Match report from our captain Bill Tracey for Bexhill 3 v Uckfield 1:
On Friday, Bexhill 3 hosted Uckfield in Division 3 of the Mid Sussex League.
The team, in board order was Bill Luxton, Andy, myself and Steve Merchant.
Steve was first to finish. He very cleverly engineered a winning end game despite equal material by completely messing up his opponents pawn structure and by gaining all the momentum leaving his opponent to simply try to defend.
Andy, making his debut for Bexhill, capitalised wonderfully well on his opponents early error and kept up relentless pressure until his opponent had to resign.
I was next to finish in what was a very seesaw type of match. I made a strong start and computer analysis showed that after 16 moves I was plus 2.1. Unfortunately soon after I made a horrible error and lost a knight. The game was still complicated and the match still in the balance so I played on. Some 25 moves later my opponent missed a trick which not only allowed me back into the game but gave me a winning position. He battled on for another 20 moves but eventually I had 2 Queens to 2 Knights and he had to resign.
Board 1 saw a wonderful game of Chess with both players playing excellent chess in a very complicated game. After 3 hours Bill forced a win and both players were given a well deserved round of applause for a fine win.
Final score Bexhill 4 Uckfield 0
This was a very good win for us as Uckfield were not only top of the table with a 100% record but they had strengthened their team from their earlier matches by bringing in a new board 1 player.