Metropolitan National Club Team

Metropolitan have (a little ambitiously) entered two teams into the Major (U 160) section of the BCF National club championships. The teams must average under 160, with no player over 200 (sadly not a problem in our case) - which gives different possible strategies for your team composition. The format is a knockout, with teams that lose the first round going into a plate competition.

Both matches were played at 'home' on the weekend of 29-30th March. We were able to use premises in Southwark run by a former Metropolitan member, Kenny Harman, who very kindly provided a book prize for the best game in each match (he acted both as host and judge!) - these were won by George Dickson for his precise endgame technique (see here), and by Kathy Griffiths for catching her opponent out in the opening.

Metropolitan A drew their match against Hastings on the Sunday, but by the tie break rules, Hastings went through to the Semi Final on board count, as they had won on a higher board.

Using the same strategy (in fact, the same team) which had proved successful in the first round, we were confident of winning on the lower boards while hoping the higher boards could hold their higher rated opposition.

Kathy won quickly playing the fantasy variation (3.f3) againist her opponents Caro Kann. Tragically, however, Aronis was caught out by the clocks going forward and arrived an hour late, and eventually lost on time.

This meant that the top three boards needed 2/3. Although they all fought hard into the endgames, all three games were drawn against their strong opponents, leaving the match drawn at 2.5 each.

A very tough and close match finally went against Metropolitan B as Peter Doye had to win a level game, when behind on time, to avoid a loss on board count.

Although the average grade of both teams was similar (153/154) there was a clear disparity on every board. That favoured Metropolitan on the top three boards, so we might have expected a 3 - 2 victory; perhaps some what nullified by having black on the odd boards.

In the event Nick was out-played on board 1 and cool defensive play on 4 refuted Noel's king side attack. Kieron won well on 5 and when George netted the full point an exciting finish was set up for board 3. However Peter's opponent kept up the pressure to win the final game, and the match.

Metropolitan A had a convincing win over Milton Keynes though the final score line doesn't reflect the nature of the match. Ian's opponent over pressed and so Ian gave us an early lead. However at this stage both Aronis and Kathy looked worse and so the match was still finely balanced. A fine win from Norbert on board 2 in an Advance French meant we only needed to tie the match to win and so added to the pressure for MK (as we would win on board count). Zafer quickly made sure of the ½pt required, with his opponent having to defend very accurately in order to get even that. With the match in hand the two losing games were turning around, possibly due to our opponents having to press too hard. Therefore the last two games were also won giving us the rather flattering score 4½ -½

A solid draw by Peter Doye got the match off to a good start for us and things seemed to be looking good. Both Collins (who had just made the default time) and Noel looked winning, and it seemed as if victory was there for the taking. However George lost a pawn on board 1 and was unable to get back into his game, but this was cancelled out by Noel's win. Collins's lack of time proved costly as he blundered in time trouble. With nothing resting on the result (we had already lost on board count if the match was drawn) Peter quickly drew, though the endgame looked drawn anyway.

The 'B' team will now enter the Plate competition where they face stiff opposition in the form of both of last years finalists (Wood Green and Bourne End).

For more information e-mail the captain