Southbourne Seagulls v Poole Bishops

An interesting evening of chess with some closing drama but played in the best of spirits. The final 2-2 score was probably a fair reflection.

On Board 1, Harry had a strong aggressive attack for Poole and looked like he was heading for the win. However, Ben seemed to have held back the storm and recovered the position with his queen controlling the diagonal. Unfortunately, however, Ben moved his queen off the diagonal and not long after that lost the game to an unavoidable checkmate on g7.

Next to finish was board 4, where Zhongyuan had a nice steady win over his opponent, having won a piece in the middle game and then proceeded to close it out with his opponent rather cramped. Board 3 was quite closed and somewhat of a struggle. The match was in the balance when unfortunately, Oliver made a slight mistake allowing Dragos’ knight pair to capitalise and thereafter take the win.

Last game to finish was Board 2 between Jason and Angus for Poole. After a long tense battle, Jason won a piece in the middle game and looked as if he was heading for the win. However, in the end game, Jason miscalculated under time pressure and lost a rook after removing its protection. And so, the game swung back to Angus. However, with just under 1 second remaining, Angus couldn’t force a win and lost on time.

It was great to see the Poole players and team once again.