Round 1 - NW Eagles v Perceptron Youth (Sat 22 Sept, 2001)

Report by Charlie Kennaugh

It would have been nice to have banished last season's end-of-season blues with a convincing win against Perceptron Youth in this the first round of the new season. This should certainly have been within the bounds of possibility since we comfortably outgraded our opponents on seven of the boards.

Unfortunately, things didn't exactly go as planned. My first game as captain was memorable but for all the wrong reasons. Having turned down the offer of a draw after 18 moves I blundered a piece away appallingly three moves later. Hardly the example I wanted to give the team, but I suppose it's easy to overlook the threat of e6-e7+ with your king on f8 and your rook on d8. Ben Hague soon squared matters with a neat and convincing win with black on board seven.

However, the spirit of generosity initiated by myself began to take a firm hold. To be fair, Gary never really got into his game after a grotty opening and was in the end fairly convincingly duffed up by Craig Hanley. John Littlewood, however, having a fairly trivially won endgame with a piece for two pawns decided to attempt to mate his opponent. Unfortunately he overlooked a sting-in-the-tail knight fork which thwarted mate and gained another pawn for his opponent, after which John had to content himself with a draw. The other John (Merriman) should also have been able to register a full point after his female opponent Jessie Gilbert sacrificed a piece unsoundly, but he failed to take advantage and was in the end quite relieved to be offered a draw.

Our most convincing victory came ironically from Claire, our only player to be lower-rated than the opposition. Having seemed to be slightly under pressure early on, Claire had steered the game into what looked a fairly equal position before she suddenly caused her oppenent's position to implode as follows:

Summerscale C - Levermore after black's 28th move

Claire continued forcefully 29.b5 c5 30.a5! Rxd1+ 31.Rxd1 Rb8 32.axb6 axb6 33.Rd6+ Ke7 34.Rxb6 winning two pawns and effectively the game (1-0, 43 moves).

This left the score 3-3 with two games remaining, Glenn black against Andrew Bigg and Brett white against Martin Taylor, both of which were looking good for us. However, although Glenn had stood somewhat better for most of the game, it was never easy and he managed to let a very tricky endgame slip through his fingers. This was the critical position: (see diagram)

Bigg - Charleshouse after white's 46th move

In this position Glenn tried 46...Bc3 47.d7 g4+ (Or 47...Bf6 48.Ne5+) 48.Kh4 Bf6+ (48...g2 49.d8=Q g1=Q 49.Qd5+ is also only a draw) 49.Kh5 g2 but white was able to give up his piece and eliminate black's last pawn after 50.Ne1+ Kf2 51.Nxg2 Kxg2 52.Kxg4 Bd8 53.Kf5 Kf3 54.a4 Ke3 55.a5. However, Glenn could have won with 46...g4+ 47.Kh4 Ba5! when white is no longer able to eliminate black's last pawn, e.g. 48.Ne5+ Kf4 49.Nd3+ Ke3 50.Kxg3 Kxd3 51.Kxg4 Ke4 winning.

So Brett's game proved to be the decider. Brett had seemed to have a huge positional advantage, but his opponent played very resourcefully in time trouble and wriggled out into the following position:

Lund - Taylor M after black's 44th move

Brett really had to accept in this position that he'd blown his advantage and settle for a draw with a move like 45.Kg1. Instead, still chasing the win, Brett blundered horribly with 45.Ke2?? Ba6! 46.Kd3 Nf2+ 47.Kc3 Ne4+ 48.Rxe4 fxe4 49.Bd5 e3 50.f5 e2 0-1 (51.Kd2 Rd7).

Even allowing for the fact that our opponents, by their very youth, were mostly considerably stronger than their published ratings, this was a woeful team performance and a terrible start to the season and our promotion chances.