On Tuesday 27
th of January Brighton and Hove 4 played against Village of the Damned 3. (The Village of the Damned is actually a suburb of East
Grinstead).
Once again the genial Charles
Holcombe provided transport, little realising that he was ferrying us across the River Styx and into a dark underworld full of terrifying chess playing children. (Felix
Haxby is not included among this number because he is on our side, a bit like Seven of Nine was in Star Trek: Voyager.)
We arrived somewhat earlier than our opponents and spent the time chatting to the manager of the day centre where the East
Grinstead club play. After about 20 minutes our opponents were delivered by their parents/guardians and the match began. (Actually, two of our opponents were adults, but they were clearly operating under some form of mind control.)
Having once again lost the toss we sat with Kevin Gee on board 1, Arthur De Silver on 2, Charles on Board 3, me on board 4 and Bob Davies on 5.
Charles succumbed first to a boy called Sam (in actual fact Sam is a really sweet kid, and he's getting good quickly; he recognised me from the Brighton
Rapidplay but had the good grace not to say anything further about it.).
Shortly after this Arthur and his opponent agreed a draw.
I went the exchange ahead in my game but eventually lost after playing an unsound combination that lost me a piece. My opponent was far too proficient in the King's Indian Defence to be a real 13 yr old boy. I also suspect that he used mind control powers on me to make me play the moves of my combo in the wrong order, as the effort of concentration caused him to have a nosebleed immediately before I blundered...
Kevin Gee eventually won comfortably on top board, he was also playing an adult, so was relatively shielded from the mind control rays. This is the last time he will be able to play for us this season and we will miss him greatly.
The final game was "won" by Bob although sadly this game was marred by controversy. Bob had a won game, having promoted a pawn, however he had less than 2 minutes left on his clock. Despite his opponent's best attempts at mind control, Bob was able to finish the game with a checkmate, under the time control. However, a few moves earlier, Bob had clattered a couple of pawns with his queen while making a move. His opponent had tried to claim that he then had to take one of them under the touch move rule. Nobody else had ever heard this and the game was played on. After the checkmate his opponent, clearly angry that his alien mind powers had failed to clinch the game for him, asked his
captain to appeal the result. The team captain initially indicated that he would not be taking the claim any further, however once a second child joined in the calls for an appeal he was no longer able to withstand the psychic assault.
So we left with the result still up in the air, although it was provisionally settled at (2 1/2) / (2 1/2). We were convinced that the claim was illegitimate. Subsequent
research showed that this was the case, and having spoken to the opposing team captain, Kevin, he has indicated that he is "unlikely" to take things any further.
So the draw stands. The 4
th team now have 4 points from their first 5 games, meaning that we are in with a real chance of promotion this season, great work everybody!