Round 3 on 21st February saw our eight Wessex teams going into battle across all five divisions.
We played all 32 boards (after a couple of glitches with one or two players missing-in-action at 19:30 !)
For the 32 games played, we scored 18 wins, 4 draws and 10 losses. This translated in match terms into 5 wins and 3 losses, with our A, B and C teams all losing and our D, E, F, G and H teams all winning!
As Allan commented –“it shows the depth of our squad”–a point emphasised when you see that our H team beat a C team from another squad.
Division 1
Our A team faced a strong Charlton Cobras A team, with FMs on the top two boards, and went down 2.5 –1.5 in a close match. Mark won from a tight position after his opponent overlooked a mate in one !
Our B faced an even stronger Streatham A team and had tough battles before going down to a 3-1 loss – Allan Pleasants with an excellent win with the black pieces, saved us from a white-wash. You can see Allan’s game, annotated by Peter Anderson, at the end of this report.
Division 2
Our C team had a tough evening, going down 3-1 to what looked, on paper, a weaker team. This rounded off a grim evening for our Div 1 & 2 teams –John had our only result with a crushing win after his opponent dropped a piece in the opening.
Division 3
Now we get to the good news 
Our D team heavily out-graded their opponents and cruised to a 3-1 win with Reenen, Bill and Jamie all winning.
Our E team also won 3-1, with an excellent win by Joe on board one, with black against a higher rated opponent via a sustained flurry of tactics. Franz also won with black whilst Chris and Gillian ground out draws with the white pieces. Gillian was the last Wessex player to finish after a 70 move battle which went down to a K + RP v King stalemate.
Division 4
Our F team faced a lower graded team and quickly notched up a 4-0 win – all credit to Phil whose higher graded opponent unwisely declined his draw offer as Phil went on to outplay him and win.
Division 5
Our G team romped to a comfortable 3.5 – 0.5 win to continue the great evening for our lower division teams.
Our H team completed a great evening for our Division 3, 4 & 5 teams with a convincing 3-1 victory
Summary
A very mixed evening – hopefully our A, B & C teams can bounce back in round 4.
Stats-wise, we now have just one player on 100%, i.e. 3/3. Jamie Doyle take a bow!
However, David Pye, Allan Pleasants and Phil Pinto all have 2.5/3 so the “best individual score trophy” is still wide open
N.B. 13 players have played all 3 rounds
Keith Gregory, 22ndFebruary 2023
