Newport B v Priorslee lions

On paper this is one match that should be a comfortable win , but Newport B had been unlucky once already this season beating a strong side only to have the result cancelled after Church stretton withdrew from the league so we couldn't take anything for granted. We were minus Glyn for the match and a night off for Gary also meant a start for Munroe and debut for Tony on board 5.

The matches themselves couldn't have looked much better from an early look around Adrian had the advantage on board 1 , Steve on 3 and Munroe on 4 better and Tony and myself level. It seemed strangely quiet maybe it's down to the none ticking clocks but that was all broken by a bizarre moment when Steve said he's played 2 moves , this caused a real lapse in what little concentration I had, only for Steve to realize it was his mistake he had confused himself pressing the clock halfway through his opponents thinking, obviously his opponent didnt see the funny side and rightfully so. It had put me totally off ,so I walked off my opponent followed and said you know its your turn , I said yeah but needed to get away and try and refocus, It gave us afew moments to discuss the state of the overall match and have a little giggle at how close to a voliatile situation we had just escaped. Well after a bit the first result came in a draw on 4 having not long looked at the posistion I was a little surprized as I felt our board 4 had got himself into a bit of a pickle, but a draw was agreed against team orders! (but in this instance I thought it was a good draw). Adrian on 1 was continuing to dictate his game , mine was sort of a nothing game just a bit cat and mouse waiting for the other to make an error, Steve too was in control of 3 and by now Tony was starting to tie up all his opponents pieces. I don't now if it was abit of tension for Danny but he had a rush of blood and made the mistake in my game and a couple of moves later he resigned. Adrian had now over extended but had a forced draw on the board , Steve to had let slip his advantage and now it was his opponent had the slight edge. Then Adrian did the unthinkable instead of the forced draw he sacraficed a rook , I had a look walked over to Danny and said I don't see it, there was a reason for that Adrian had overlooked that the king didn't need to walk forward from checks but could go backwards and hide, Adrian with no time at all and a rook down ,looked dejected and Athar wove his queen and rook through the defence to checkmate Adrian 1.5-1.5 what!!! Tony was playing well on 5 though and had won a piece and just needed to keep it simple to convert he did this with ease going a rook and knight up his opponent resigned. 1.5-2.5 .All attention turned back to Steve who was once again in an ok posistion the only concern was the clock as he had 9 minutes and his opponent 18 and Steve was repeatedly not pressing his clock. Fortunately for us his opponent started slowing down and finding increasingly bad moves , leaving Steve a very nice finish to win , no matter what his opponent played Steve played Qf7 either sacraficing queen and knight for queen allowing Steve an unstoppable pawn or as it happened in the game the king moving to h8 and forcing either mate or black to give up his queen for just the knight and still the pawn can't be stoppped. 1.5-3.5 and a very good result for us with just one team now going down and the strength of the other teams Newport B will find it very difficult to make up a 5 point lead that we now have.