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London Deaf won the toss and were white on odds.
Latest score: LDCC 8 – 1 Dulwich II
Dulwich II have been struggling this season with player availability for a lot of their matches. So they prenotified us with 4 defaults the day before which meant that we were already 4 – 0 up without pushing a pawn. Hence we only needed 1.5 points out of 6 boards to win the match. On board 5 Richard unfortunately didn't get a game when his opponent was unable to turn up. On board 2 I was the first to finish winning quickly with black when my 2 powerful bishops helped me to win a piece and the game soon afterwards. I think we have to go back to the last century to find a match where I was the first to finish! So we got the match in the bag, 6–0 up.
On board 1, Sergey outplayed his opponent with white, taking advantage of the misplaced queen and finished the game off clinically. We had a small setback on board 6 when Barry, a pawn up, overlooked a forced queen exchange which would have meant his 2 passed pawns would have been able to march up on the kingside. The tables turned when his opponent exploited the weak dark squares around Barry's king and with a powerful queen and rook forced a knight fork on king and queen.
On board 3, Ilan as white played what looked like a tasty knight sacrifice but overlooked a bishop move skewering queen and rook. When the dust had settled Ilan was (I think) a rook for a pawn down but had a lot of compensation in his opponent's uncoordinated pieces and so had the full initiative. After a few probing moves his opponent made a mistake and suddenly the tables turned with Ilan material up and won the game soon afterwards. So we were 8–1 up with one adjourned game to play where on board 4 Neil with black had the edge and wanted to continue.
UPDATE: Neil's opponent has resigned without resumption and so the final score is LDCC 9 – 1 Dulwich II.
Thanks to everyone who played in this match where we finished on a high and we will be looking to improve on this season's 8th place next season.
Alasdair MacLeod,
LDCC Captain
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