 0 | John Atherton |
| Andy Flood | 0 – 1 | Robert Kingdon |
| Reg Pidduck | 0 – 1 | David Erwee |
| Paul Verrall | 0 – 1 | Robert Twigg |
| Fredy Reber | 0 – 1 | Benjamin Kiss |
| 2.5 – 4.5 |