"Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you." - Arnold Palmer

Thursday 24 October 2013

Nottingham University 1 Surprises Grantham 1

The NCA league championship defender - Grantham 1 - played last Tuesday another match against rather unpredictable but strong team of Nottingham University.


Nottingham
University 1
2½:2½
Grantham 1
Whitefield C
-
0:1
Mangione C
203
Lee D
166
0:1
Birtwistle N
196
Walker A
166
½:½
Payne N
180
Poole T
156
1:0
Prior S
181
Le, Nguyen
161
1:0
Hebert A
160


Grantham top players - Claudio Mangione and Nigel Birtwistle - did their duties on the board 1 and 2 and gained 2 points for Grantham.
Nick Payne drew on the board 3, so the the match had to be decided on the bottom boards.
Steve Prior was playing on board 4. He has had very good season so far and he qualified himself recently for British Championship. In this match however, he slipped and lost the game against Tim Poole.


Poole vs Prior, after 30.b4=


The Black's position was not so bad and as you can see on diagram above after 30.b4 it seems to me rather equal.
However, the position on the diagram below, after 59...Rf4, is obviously lost for Black.



Poole vs Prior, after 59...Rf4 +-


Also Andy Hebert, who has had an excellent season so far as well, lost to Nguyen Le on the bottom board.

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