Lytham 3 v Leyland 1

New player for Leyland on board 3: Derek Curzon

It was a busy night at home for the Lytham teams and with two wins and two draws the third team managed to edge this match against Leyland.

Board 1 was a close match between me and Bill. Initially I had the slightly easier position to play after a break with the a pawn had led to me being able to control the only open file at this point with both rooks. Eventually the game turned into a ending with queens and opposite colour bishops on the board where my queen, bishop and a pawn that had made it to h3 were doing a great job controlling all the light squares. With his king boxed in and his queen having to passively defend the mating threat it looked like Bill might still be able to hold on, but after a few pawns were lost there was no longer any way to stop my additional pawns from advancing for promotion.

On board 2, Richard built up a positional advantage early on and sacked an exchange to get a very strong protected passed pawn on d6. Before too long though Steve did likewise and ended up with an equally strong passed pawn on c3. At that point the position looked a bit precarious for Richard with his king lacking protection, but once the queens were swapped off the major threat was gone. There were a few tricks left with the bishops that were left with both players trying to give them away to promote their respective advanced pawn, but a draw was agreed soon after this.

On board 3, both players had a slight edge at various points as the game progressed through its early stages. One by one though minor pieces got swapped off, followed later by the rooks. The result was a drawn ending where either king would have been too exposed to continual checks with the queens if either side tried to make progress with the remaining pawns so a draw was agreed.

On board 4, Graham went a pawn up early on after a series of piece exchanges left a central pawn undefended. A second pawn was won after exchanges based around a black knight that had been pinned by Graham’s bishop to the queen, and shortly afterwards a third as white managed to get his rooks more active and into Geoff’s half of the board. Once Graham’s a pawn broke through and was on its way to promotion the game was resigned by Geoff.

Despite the final score, it was a competitive and enjoyable night of chess with all boards fairly evenly matched.