Broadstairs     4½                Ramsgate   2½

1 David Faldon (175) ½-½         Brian Westover (153)
2 Bob Page (145) 1-0         default
3 Paul Carfrae (131) 0-1         Steve Guy (138)
4 John Couzens (118) ½-½        Malcolm Snashall (122)
5 Bob Cronin (112) ½-½         Brian Williamson (96)
6 Andy Flood (111) 1-0         Bob Wallace (90)
7 Michael Doyle (89) 1-0          Joshua Vaughan (77)

David Faldon writes:

The match got off to a promising start with us 2-0 up after 32 minutes. Bob P’s opponent failed to show within the 30 minute default time and Mike’s opponent, Josh, mislaid his queen and resigned only a couple of minutes later. Most of the other games were very hard fought, with only one other decided (Bob C’s well-played draw on board 5) before everybody started to run out of time. As time ran down my attention was naturally fixed on my own game on board 1 as I was in danger of being mated but then I managed to swap queens to relieve the pressure. At this point my opponent, Brian, offered me a draw, so I went to assess the other games to see how the team stood. I mentally chalked Paul and Andy up as possible losses but John was clearly winning, so I went back and accepted Brian’s draw offer as I’d calculated that this should give us a 4-3 win. Mere seconds later the other three results came in, and I’d got two of them wrong. So much for my “board 1” calculation skills! To be fair, though, John really was winning at the end but he allowed his opponent a draw once Andy had pulled off his miracle turn-around, converting a tough rooks plus pawns endgame into a winning rook versus pawn one. Congratulations to us on a narrow but pleasing victory. Never give up, never surrender!

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