Lytham 1 v Poulton 1

Chess resumed after the Christmas break with a New Year's double-header at Lytham as Poulton's 1st and 2nd teams took on Lytham's 1st and 3rd teams.

This made for some interesting team selections, notably with Ben making his season's debut for Poulton 1, allowing Paul and Simon to line up for Poulton 2.

And it was Ben who started off the New Year's fireworks on Board 3 with a temporary sac of his bishop on f7, which effectively won the game despite all of Phil's efforts to fight back.

Board 2 was looking no better for Lytham as Colin blundered early in the middlegame, allowing Oleg a strong initiative. Oleg put pressure on the board and the clock to try to convert this into a winning advantage. He transitioned into a better endgame, but one slip allowed White's rook and knight enough activity to escape into a drawn rook and pawn ending.

So the attention switched to Board 4, where Dave had come out of the opening a pawn to the good and was pressing to win a second pawn, with hopes of squaring the match. Peter managed to exchange down to the heavy pieces and pawns, one of which was passed and gave him counterplay. The rooks came off, leaving only queens and pawns on an open board. Just after the time control there was a fault with the digital clock, and by the time a replacement clock had been found and set up, both players had concluded that there would be no way to avoid perpetual checks and they shook hands on the draw.

So the result hung on Board 1, where Martin had had the better of the opening and middlegame, winning 2 pawns, but John maintained fighting chances. He regained one of the pawns and reached an endgame of queen, opposite-coloured bishops and a few pawns. His better bishop and central pawn suddenly gave him an initiative. As the clocks ticked down he generated multiple threats: back-rank mate, queening the pawn, queen and bishop mating on g2.... but Martin successfully parried them all. When the dust settled there remained only opposite-coloured bishops and two pawns each, so a draw was agreed.

Congratulations to Poulton on a well-fought win.

Some positions from Ben's game can be found at https://poultonchess.wordpress.com/2023/01/06/poulton-vs-lytham/