NICS vs Lindores 2

With 6 boards playing and our secret weapon of Peter May the NICS team was feeling confident.

Shortly after the match begun a cry of anguish was heard from Drew's table. The board was quickly put away. Drew had successfully researched the book "How to turn opening advantage into mate in only 11 moves!".

David Jackson playing board 3: "Playing Black I got a cramped position and in trying to defend a King-side attack of Queen and two active Knights against a Queen and stifled pieces. I escaped but he broke through the Queen-side and got one of his rooks onto the seventh rank, and struggled for 20 odd moves in a Rook and extra pawn verses Knight ending."

On board 5 Geoff was going well with a strong centre and whites f-Knight on the h-file. Winning that Knight probably in exchange for a pawn would have been easy  but instead he blundered away a Rook for a Bishop, and the roof fell in!

Adrian on board 6 was terribly honest and surely this must have happened to us all at one time: "The mathematician who can't count" . He exchanged several pieces and looking at the board thought "I am a piece short?" He was indeed, missing a Knight and unfortunately that was that.

On top board Mark Newman defended against fellow ex-Bombardier player Paul McNaughton who opened with f4. Mark returned by d4 and developing the Queen-side allowing a relatively early Queen-side castle. Black eyed a beautiful sacrifice relying on the Queen and King being on the same diagonal so Mark took a pawn with his Knight leaving it en prise. Shock horror! - the Knight he was going to win back, moved to safety threatening a fork on the King and Queen. Mark limped along after that, having lost a Knight for a pawn. But later he won another pawn back and gained 2 passed pawns in the centre of the board. With a little play and almost trapping a Rook Paul offered a draw. It was turned down. Then several moves later - after almost loosing the game, Mark offered a draw which was also turned down. Several moves later both Paul and Mark finally agreed the draw, much to the relief of Mark.

Lindores the victors left NICS with some thoughts - everyone enjoyed their games. Drew decided he'd change the title of his book, Mark would check all moves before making a beautiful sacrifice, Adrian would buy a calculator, Geoff would stop blundering and David would stop getting into cramped positions. Peter would just keep winning. And the club would get some coaching. So next team beware.....