24.2.2022 match report by Andrew Flood
Two evenly matched teams who drew 2 – 2 in the home Broadstairs match were to have another close encounter.
An early important result was Michael Jenkinson on Board 4 who manged to secure a key half point playing with the black pieces in his second outing of the season. Typical of the evening it was a game that could have gone either way but ended in draw. Against the former Broadstairs player Mike Doyle it proved to be a crucial and valuable half point.
With Broadstairs having the edge in 2 of the remaining matches, the next game to finish was the top board that saw Margate secure a win. It was an intense game that saw Paul Carfrae losing out to his higher rated opponent.
Dominic was playing well on Board 2 against the difficult to beat Colin Gregory, but through some clever play and a Queen exchange for two Rooks he managed to do just that and secure a win to make the match all square at 1.5 points each. So the result was dependent on the final Board 3 match. Andrew Flood with the whit pieces went a Pawn up after move 2 and had the early advantage but Margate’s Leon Garfield fought back strongly to smash through white’s central Pawns, capturing 2 of them for Margate to go 1 Pawn towards the end of the middle game.
An exchange of rooks and bishops saw that pawn lost and Broadstairs gain a small advantage through the more centralised positioning of the King. With just a single tempo move advantage Broadstairs were able to gain all the points as the “a file” Pawn protected by the King advanced to become a Queen.
A match that Leon and Margate didn’t deserve to lose, but lose they did by 1.5 points to 2.5 points. Full result below.
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Margate 1.5 – 2.5
Broadstairs Peter McGill 1825 1 – 0
Paul Carfrae 1683 Colin Gregry 1615 0 – 1
Dominic Blundell 1630 Leon Garfield 1480 0 – 1
Andrew Flood 1593 Michael Doyle 1383 0.5 – 0.5 Michael Jenkinson 1300