Malcolm Clarke reports on an extraordinary result, plus the C Team’s match at the University.

Chandlers Ford A drew 2.5-2.5 with Winchester B, a result that confirms that in division 3 Chandlers Ford will finish 4th and Winchester 5th, while Chandlers Ford C‘s 2-2 draw with University C means that they can only avoid finishing bottom of division 4 if they manage to catch Chandlers Ford B.

The A team’s match was the first drawn encounter in the 20 matches in which Malcolm Clarke has captained the side and in fact the games on all five boards were drawn.  First to finish was the game between Chandlers Ford’s Sam Murphy and Winchester’s Steve Kitley in which Murphy had an extra pawn in a queen and pawn ending, but with double pawns any advantage he had was negligible.

The games on the top three boards saw Chandlers Ford’s Dave Holmes, Phil Overton and Graham Stuart draw with Lukasz Marek Piecha, Bob Cleave and Robin Atkins respectively. All three games were pretty well kevel on material throughout, although not all of the games lacked winning opportunities.

However the most interesting game was on board 4 when Chandlers Ford’s David Culliford took on Winchester stalwart David Kinsler.  Kinsler mounted a strong king side attack and Culliford did well to keep him at bay.  When Culliford was able to counter attack he won a rook for a minor piece, but having done the hard work was not able to make this advantage tell and by the end the material was level.

The C team did well to draw at University with good wins by Don Creasey and James Lesniak on the bottom two boards.  Creassey beat the A team’s nemesis Mo Leily and Lesniak on his debut for the team having previously played for the D team also did well.