Millar Cup v Bridge A (a)

So, a heavy defeat to start the new season, but the performance was nothing to be ashamed of against an overwhelmingly strong side. All of the games were hard-fought, especially the game on board two which went right to the limit of the new time control (all moves in 105 minutes) and so finished after 11 pm. Bridge, a club with a huge array of strong players but with two teams to fill, paid us the compliment of selecting a strong A side for our first meeting of the year. Their players outgraded ours by 30 or more points all the way down. Of course this grading differential is more significant on the lower boards, so boards 4 to 7 were expected to struggle, and struggle they did. Still, a 0-4 result on the bottom four boards was a bit harsh, although from what I saw none of our players did anything silly or missed anything obvious. You simply have to congratulate the Bridge guys for playing very well. The mini-match on the top three boards was different, however. It wouldn’t have been against the run of play for us to have won 2-1 or better, but in the end it wasn’t to be. Paul had slightly the better of a rook and pawn ending on board 3 but a draw was a fair result in the end. David had a huge attack on board 1 but his opponent pulled out a surprising series of sacrifices to force a perpetual check. Disappointing. Bob on board 2 got into a difficult position with black against an unfamiliar opening and lost a pawn but fought back well. As time ran out Bob found a clever defence in a position where I (DF) expected him to resign but unfortunately his resourcefulness went unrewarded when his opponent discovered a neat way to swap queens into a won ending despite only having seconds left on his clock. Another disappointment. Still, there were grounds for optimism in defeat. If we all play this well we’ll win many of our matches – maybe even the return against Bridge A in January? Why not?