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Redditch Club win two national titles

Report by Dan Lambourne

Redditch entered two teams into the two-day, four-round national club championships held at Holiday Inn, Birmingham Airport on 9 & 10 April. One team was in the Intermediate, with an average grade of 148 (2nd seed of 9) just below the 150 limit. The second was in the Minor, with an average of grade 103 (7th seed out of 8) with plenty to spare under the 125 limit. There were two games on the Saturday and two games on the Sunday.

Redditch 1 Redditch 2

Round one

The Intermediate team faced a tough but lower graded Braille side. Lambourne's opponent played a lot stronger than his 138 grade, but Lambourne won the exchange and then the game. Nigel Towers had a slight advantage going into mutual time trouble, but walked into a perpetual check, but it gave the team their first points.

The Minor team faced one of the strongest teams, DHSS, in their section in the first round. Giles Stanton won on time, and good draws for the other players sealed the win.

Round two

Second round was supposed to be tougher for the intermediates as we faced GLCC, however when the clocks were started they were missing their white players. They turned up roughly 5-10 minutes after the start, with my opponent apologising that he had fallen asleep in his room. The nap didn't help as both their white players blundered a piece early on, and although they held on I don't think we ever looked like losing. Nigel blundered a pawn in what looked like a locked game, but it helped him focus, and he managed to win a minor piece and pawn end game. I missed Andrews game, but he also won, which gave us the first 4-0 in the section, so that we were joint top with two other teams after the first day.

The second team found themselves against the only other side to win in the first round, Forest of Dean I missed most of the games, but I did enjoy watching Harry's end game technique to seal the win, and take the sole lead of their section.

Round three

On Sunday, I expected to face Bedford because they had played down the day before, but they got to play down again, and we faced the other joint leaders Newport, who had won both their matches within a triangular match, which basically allows three teams to play each other over two rounds, and get 2 rounds of results instead of 3. Newport were the top seeds just slightly out grading us overall. Nigel gave away a pawn again, but this time I saw his planned attack, which worked better than planned as instead of just getting the pawn back he picked up a piece. I didn't see much of Andrew's game, but at one stage he had Q+7P v Q+B+4P, but I assume it went to a perpetual. Steve was under the cosh, but he held on for an opposite colour bishop end game a pawn down, but with his king in the right position to force the draw. This left me in a drawn game trying to win as my opponent was short of time. I thought he offered a draw, but it was a sigh, as I went a pawn up, but cold feet got the better of me so I offered the draw for a won match and the sole lead of the section with one round to go as Bedford had slipped up to the team we beat 4-0 in the previous round.

In the Minor section, we faced Leamington who had dropped a point in the first round with a draw. Rob got outplayed by a player who wouldn't have looked out of place on the intermediate top boards. I missed the bottom two boards, but I got to see Giles finish off his opponent by queening a pawn and then using the extra piece to get checkmate. This left both teams needing 2-2 draws to win their sections.

Round four

On to the final round, we faced Bedford who were slightly downhearted after their defeat in the third round. I couldn't use my Bedfordshire League experience to our advantage as I had never played any of them. However, nerves must have got to us as we all had poor starts, and at one stage I was thinking we would lose this match 4-0. Nigel was ground down first after he slightly misplayed his game against a strong player who has many good scalps to his name in his league. Meanwhile my opponent went off to look at the other two games and offered a draw. I went to look at the games and I think Steve was level but being pressed hard, and Andrew was the exchange down so I felt I had to play on. I then moved, not realising my opponent had blundered and had offered me the exchange. Luckily for me my move attacked another piece that was en prise, so he felt he had to move that other piece, so I didn't say no to the exchange the second time, and I was eventually able to grind down my opponent in a tricky R+P v B+P end game. On finishing my game I asked Steve how he had got on expecting the worst, but he said his opponent had blundered and gifted him the game. Despite being material down, Andrew played his end game well, and managed to get all his opponents pawns so he couldn't be checkmated with a single bishop.

Unfortunately because I had such a tough last game I missed the minor team's last match. It was probably a good job as we lost, but luckily so did the team who could catch us, so both Redditch teams came away with the trophy for their sections.

Intermediate

Minor