What Might Have Been

Following our catastrophic defeat to Haverfordwest, the B team were in action again on Monday against a strong Carmarthen team. On top board, playing a closed line against Gerry Heap's Sicilian, I found myself, rather to my surprise, a piece up with a winning attack. When he sacrificed a rook as a last resort, I let myself be intimidated by his higher grading and the fact that I had only four minutes left on my clock into allowing the perpetual. John Basterfield rashly castled queenside in the French against the aggressive Huw Morcom and was quickly overwhelmed by the ensuing attack. Tony Geraghty was also facing a much higher-graded opponent on Board 3, and played an enterprising piece sacrifice leading to a complex struggle. David Buttell eventually gave back the material, and was winning the ending when Tony lost on time. On the bottom board, Georgina Gray outplayed Clive Boaler positionally from the opening, and was able to force a pawn through to queen for an impressive win. As Rudy pointed out afterwards, if Tony and I had both taken our chances, it would have been a 3-1 win to the B team against opponents ranked several hundred points per board higher. As it was we kept up Aber's proud tradition of 2½–1½, but from the wrong end.

Matthew Francis - Gerry Heap ½-½

Huw Morcom - John Basterfield 1-0

Tony Geraghty - David Buttell 0-1

Clive Boaler - Georgina Gray 0-1