D Team Going Down with a Fight

Derby D had its last game of the season against Burton & Lichfield D on Tuesday 28 April. We were in 6th position in Division 3, three points below Clay Cross B, so relegation was inevitable. But we were playing for honour.

Curtis played Black and entered a line of the Sicilian he was quite familiar with. His opponent got into a situation with an overloaded bishop, forcing double pawns near his king. Curtis was a pawn up and went for a kingside attack which was defensible — until Mark overlooked a strong knight jump that threatened mate or a significant loss of material. Mark eventually resigned.

Garry played the Ruy Lopez Steinitz Defence as Black. The game went the distance to 52 moves and, toward the end, Garry had a half-hour advantage on the clock over his opponent. He had the positional advantage for most of the game, but rather than press his advantage he played an unnecessary defensive move which cost him momentum and ultimately the game. It is a game Garry should have won.

Sam found a tactic to pin his bishop onto Terry's queen and win it. Terry took Sam's pawn on f2 with check as compensation, leaving Sam two points of material ahead. The game entered a pawn endgame where Terry had the extra pawn but Sam had the bishop. Shuffling around, Sam found a way to win that pawn and was about to go two pawns versus one on the queenside when Terry resigned, knowing he could not stop the promotion.

I played White against a Classical Dutch, Rubinstein Variation. In the middlegame, my opponent Andrei pushed on the kingside and, after a chaotic chain of exchanges, ended up two pawns ahead. I managed to claw a pawn back. Rooks gobbled pawns at opposite corners of the board in the ending, and when Andrei had four connected passed pawns he sacrificed his rook to stop my pawn queening.

	Derby D		2 - 2	Burton & Lichfield D
1	Sands, Garry	1547	0 - 1	Williams, Carlos	1544
2	Cockburn, Andre	1527	0 - 1	Pinzaru, Andrei	1617
3	Morrell, Curtis	1493	1 - 0	Grubb, Mark	1470
4	Samra, Mohinderpal	1478	1 - 0	Knight, Terry	1334

(Match played on Tue 28 Apr 26)