Monday 25th April

Captain's Corner

My game was over quickly - Jonathan Arnott failed to materialise, so a hapless substitute had to take his place! Chris's game looked like something out of the 19th Century - his opponent sacrificed both knights in the opening to force Chris's king up the board from e1 to h5! A bishop was thrown onto the fire, but it soon became clear that the attack had dried up. Later analysis of the critical moment showed that there was indeed a way to force checkmate! Masrura secured a draw, and Mithun made full use of fearsome outposts for his black knights at d3 and b3 to leave us within
sight of victory. After the time-control, Prasun got the better of his opponent in spite of positional weaknesses, but Jeremy couldn't quite convert his space advantage into a win when the position became blocked. With the match in the bag, the bottom 2 boards rubbed it in: Mursal infiltrated the back ranks with two rampant rooks, and Azmiddin had a slice of good fortune when his opponent fumbled a strong attack in time trouble, dropping a rook. Congratulations to Azmiddin for achieving a perfect score of 1 out of 1 for the A-team this year (along with Kevin Marshall and Jon
Woollard)! Overall, the last match of 2004/05 was a convincing win (with no losses), equalling our best score-line of the season.

Paul C