Leamington A 4 - 0 Olton C

27 January 2015

The A team needed to bounce back quickly after last week's dropped point. We took on an Olton team who we'd beaten by the narrowest of margins earlier on in the season, though both teams had changed line-ups this time out.

  • Aldridge, Dan (181) 0.5 - 0.5 Evans, Garry (144)
  • Price, Andrew (155) 1 - 0 Liszewski, Roy (142)
  • Darling, Tom (151) 1 - 0 Evans, Thomas (133)
  • Collins, Andy (145) 1 - 0 Ho, Marco (122)

    • Andy Collins was the first to finish ... not surprisingly, as his opponent played at a lightning pace and built up an advantage of some 45 minutes on the clock! The more measured approach payed off, however, as Black's queen dropped in a sharp position, putting us 1-0 up.

    The other Andy's opponent was rather less aggressive, adopting a hedgehog defense and conceding masses of space on the kingside. This proved decisive, as Andy had no trouble building up a brutal attack on the uncastled black king.

    I didn't see Dan's game, but it looked like he had to work hard for the win, as he gained a pawn in the endgame and made it count when it was only kings and pawns left.

    Not for the first time, I found an opponent who was unfamiliar with the Elephant Gambit; he actually played decent moves, but fell behind on the clock. I eventually broke through on the queenside, but couldn't finish the job and had to enter a rook endgame one pawn up. My opponent let me trade off the rooks, making my job easier.

    So our first 4-0 of the season: a welcome boost to our tiebreaker in an extremely close race for the title.