Worcester & District Chess League

Redditch A - Worcester Bishops			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Rob Bricknell Derek Abraham	1 - 0 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Stephen Mellor Nick Harris Jim Keene David L Roberts
	Result	2½ - 1½	Played 20 Oct
Reported by: Dan Lambourne. Although Redditch were outgraded they kept the points at home. All games were fairly even and all except top board halved their games. Lambourne ran short of time and in reaching the time control lost a knight for two pawns. In the quick play finish Mellor had chances of a complicated mate, but decided to get more material. This gave Lambourne good counterplay and a passed pawn so that when his opponent 's flag fell there was a mate in three.

Kidderminster Knights - Malvern			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Jim Friar snr Joe Watson Joseph Friar John Wrench	1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½ 1 - 0	Lee Davis Ian Clarke Brian Turner Geoffrey Herbert
	Result	2½ - 1½	Played 21 Oct
Reported by: Jim Friar

Kidderminster Knights - Kidderminster Rooks			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	jim Friar John Wrench Joseph Friar David Waud	1 - 0 1 - 0 1 - 0 1 - 0	Alan Preece John Whitehead Clive Billinge Paul Thomas
	Result	4 - 0	Played 27 Oct
Reported by Jim Friar.

Redditch - Malvern			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Dan lambourne Glenn Cox Andrew Wiggins Steve Crockett	½ - ½ 0 - 1 ½ - ½ 1 - 0	Lee Davis Ian Clarke John Knee Matthew Jordan
	Result	2 - 2	3 Nov
Reported by: Dan Lambourne. Redditch were outgraded for their second match. Wiggins and Knee quickly agreed a draw. Crockett was level in a rook and pawn end game but had two very strong central pawns and made them count to get the first point for Redditch. Cox was under pressure but held until he stalled on his 35th move and lost on time. This left Lambourne and Davis in a minor piece end game, where Lambourne was up on the clock but in pushing in a dead drawn end game dropped a pawn, which allowed Davis to offer the draw as he was close to losing on time.

Kidderminster Rooks - Worcester Bishops			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	John Varilone Mike Kitchen Paul Thomas Terry Pountney	½ - ½ 0 - 1 0 - 1 0 - 1	Peter Kitson Nick Harris Jim Keene David L Roberts
	Result	½ - 3½	Played 4 Nov
Reported by Jim Keene. Kidderminster's board 1 confirmed and board 2 player's name corrected 6 Nov. Results on boards 2-4 corrected 11 Nov.

Worcester Bishops - Kidderminster Knights			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Nick Harris Jim Keene Ray Collett Rob Sutton	½ - ½ ½ - ½ 1 - 0 ½ - ½	Jim Friar John Wrench Joe Watson Maurice Bissell
	Result	2½ - 1½	Palyed 19 Nov
Reported by:Ray Collett.

Kidderminster Knights - Redditch A			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Jim Friar John Wrench Joseph Friar Joe Watson	0 - 1 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Andrew Wiggins Steve Crockett
	Result	1½ - 2½	Played 25 Nov
Reported by:Jim Friar and Dan Lambourne. Jim Friar offered Lambourne a poisoned a-pawn, but this was ignored and Jim missed a forced a win of the c-pawn. After losing the c-pawn, he blundered and resigned before losing a piece. Crockett and Watson took an early draw in a blocked position. Cox made an interesting exchange sacrifice, getting a knight and two pawns for a rook. Neither players nor audience were sure what was going on and so a draw was offered and accepted. Joseph Friar and Wiggins got into a tight middle game with little time on either clock. They just made the time control, to enter a level end game with both getting very short of time. Eventually with about a minute left each they both took the draw to avoid losing on time or a blunder, resulting in a Redditch victory.

Redditch A - Kidderminster Rooks			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Rob Bricknell Andrew Wiggins	1 - 0 0 - 1 0 - 1 1 - 0	John Varilone John Chester John Whitehead Paul Thomas
	Result	2 - 2	Played 8 Dec
Reported by Dan Lambourne. Wiggins played an trick to win material, which prompted an early resignation. Whitehead won an exchange, and had a rook and two strong bishops against two trapped rooks to force his win. On board 2, Cox trying to open up a drawn position blundered his queen. In the last game to finish, Lambourne tried to win another drawn position to level the match. With Varilone short of time, Lambourne tried to keep the Queens. In the vital position, Varilone exchanged queens when it was better for him to leave them on, as it gave Lambourne an extra move to get his king up to support his passed d-pawn. This enabled him to pick up Varilone's neighbouring passed c-pawn and then continued pushing for a win to drawn the match.

Malvern - Worcester Bishops			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Lee Davis Ian Clarke Brian Turner John Knee	1 - 0 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Stephen Mellor Nick Harris Jim Keene David L Roberts
	Result	2½ - 1½	Played 11 Dec
Reported by: Brian Turner. and Jim Keene.

Malvern - Kidderminster Rooks			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Geoff Marchant Brian Turner Geoff Herbert John Knee	1 - 0 1 - 0 1 - 0 1 - 0	David Waud Paul Thomas Terry Pountney default
	Result	4 - 0	18 Dec
Reported by Brian Turner.

