Ashby 3 And Ashby 5 Both Held

Ashby 3 entertained Heathcote Arms last night, hoping for a win that would propel them into second place in Division 3. Unfortunately it wasn't to be. Les Fancourt, the Minor Champion of the whole of the Counties of Leicestershire and Rutland, and the joint Champion of the whole of the market town of Ashby de-la Zouch, insisted on using the Chris Tipper playbook, but his Dutch Defence had more holes in if than Rachel Reeves cv and soon led to an early night. Steve E. continued his recent bad habit of playing well, getting a superior position, and then letting things go to his head and extracting a loss from a winning position. Fortunately, Nick Wyld, fresh from his upset win against Roy Evans in the Club Championship, and Tom Gerrard, fresh from his win over nobody in particular, were on hand to salvage a 2-2 draw from the wreckage. Nick and Tom arrived at the match in their Time Machine after having both turned up at the Chinese restaurant a month early for Les's birthday dinner !!

Elsewhere, Ashby 5 were at home against Melton Mowbray 2. With Ian Maskery and Jan Oldham on boards 1 and 2 both letting themselves down, letting the Club down, letting their families down and letting their friends down, it was left to Graham Bird and debutant Dan Vernon to rescue the situation with wins on boards 3 and 4, to ensure that the Pork Pies were sent packing with just a half share of the points.

Alternatively, here's Neil's version of events:

"Melton had planned to bring five players, but one pulled out at the last moment. Their Captain offered to default a board but I thanked him and declined. Anyway, we did well to get a draw on the evening, thanks to fine wins by Graham Bird and Dan Vernon, who was playing his first ever OTB game. His opponent said that he'd never played a game like it before. Graham's game was very tight, and he had to be careful, but he played very well and made the breakthrough when he pinned his opponent's King and Knight, leaving him with only Pawns, which Graham was then able to pick off and promote one of his own. Jan put up a good fight after being slightly down in the middle game, but was eventually overcome by her opponent. Ian's game was very close and looked like it could go either way. Ian had a Pawn close to being promoted, and his opponent had two advanced Pawns on the a and b files. He managed  to overcome the threat from Ian's Bishop and promote one of them first."

There was also a game played in the U1450 Championship, with Peter Anderton putting in a stellar performance to claim the Runners Up spot against Ric Dawson in a 10 move master class.