Priorslee Lions V Telepost B

This is a match that we were expecting to win, but you still have to turn up and get the result and after they had caused a shock by beating Telford and Shifnal A never take anything for granted. When they arrived with 2 reserves on there bottom boards I felt that the match was going to be very difficult to loose.

Well this is an unusual match report in the fact that I never managed see what went on in any of the other games and mine was played at quickplay speed and was over in under an hour.

Well the story of my game is curiosity got the better of me and full of confidence after the Blackpool Congress and the fact I was convinced we would have enough on the other boards to get a positive result, I got sucked into playing a line in the french, I have never seen before and knowing that it had to be bad for me played it hoping to find out why! I found out pretty quickly how bad my position was although I had 2 pawns ,I felt Noel was going to destroy me with the white pieces. My pieces were all on bad squares, as the game continued my plan became clear wriggle and hope to force Noels pieces onto bad squares too, unfortunately for Noel thats how it went and I was able to quickly win.

The reason I was unable to watch any of the other games was that while playing my attention got drawn to a man watching the games, he sat down and gave George a "c" team player a game and destroyed him, he then came and sat down next to me and Noel as we were going through the game and immediately expressed his thoughts which were'nt to different to how I thought Noel should have won ,but it was very evident that this guy was of a good standard but how good would become evident. After running through the game with Noel I sat chatting with the stranger to hear that he was from Israel and had'nt played competitive chess for 12 years or so but was a member of a club that boasts no less than 15 grandmasters as members and he had been a private student to one of them, who told him he should give up because he had'nt got what it took to be a GM just a IM. He reeled off a list GM's he had played and even beat not in a boastful way though,he went on to say his grade would have been  about 210 but just listening to him I think he was under selling himself he was clearly on another level to me and  any other player at the club. He showed me and a couple others some endgame scenario's and then went over to analyse and chat with the other players , no one doubting his ability, but all sort of in the knowledge he was something special and we all had something to learn from him.

Sadly when asked if he wanted to play for us he declined stating he would'nt be about that often but would'nt mind a game or 2 if he's around.A real shame because although I have alot of respect for the top players in our county ,this guy reminded me of whenever I have met GMs and everyone just sits listening to every word, and would have been nice for us to have the best player in the league.

Priorslee Lions v Telepost B

W Bates (165) 1 N Kiffin (143) 0

G Pugh (161) 1 M Clark (140) 0

S Tarr (147) 1 J Westhead (129) 0

A Tunks (144) 1 C Micallef (UG) 0

G White (141) 1 J Casewll (84) 0

                      5-0