LDCC   2 – 8   Hackney II

This was clearly our toughest match of the season and that was proved right by looking at our opponents' grades where they outgraded all of us, in some cases by quite a margin. Add that to some off form performances, we were well and truly beaten. Again, our bottom 4 boards struggled, losing all of their games. Richard W. on board 8's position went quickly into a endgame with bishop against knight and equal number of pawns but his opponent's king was better and got to the queenside first. On boards 9 and 10, David and Gian found it tough going, losing with no chances going their way. On board 7 James found himself under pressure from a kingside attack without having castled and could not solve the difficult decisions facing him and lost soon afterwards.

A little bit of stability was restored by Richard D. on board 4 and Chris on board 1 with draws. Chris, for a change, went for a quickplay finish – we can't blame him for that seeing he must have had enough of adjournments for this season and must be sick at the sight of that dreaded adjournment envelope. He must be close to a record number of adjournments in the London League – how many have there been, it must be about 50 adjourned games by Chris so far in his LL career (!?) Only joking, both Chris and Richard D had quiet games and drew well against opponents graded 15 and 4 points higher respectively.

On board 5 Mike was under pressure on the kingside where he couldn't stop the pawns marching on. On board 2 as white I whipped up a kingside attack but before I could play g6 my opponent got there first with a queenside attack with forced moves leading to a win for him. On board 3 Neil was under pressure by central pawns marching up the board and although he had knight and bishop for a rook this proved useless when the rook was sacrificed for a bishop and the passed central pawns were too much for Neil who lost soon afterwards.

It wasn't all doom and gloom, as amongst all this carnage of a massive train wreck, Barry played quietly, patiently and slowly nursed an advantage with white all the way to the end and won the only game for LDCC. Well done Barry on his win against a player graded 15 points higher.