4NCL online (week 2)

8th September 2020

Warwickshire Bears B ½-3½ Atticus B

Atticus B comfortably defeated their game opponents to set the early pace at the top of division 4 with two wins from two.

Tristan Wong 0-1 Sanjoy Banerjee

As Napoleon famously said of his generals, it is better to be lucky than good.  I walked into better prep in the Jobava London, and looked dead lost out of the opening, yet managed to turn the tables.  There followed a long period of tactical play, which taxed both my time and wits.  I had reluctantly just settled for the threefold when my opponent deviated into mate in one!

 

Steve Burge ½-½ Shriya Pillay

A typical Steve Burge game in many ways.  He foxed and befuddled his opponent in a King's Gambit (Declined!) to set up a win, but accepted a draw in the interests of the team to ensure we won the match.

 

Zain Amir 0-1 Mark Wadsworth

Mark's game, a reverse Closed Sicilian, reached an interesting structure with white pawns on c4, d3 and e4, but a nice tactic allowed white to compromise black's kingside.  Yet white immediately gifted the b-pawn in return.  Still white's space advantage looked enviable, until in trying to attack on the kingside, white's queen became hemmed in on the h3 square.  Mark looked to be poised to break through when a hanging rook on c1 prematurely ended the contest.

 

Jim Wiseman - Tom Junde He

Jim unfurled a Smith Morra Gambit, which his opponent insouciantly accepted, but appear to have an idiosyncratic approach.  The gambited pawn became an IQP and the game seemed poised.  Black had a miserable dark-squared bishop, but the attempt to play the freeing f5, just gave Jim's bishop pair great scope, leading to an unfortunate pin which decided the game.

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Games can be followed fortnightly on Tuesday evenings starting at 7.30pm at https://lichess.org.  Simply search for the player’s online handle and navigate to the games tab.  Fixtures, results and details of player account names can be found on the 4NCL website an hour before games begin.

Round 3 is this evening (Tuesday 22nd September).