Millar Cup v Margate (h)

David Faldon writes:

Our fifth match, our fifth … no … no … rewrite coming up … we actually won this one. Mind you, an hour into the match you’d have got a good price against that happening. We were a queen for bishop and knight down on board 4, a rook for knight down on board 7 and a whole rook down on board 2. True, we were a nice pawn up on board 3 but that hardly seemed sufficient compensation. The carnage started on board 4. John (white) sacrificed a knight on f7 with his ninth move, attacking queen and rook, but instead of taking the knight, Colin counter-sacrificed a bishop on f2 with check. John could have captured this bishop with his king with a roughly equal game but instead he tried Kf1, dropping his queen to a knight fork on e3. Oops. Amazingly, that wasn’t the end of the game. John regrouped and, after a few mistakes from Colin, he was back with a few threats of his own. Meanwhile on board 2, and also on move nine, Bob P (white) was faced with a knight sacrifice on his f2 square, forking rook and queen. Bob could have captured this pesky knight with his king, emerging just a pawn down, but instead he moved his queen, bravely sacrificing a whole rook …Three spectacular sacrifices on f2/f7 in two games, and a few moves later there came a fourth when Margate’s board 1 (white) couldn’t resist throwing in a Nxf7 sacrifice, attacking black’s queen and rook. This time the capture king takes knight wouldn’t have been good, nor would moving the queen, nor would moving the rook, nor would counter-sacrificing against white’s king, but instead David found a fifth way, a queen sacrifice. Amidst all the mayhem some calm chess was going on. Paul on board 3 was a safe pawn up, Andy on board 5 had a big passed pawn and Reg on board 6 had cleverly swapped both of his bishops for his opponent’s knights. In the blocked-up position that resulted Reg’s knights could hop this way and that while his opponent’s bishops just got in the way of his rook. Three much-needed wins for Broadstairs on the way? In fact two wins for Broadstairs did turn up pretty soon. The first came from an unexpected source, board 7. Bob C’s (unintentional) rook for knight speculation paid a big dividend when his knight popped out of the way of a discovered check to win his opponent’s queen. The second win came on board 1 when a long swap-off sequence left David a clear bishop up. 2-0 soon became 2-1 when Bob P’s swindling chances evaporated but Paul and Reg and John all cashed through for wins. 5-1. In the last game to finish Andy found a nice rook for knight sacrifice to defuse his opponent’s last flicker of hope. 6-1. In the end a comfortable win, but the lopsided 6-1 result was, in truth, a bit flattering. Still, we’ve played well and lost matches in the past, so we should celebrate this win while we can. I’m sure that the return match at Margate in January will be interesting.