
Report from Bill Tracey:
On Saturday 22nd July Bexhill made the short journey to Hastings for our annual match.
The original plan was to have 12 or more per side, but unfortunately Hastings struggled to get enough players so we settled on 9 a side.
Hastings did their best to match up well against us as we were missing 4 of our top 6 players. At first this was achieved, but due to a few late withdrawals Hastings were forced to include several of their strongest players. As a result we were out rated on the 5 top boards by almost 1500 points!
Our team, in board order was Andy, Leo, Bill Luxton, Steve Merchant, Luke, Sam, Seb, David Slidel and Mike Chapman.
There were some exceptional performances from our players.
On board 1 Andy who is only 11 faced the best player in the Hastings club and achieved a very fine draw. Leo on 2 also gained an excellent result with a draw agains a player rated 320 points higher.
Bill on 3 continued the trend by also drawing this time against an opponent out rating him by 170 points.
Sam on 6 was involved in a very entertaining and topsy turvy game that eventually settled as a draw.
Our only winner on the day came on board 7 where Seb played a very solid game and confidently entered a winning end game with a 2 pawn advantage.
Many thanks to Hastings for their hospitality.
Finally many thanks to all our members who played and also to those that volunteered to play but were unable to get a game.