Kidderminster Rooks - Kidderminster Knights			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	John Varilone Alan Preece John Whitehead Paul Thomas	½ - ½ 1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½	Jim Friar (snr) John Wrench James Friar Maurice Bissell
	Result	2 - 2	13 Jam
Reported by: Jim Friar

Redditch A - Kidderminster Knights			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Andrew Wiggins Rob Bricknell	½ - ½ 1 - 0 0 - 1 0 - 1	Jim Friar John Wrench Maurice Bissell Joseph Friar
	Result	1½ - 2½	19 Jan
Reported by:Jim Friar and Dan Lambourne. It was a close affair for a long time. Lambourne got into a poor position, but defended with expert skill and only lost a pawn. Bissell's attack finally saw the light of day to win board 3 for Kidderminster. On board 4, Joseph Friar had a won position but little time. On board 1 Jim Friar offered a draw despite being a pawn to the good in a rook and pawn ending because he was considerably down on time. Joseph Friar justified his father's confidence and won very shortly. John Wrench ran short of time in tight game on board two where Cox was the pawn up. It looked close, but on closer inspection the Redditch player had strong knights in the centre of the board that prevented most of Wrench's pieces from moving. This gave Cox time to gain an extra pawn, and with extra time on the clock he was able to push his queen side pawns and queen his a-pawn to win the game.

Kidderminster Knights - Worcester Bishops			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Joeseph Friar Jim Friar (snr) John Wrench Maurice Bissell	1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Stephen Mellor Peter Kitson Nick Harris David L Roberts
	Result	2 - 2	10 Feb
Reported by Jim Keene: Peter Kitson gained a time advantage with home preparation. On board 1 Joseph Friar offered a draw several times in a time scramble, but Mellor lost on time in a 'drawn' position.

Malvern - Kidderminster Knights			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Lee Davis Geoff Marchant Ian Clarke Brian Turner	1 - 0 1 - 0 0 - 1 ½ - ½	Jim Friar Joseph Friar John Wrench Maurice Bissell
	Result	2½ - 1½	26 Feb
Reported by: Brian Turner and Jim Friar.

Worcester Bishops - Kidderminster Rooks			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Stephen Mellor Peter Kitson Jim Keene David L Roberts	1 - 0 ½ - ½ 1 - 0 1 - 0	John Varilone Alan Preece Paul Thomas Terry Pountney
	Result	3½ - ½	3 Mar
Reported by Jim Keene

Kidderminster Rooks - Malvern			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	John Varilone Alan Preece John Whitehead Paul Thomas	½ - ½ ½ - ½ 0 - 1 ½ - ½	Lee Davis Ian Clarke Brian Turner John Knee
	Result	1½ - 2½	9 Mar
Reported by Brian Turner. The Malvern captain commented: "A hard fought match which the Rooks were unlucky not to at least draw."

Kidderminster Rooks - Redditch A			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Alan Preece John Chester John Whitehead Paul Thomas	0 - 1 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ 0 - 1	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Steve Crockett Andrew Wiggins
	Result	1 - 3	Played 23 Mar
Reported by Dan Lambourne. In a closely fought contest at Kidderminster, boards 2 and 3 were agreed drawn leaving equal positions on boards 1 and 4. Wiggins won his game by slowly trapping his opponent's pieces in the middle of the back rank, while LambourneI ground out a win after a small mistake by his opponent allowed a pawn grab and eventually the full point.

Malvern - Redditch A			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Lee Davis Geoff Marchant Ian Clarke Brian Turner	½ - ½ ½ - ½ 1 - 0 1 - 0	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Andrew Wiggins David Smith
	Result	3 - 1	Played 1 Apr
Reported by: Dan Lambourne. The top board finished first where Davis offered a draw half way to the time control, and Lambourne only choosing to play on as it was too early to tell how the other games were going. At the time control, the draw offer was reversed because Lambourne had run out of offensive options and was accepted. Meanwhile, Turner had won an early exchange, whilst Cox and Clarke had only slight advantages in their games. Board 3 was next to finish, where Wiggins surprised Clarke by prematurely resigning, but with 2 minutes left to play 15 moves, Wiggins felt he wasn't going to hold the game. Marchant was in time trouble of his own, but managed to escape with only a pawn disadvantage, and was happy to accept a draw offer when Cox didn't see a way through. This left Smith trying to win a game with material down to level the match, and although he fought until the end, Turner's converted his material advantage.

Worcester Bishops - Redditch A			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Peter Kitson Nick Harris Jim Keene David L Roberts	1 - 0 1 - 0 ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Dan Lambourne Glenn Cox Andrew Wiggins Rob Bricknell
	Result	3 - 1	Played 7 Apr
Reported by Dan Lambourne: All games were fairly level, but after the bottom two boards were drawn, Lambourne had to play a couple of dubious moves to try and open the position up. A few more followed after Harris won, but unfortunately for Lambourne the moves just went from dubious to poor to complete the win for Worcester.

Worcester Bishops - Malvern			Division 1
Board	Home team	Score	Away team
1 2 3 4	Stephen Mellor Nick Harris Jim Keene David L Roberts	0 - 1 ½ - ½ ½ - ½ ½ - ½	Lee Davis Geoff Marchant Brian Turner John Knee
	Result	1½ - 2½	Played 14 Apr
Reported by Jim Keene. Worcester Bishops faced Malvern in a match to decide the title. Players on board 4 had an early draw. Brian Turner offered a draw in an interesting position but much time would have been exhausted gaining an advantage for either side and the draw was accepted. Nick Harris eventually took the draw offered by his opponent when he was significantly down on time. He had been trying for a win but it wasn't clear with attacks available for both players. On board 1, Stephen Mellor was a pawn down in a rook versus rook and pawn ending with good drawing chances , but was very short of time. Lee Davis didn't take the offer and proceeded to win on time. It looked a classical draw but Lee Davis clearly wanted to prove a point and duly won on time.