Honours Even as C Team Draw
Derby C faced Burton & Lichfield C in their second match of the season on Tuesday (28/10/25).
I faced an unambitious opening by White, and the game predictably fizzled out to a draw.
Shah failed to castle, and with his king trapped in the centre, was subjected to a forceful attack which was hard to defend.
Carl ended up in an endgame with rooks and a knight on both sides. The game ended in a draw.
Matt opened with e4, and his opponent took them into a Sicilian. After a fairly uneventful opening, some tension in the middle was resolved through some piece exchanges, leaving him with a well-placed bishop on d5. With no knights on the board, opposite-coloured bishops, and no pawns to kick it away, the bishop remained there for most of the rest of the game. After my opponent castled short, this bishop was x-raying the King and pinning the pawn on f7. He had the initiative, so he ramped up the pressure on the King side, and in particular, the f7 pawn. After a bit of piece shuffling and trying various ways to push through, he tried an attack on the h7 pawn. His opponent responded by lifting his King to g7 and swinging the rook over to h8. This turned out to be a mistake after his King had to drop back to the 8th rank and left his rook stuck in the corner and out of the game. Piling the pressure back onto f7, and with his rook misplaced on h8, he eventually broke through, and his opponent resigned shortly afterwards.
Our first point of the season!
| Derby C | 2 - 2 | Burton & Lichfield C | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Williams, David | 1856 | ½ - ½ | Slobodyuk, Yuriy | 1719 |
| 2 | Hussain, Shah | 1702 | 0 - 1 | Pickering, David J | 1720 |
| 3 | Weighill, Carl | 1671 | ½ - ½ | Gallagher, Kevin J | 1668 |
| 4 | Caswell, Matthew | 1615 | 1 - 0 | Hoare, Michael WA | 1604 |
The games are available on Lichess here
Dave Williams 1/10/25