Author: Lawrence Rhodes

Here is the match report for Bexhill 2nd team V Eastbourne 2nd team from Bill Tracey.

On Friday 6th December Bexhill 2 hosted Eastbourne 2 in The Sussex League Division 2.

Our team, in board order was Luke, James, Janis and Leo.

First to finish was James who set a trap for his opponent who fell for it. As a result his opponent saw that his position was hopeless and he resigned.

Luke was next to finish. He appeared to be in a better position, when, his opponent failed to spot that Luke was about to pin his queen to his rook. His opponent gave up his Queen for a Rook, but he resigned soon afterwards.

Leo on 4 had a very strong looking attack but unfortunately was not able to find a way to complete it and his opponent found a strong counter attack. Eventually Leo had to resign.

Janis’s match gradually turned into a classic. It seemed to the onlookers that all was lost for Janis as his opponent had two connected passed pawns on the 5th and 6th ranks. Janis however found some wonderful resources and fought back brilliantly. When the match time limit of 3 hours and 10 minutes ran out the two players agreed a draw.

So the final result was 2.5 to 1.5 in favour of Bexhill.

This means that Bexhill 2 are now top of the second division and undefeated after 4 matches.

Sunday 1st December saw Bexhill make the short journey to take on Hastings in the Watson Trophy.
This competition involves a 4 person team with an average rating of no more than 1825.
Our team in board order was Andrew, Luke, Michael Hubbard and myself.

First to finish was Andrew. His opponent, playing to a team plan, offered Andrew a draw after just 8 moves! Andrew and I exchanged somewhat surprised glances, I was happy for Andrew to take the draw
as I was very confident that we would have an edge in both games on boards 2 and 3. Andrew had a long think and then accepted the draw. This did suit us, as, although I fell behind in my game early on and eventually had to resign, Michael and Luke were both looking fine in their games. Michael kept continuous pressure on his opponent, and eventually gained an overwhelming position and a resignation came from the Hastings captain. The rules of this competition are such that if the match ends 2 all board count would come into play since we had won on 3 and lost on 4 we were in front so Luke needed just a draw for us to win. However he negotiated a tight end game very well and won his game.

Final score Hastings 1.5 Bexhill 2.5.

It has been quite rare for Bexhill to be able to compete with Hastings on a level playing field
so this is a particularly fine win for our club.

Our other team in the competition play at home v Crowborough on December 13th, so hopefully we may have 2 teams through to the latter stages.

On Friday 29th November Bexhill 4th team took on Eastbourne 3rd team in Division 3 of The Sussex League.

Our team in board order was Jo, Michael Hayward [captain], Lawry and Sam.

Although we were out rated by 100 points per player the team played superbly and emerged victorious by 4 nil. Considering the level of the opposition this was
one of the best performances that we have seen from a Bexhill team since we first entered the leagues 5 years ago.

So huge congratulations to Michael and his team.

On Friday 22nd November, Bexhill 4 hosted Worthing 2 in Division 3 of The Sussex League.

Worthing 2 are only in Division 3 as they fielded just 1 team last season and therefore their 2nd team were placed in the 3rd division when really they would be very strong contenders in Division 2.
This meant that although our 4th team is a good 3rd Division team it was out rated by an average of 219 per board.
Having said all that the team fought long and hard playing some excellent Chess.
We lost on the top 3 boards but Sam had a fine win on board 4.

Our team was Jo, Michael Hayward , Lawry and Sam.

Match report from our captain Bill Tracy:

Our first team played away to Horsham 2nd team on Tuesday 19th November.
Horsham have the strongest depth of players in the league and are running 6 league teams this season.
We fielded the strongest away team that is available to us and yet we were still slightly out rated by their 2nd team.

Howard played on 1 and secured a draw, Andrew on 2 lost, Janis on 3 got a draw against an opponent rated 100 points higher and on 4 James secured a fine win against an opponent rated 82 points higher.

This was an important draw as there are maybe 5 teams in the league that are contenders for relegation and Horsham 2 and our 1st team are in that 5 so it was vital that we did not lose.

Match report from our captain Bill Tracey:

Monday 18th November saw our 3rd team travel to East Grinstead to take on their 2nd team in Division 2 of The Sussex League.

Our team, in board order was Bill L, Phil, Ed and myself.

In the end we lost 3 to 1 against a team who out rated us by a considerable margin.

The star of our team was Ed who, playing an opponent much higher rated, played a very solid opening and then took full advantage of an error by his opponent to win in style.

Thank you to everyone who came and played in our third event of the Grand Prix season on Friday. Full results and the current standings are now up on the website. Congratulations to the evening’s winner, Samuel Merchant winning all four of his games against some very tough opposition.
Next event will be December the 13th.