Dudley Division 2 - Update

Halesowen arrived at Kidderminster last night needing a win to move into shared top spot with South Birmingham. Paul Evans captained the team and placed Andy Ambrose on board one, myself on two, himself on 3 and Finlay on 4.

In order of finish, I'm first. I opened with the London System and wasn't really feeling up to playing chess last night as you're about to see from the novice-like game I played. In fact I deserved to lose. However, my opponent also didn't feel like playing it seemed and aimed for a draw that I accepted - or else almost definitely lose. My brain just wasn't working last night and I played well below my grade. Luckily for me it ended in a draw, if David Waud was up for it I almost certainly would have lost. Here's the game, try not to wince:

Andy Ambrose was next to finish and he did so in fine style. An exchange sacrifice led to him gaining a pawn storm advantage that his opponent's (sorry, I'm not sure of the name) rooks just couldn't deal with. Andy ended up getting the exchange back and keeping hold of his pawn advantage. Andy dealt the killer blow with a more active King in a K+4P v K+3P endgame. His opponent resigned upon realising that he couldn't prevent Andy's king from wiping out the rest of his pawns. I don't have the game to hand, so here's a pic of them playing.

I can't remember who was next to finish, so I'll go with Paul Evans who won his game fairly convincingly at first, but then got into a bit of a sticky situation after getting his knight trapped on the enemy back rank. I can't be sure whether the knight would have managed to escape eventually or not but it looked dodgy. However his opponent didn't try to take advantage of it and after a series of moves, Paul was able to free the knight and with a pawn majority managed to stifle his opponent's (sorry no name again) counterplay and win very comfortably.

Finlay played a very fine game from what I saw of it. Indeed, last night we would have been better off switching tables as he was playing way better than I was.

Finlay played his usual Queen's Gambit, Bf4 line and straight out of the gate (almost) he was looking for tactics. His tactical ability is exceptional and mostly down to the tactics trainer here at chess.com sharpening his brain. I'll let the game itself do the rest of the talking:

A simply superb game no matter which way you cut it. Really pleased to see him back to form.

So, in case you haven't been keeping count, that makes 3.5 to 0.5 in our favour, placing us joint top with South Birmingham. South Birmingham face Warley Quinbourne in their final match, so not an easy one at all. Our final match is against Boldmere and I'm hoping they default or, in the very least, field a weaker team. They don't seem to like travelling to Halesowen and always struggle to pull their best team. I fancy our chances of winning Dudley 2.