It was a full house in Naomh Barróg as both the A and B teams had home games for the BEA Cup North. The A team faced Elm Mount B, two weeks after beating the A team.
On board 1, Eric got an advantage early in the game, as the White King was left on its starting square for too long in the game. First, Eric won a central pawn and a few moves later, a piece was also captured after a tactic starting with a check against the exposed King. After this his opponent tried to have some counter-play by attacking Eric’s Rook. But after Eric moved his Rook to safety, his opponent resigned.
On board 2, Ola played white in a Rossolimo with black fianchettoing both his bishops in the opening. Ola sacrificed his e-pawn to get an advantage in development. The plan was to put pressure on f7. Black managed to stop this plan by forcing a trade of minor pieces and eventually also forcing a trade of queens. Black then went on to play out a winning endgame.
On board 3, Robert played the Sicilian Defence and his opponent responded with the Smith-Morra Gambit. Robert found himself in major trouble in the opening as his opponent was attacking him from every angle before he could develop his pieces. However, the knockout blow never landed and Robert was able to trade off pieces and reach safety. His Queen was almost trapped in the middlegame but was able to counter attack his opponent’s Queen, leading to an endgame with a one pawn advantage. His opponent tried to make some trades, but Robert found an in-between move that gave check and won a piece, causing his opponent to resign.
On board 4, Oliver lost his game in the endgame.
On board 5, Suzanne faced the Chigorin and pieces were gradually traded off. Her opponent had a slightly better pawn formation but with only a King and five pawns each, the position seemed even so a draw was agreed.
Meanwhile, the Naomh Barróg B team faced Skerries.
On board 1, Gary made a mistake on move 4 of the Caro Kahn. As a result of this he had a weak pawn structure and little to no development on the kingside, while white had developed most of his pieces. However, his opponent made a mistake by castling queenside. Having nothing else Gary fully committed to a queenside attack pushing all his pawns and backing them with all his pieces queenside. He had a missed win on move 30, but it was a complicated 6 move tactic requiring two sacrifices. In the game his opponent played some good defence and forcing swaps which resulted in a 6 pawn against 4 endgame which Gary lost.
On board 2, Ger opened with e4 and challenged the centre with the Scoth. The pawns were exchanged and he continued with standard development and castled. A sharp middle game occurred and during which his opponent lost a piece. He worked on exchanging pieces off the board to convert his advantage. He secured the win in the endgame, promoting and checkmated my opponent with a queen.
On board 3, Seamus played the Czech Defence and exchanged Queens on move 6 and after his opponent launched a Kingside attack he went astray and lost material. He resigned when he went 2 rooks down after 35 moves.
On board 4, Harry started with the English opening and while the opening went fairly even, his opponent outplayed him in the middlegame, won a piece and he was on the defense ever after. Unfortunately, he never really had an attack going.
On board 5, Tom had a walkover as his opponent was unavailable.