Leicestershire 8.5 - 7.5 Lincolnshire

"Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm."     Winston Churchill

It has not been very nice afternoon for Lincolnshire. And if I were asked to describe this match by a single and simple sentence I would choose the famous phrase "Blood, toil, tears and sweat" which was first uttered on 2 July 1849 by Giuseppe Garibaldi when rallying his revolutionary forces in Rome and popularized by Winston Churchill during WWII.
As it became a tradition, the matches with Leicestershire are always very tough and very close. Yesterday's match was not an exception.

Midland Counties Chess Union COUNTY MATCH RESULT FORM

Section: Minor Counties
Home Team: Leicestershire					Away Team: Lincolnshire
Venue:  Thurmaston					Date:  3rd December 2011
Team having white on odd boards:  Lincolnshire					Result reported by:  Nigel Birtwistle
Board	ECF Code	Grade	Home team players’ names	Score	Score	Away Team players’ names	Grade	ECF Code
1	283501B	207	Ilyan Mladenov	½	½	Nigel Birtwistle	192	106801F
2	125697L	200	Martin Burrows	1	0	Claudio Mangione	192	280840H
3	107674H	182	Ray Burgess	0	1	Paul Cumbers	190	103734B
4	109613J	174	John Denton	1	0	Nick Stead	187	119629H
5	118096E	169	John Robinson	½	½	Nick Payne	184	152255D
6		173E	Brian Galligan	½	½	Daniel Wells	183	231112E
7	115634C	173	John Mitchell	½	½	Keith Palmer	177	116655E
8	118421A	167	Mike Salisbury	0	1	Harry Russell	175	216825L
9	117844B	165	Tom Reynolds	0	1	Joe Kilshaw	171	158511D
10	163691B	163	Richard Vann	1	0	Denis Georgiou	169	111157H
11	213110K	168	David Farrall	0	1	Steven Prior	169	263507A
12	259469K	167	Greg Eagleton	1	0	Ivan David	164	277281E
13	279527K	164	Alfonso Jimenez	1	0	Alastair Summers	158	270555C
14	115247G	159	Patrick McDermott	½	½	Geoff Collyer	152	160353L
15	106748F	161	Jim Bingham	½	½	Graham Ladds	149	113979E
16	112575J	157	Sean Hewitt	½	½	Steve Allott	-	152031D
				8½	7½

I lost my game Greg Eagleton after tough battle with many mistakes on both sides. My opponent played 1.d4 which was met by 1...d5 and after 2.Nf3 c6 he opted for The London System set-up 3.Bf4. The game went by the book till move 7 when I employed certain novelty 7...Ne4. This move was very unambitious and the main idea was to exchange several minor pieces and ease the defence. Very quickly we went into the position with so called "little center" where Black is solid, but cramped. I defended my position solidly until the move 25...g6 where I made positional mistake weakening the position of my King. I was put under the pressure, but my opponent was reluctant to sacrifice exchange for attack which gave me some chance for draw. However, I decided to go for ending eventually which was good idea but I opted for wrong move order. I lost the pawn a despite that I tried as I might finally I blundered in worse position.