Metropolitan Chess Club 4NCL Team

Two wins for Metropolitan, although both matches closely contested. We lost on the top two boards against the Braille Chess Association - in particular board 1 was a sharp struggle. However, we won all the next 3, where we had the upper hand in terms of rating, and our players all got to play their typical game. A draw from Ray on board 6 was enough to seal the match once it was clear the remaining boards were won.

Perhaps the most interesting game in the Pontypridd match was Ian's game as Black against David Robinson: after 20 moves, Ian had 2 extra pawns, but it would have been of little comfort if, as we feared, he got mated on the dark squares. Ian was able to hand back the material and simplify to a draw, but it looked critical for a long time. Alan had a what looked like a fairly smooth win to take his score to 2/2. Other games were generally scrappy, and we were both the beneficiaries, and perpetrators of some very poor moves!

A poor start to the season, losing both matches by a big margin. A spate of blunders did our score no good in the Monmouth match, but it was looking fairly bad in any case. The match against FCA Solutions was a little closer, but even so the win never seemed likely from the board positions.