The A and C Teams Avoid Relegation

In the Southampton Chess League our A and C team have managed to step off the bottom rung of their divisions with decisive results in their last games.

The Winchester A team were sitting at the bottom of Division 2 by a tie-break with Southampton B before their last match, with Southampton B. George, Lukasz, Michael, Dan, and Bob played at home coming away with a 3½-1½ victory, breaking the tie and securing our spot in Division 2 next season.

The C team were also sitting at the bottom of Division 4 going into their last match, this time by 1 point from Fareham C. Keeping things tense the last match was against that team. Our secretary John finished first on board 1, unfortunately losing to the aptly named Thomas Philidor. Next up your author Bracken beat Jack McBurnie on board 2, getting revenge for a loss earlier in the season by punishing an inaccurate Kings Indian Defence.

Third to finish was David on board 4, losing a piece in the opening but managing to hang on all the way into a sharp end game and agreeing a draw with his opponent, Peter Cruddas who was still up the piece but had it trapped in a corner. The vultures then descended around Matthew vs Christopher Budden on board 3 for the deciding game. Matthew was playing a complicated middle game with only 5 minutes vs 20. After some trades he found himself in a winning endgame but with little over a minute left. His opponent did his best to complicate things but at one point hung mate in one, spending only a few seconds Matthew spotted it and put the match to bed with a 2½-1½ vitory and again securing the team’s place in the division for the next season.

Our B team have finished at the bottom of Division 3 by a tie-break with Hamble B, but as we already have a team in Division 4 we might not be relegated here.