Grantham-1 Win By a Whisker

Last night Grantham-1 won rather difficult match against Long Eaton. The opposition looked much weaker on the paper then it was in the reality. Match was very tough, and based on hearsay, full of twists and turns....

Let's have a look at the result sheet first:

Long Eaton		2:3	Grantham-1
Evans R	193	½:½	Mangione C	199
Williams D	164	1:0	Birtwistle N	184
Robins A	157	0:1	Payne N	181
Murphy R	141	0:1	Prior S	186
Davies N	133	½:½	Palmer T	150

Claudio Mangione on the top board missed an exchange which left him material down. He was set to resign when his opponent amazingly offered him a draw!  

Nigel Birtwistle on 2nd board built up a positional advantage on the Queen-side which looked promising, however, when his opponent held that, Nigel should have pushed forward pawns on the King-side but he let White seize the initiative and lost on time. It was Nigel's first defeat after 20 games in the row!

Nick Payne on 3rd board had a complex game, nearly trapping his opponent's Queen and - thinking we were well placed on the top boards, offered a draw which his opponent turned down! If he had accepted, the match would have been drawn but Nick went on to win a piece and the game.

Steve Prior faced up to Sämisch set-up played against his King's Indian and in 15 moves his opponent was much better, but he made a mistake. Steve launched massive attack on the Queen-side and 24 moves Ross Murphy threw in the towel...

Having been poorly since Sunday, I had to give up my position in the team this time and it was Trevor Palmer, who replaced me and made a half a point for the team.