Apologies for the delay in reporting on last Thursday's matches but I've been a bit under the weather. Anyway, it was a good night for the Club last Thursday as both Ashby 1 and Ashby 4 won their matches, Ashby 1 beating the Pork Pies from Melton Mowbray by 3.5 - 1.5 and Ashby 4 beating Syston 3 by 2.5 - 1.5.
Team Captain Ric Dawson led from the back with a win on board 4 for Ashby 4, whilst Magnus Brown took another giant step towards his first GM norm with an emphatic win on board 3 against an opponent who only learnt the moves last week. Following John Howlett's loss on board 1 it was left to Ian Maskery to stumble to a draw on board 2 to give us the points. Ashby 5 are now staring down from the lofty heights of 5th place in the table, a position that even the International Space Station would be envious of.
Tom Dove has sent his usual inimitable report on the antics of Ashby 1 -
Ashby 1 continued their fine form despite the absence of
captain Patrick who was on holiday in Zimbabwe.
He sent a postcard back to everyone at the club.
"Hi all, continuing my pilgrimage to the resting places
of all my favourite people in history - managed to tick Robert Mugabe off the
list having paid my respects to Vlad The Impaler late last year. Whilst in
Zimbabwe I took the opportunity to bag myself a baby white rhino, although the
guide told me if I'd taken out the mother first, I'd still have had a great
shot at the baby as it most likely wouldn't have run off. Ah well. We live and
learn".
Andrew took his place on board four and set about boring his opponent to death with his London Zzzstem.
Unfortunately, his opponent Christopher Knight is an avid collector of walking stick badges and considers train spotters to be foolhardy adrenaline junkies. To him, the London is like the bastard lovechild of the Leningrad Dutch and Kings Gambit Accepted, and he succeeded in out-boring Andrew.
An astounding achievement.
Chris had earlier confided in the team that the pressures of "carrying those useless Ashby 2 f*****s" was really playing havoc with his chess, so it must have been a euphoric moment when the delightfully named Ian Farquharson resigned in a hopeless position, made all the more satisfying for our substitute since Chris had adopted his hero Tom's defence of choice for this match.
With Queens, Rooks, Bishops and Knights all still very much on the board, Gheorghe decided he'd make things interesting against Ben Pourmozafari by deliberately making his own King as unsafe as humanly possible.
Seriously, there wasn't a friendly pawn within 5 ranks of it.
Still won.
What a guy.
Tom was cruising to yet another routine victory on board 1 against former UK Olympiad silver medalist Alan Jex, but noticed that Richard had excellent winning chances.
This left stand-in captain Richard to dispatch Shaun Cope in clinical fashion, putting Ashby 1 five points clear of their nearest rivals with remaining games fast running out.
As Richard was carried shoulder high to the bar by his teammates, Tom looked on as if to say "That'll do, pig. That'll do".