Brown Jack Chess Club

 4NCL  03/04 -  Division 4

 Nov 03 - Rounds 1 & 2

Brown Jack's debut in the fourth division of the 4NCL on

November 22 produced a convincing 4½ - 1½ victory over

Pontypridd. A tense 3-3 draw with promotion rivals,

Poisoned Pawns 2, left Brown Jack in seventh place out

of the eighteen teams comprising the fourth division.

It was considered that two potential seven hour games

might be a bit much for Fenella Headlong, just a month

before she is due to give birth, so the team took seven

players for the weekend. As it happened, Fenella was not

over-taxed, destroying her young opponent with a massive

attack on his king. Father-to-be Tim, was the star of the

weekend, making the game look deceptively easy with

two crushing positional wins. David Bareham was the

other winner against Pontypridd. A rook up, he calmly

gave up his queen for the second rook and had no

difficulty in wrapping up the resulting ending. Richard

Haydon, Johnathan Bourne and David Tomboline were all

off-colour during the weekend. Sensibly they conserved

their energies by agreeing draws in good positions.

Against Poisoned Pawns, Peter Richmond launched a

characteristic double-edged attack which unsurprisingly was

treated with suspicion by Richard and approval by

Johnathan. Objectively Richard was correct as perfect

defence would have left Peter struggling, however, this was

not found and Brown Jack were one up. David Bareham and

Johnathan never recovered from poor openings so Tim's

victory was needed to level the match at 2-2. The remaining

games were going with colour, Richard pressing with white

and David Tomboline fighting for equality with black. Hopes

of an important victory were raised when David

achieved his draw. Richard's attack was not as strong as it

appeared, neither he at the board, nor anyone else in the

post mortem, could find a conclusive finish. Richard wisely

offered a draw before his opponent's passed pawns became

a significant factor.

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 Diagram #4   Peter (Black to play) was already winning prior to

white's blundering into the position below. What did Peter play

to ensure a quick resignation?

Answer here

Thanks to Peter Richmond for the report

Brown Jack 4NCL_03/04