Welcome to the latest Game of the Week – as promised played in the recent Millar Cup match against Margate. This was the last game to finish and Paul Carfrae, playing for Broadstairs, had to win to level the match
Enjoy the game
White: Carfrae, Paul Black: Le Baigue, Clive
Millar Cup
A photo from our club’s recent Christmas Dinner, all drinks were taken en passant
We welcomed our neighbours from Margate in our 3rd Millar Cup match of the season
We had a good team out, but so did our opponents, a tough match was on the cards. Sadly the evening didn’t start well, as we had to default board two
Board one was a solid affair, with neither player giving way or prepared to take a risk a draw was agreed
The match was looking finely balanced, with Margate looking good on board 3 and our strong ‘ middle order’ all having promising positions. First to finsh was Dominic Blundell who built up a superb attacking position before crashing through his opponent’s defence. His victory was quickly followed by Andy Flood who had been gradually improving his position and, at the same time, picking up material. Andy made no mistake and gave the team another point
This left 4 games to finish, board three went Margate’s way with a fine performance from their player.
All eyes were on our two Pauls:
Paul Verrall had a very close game and entered an endgame in which he had chances to draw, however his opponent played very well. So with one game still ongoing Broadstairs needed a win to draw the match. The game was a corker…and can be seen in the next Game of the Week, so Paul Carfrae played brilliantly to tie the match, a scoreline that both teams deserved
|
Broadstairs |
Margate |
|
|
Trefor Owens |
0.5 – o.5 |
Michael Micklethwaite |
|
Default |
0 – 1 |
Keith Findley |
|
Manoj Natarajan |
0 – 1 |
Colin Gregory |
|
Paul Carfrae |
1 – 0 |
Clive Le Baigue |
|
Dominic Blundell |
1 – 0 |
Leon Garfield |
|
Andy Flood |
1 – 0 |
M Doyle |
|
Paul Verrall |
0 – 1 |
Roy McAloney |
|
3.5 – 3.5 |
Broadstairs Chess Club fielded their strongest available team against Bridge in the Hargreaves Shield requiring just 1 point, the equivalent to 1 win on either of the 4 boards, to secure winning the Hargreaves for another consecutive year.
Early on the Broadstairs team had the advantage on 3 of the 4 games, and it came as no surprise that the first game to finish was on Board 1 when Manoj (Kent County Intermediate Champion) won his match and secured the necessary point. Having gained an early exchange advantage, he took it through to the end game. The other matches continued through to within minutes of the 11.00pm closing deadline.
The last game to finish was Paul Carfrae who eventually lost on time, something almost unheard of for Paul. An exchange up for 2 pawns, he appeared to have the advantage before an erroneous forcing move by Paul, whilst under time pressure resulted in his opponent converting a pawn into a Queen, before the flag went down on Paul’s clock and game.
Andrew Flood secured at least a match draw for Broadstairs in the second game to finish. A very close game went into the end game stage with white having a minor disadvantage of all even but having an isolated pawn. Black was able to attack and remove the pawn and then advance his own extra pawn to convert to a Queen and then mate his opponent.
Board 3 saw Broadstairs in a dominant position right the way through to the final moves of what seemed to be a certain won end game. A tired move and rare error by Dominic resulted in Gary Hilleard (ex Broadstairs) managing the greatest of escapes securing a match draw for Bridge. Gary not only avoided losing, which appeared 3 moves earlier to be an impossibility, he actually won the game . Such is chess
|
Bridge |
2 – 2 |
Broadstairs |
|
Peter Blundell 1698 |
0 – 1 |
Manor Nataragan 1780 |
|
Alan Evans 1680 |
1 – 0 |
Paul Carfrae 1683 |
|
Gary Hilleard 1623 |
1 – 0 |
Dominic Blundell 1630 |
|
Zach Stonier 1566 |
0 – 1 |
Andrew Flood 1593 |
The club returned for the New Year with a trio of exciting games in the Goodall Cup.
Current leader Manoj continued his excellent form with a brilliant tactical display against Andy, gaining a big advantage in the middle game before finding a superb tactic pushing his d pawn to the 7th forcing a resignation. Tactics also flowed in the game between Trefor and Dominic. Dominic played too many pawn moves in the opening phase leaving his King open to an attack on the light squares. His only defence was to shed material which quickly led to a losing position. The 3rd game was also a closely fought and exciting affair. Reg battled well and was the exchange up, but Paul had a couple of extra pawns and Reg’s King was open to attack. Paul too victory with a very nice combination