An "Independent" Report on Thursday Night's Countys

Colin has beaten me to a report on this, but I thought I would put in my tuppence worth.

Following Rob's win on Tuesday at the Arms against John Daniel, he needed to win, and hope that Colin didn't. Rob won in fairly short order against David Reynolds and joined Dennis Wilkins & I in the bar early - Rob seems a confident player at the moment and I might nip to the bookies and stick a fiver on him for making a splash in the Atkins. As Colin notes in his match against John Daniel he got into an endgame with two Knights against a Knight & Bishop, both players having an equal number of pawns. By this point we've had a drink in the bar and went back to watch the denouement. As Colin very fairly points out it was the pawn issue that did for him. He neglected to mention his very cheeky draw offer at a later stage, which John turned down.

After Colin's resignation we retired back to the bar to celebrate/drown our sorrows. Congratulations to Rob on being the Heathcote's first County Champion. Well done also to Colin to hold his own so well in such a highly- rated section of the Championship.

The match between the two Grahams (Booley & Sharpe) finished early, but I am unable to confirm the result as my attention was to my right where Colin and Rob were playing rather than my left.

As Colin notes, I lost to Dennis Wilkins in the Minor. The only noteworthy fact was that my play provoked a double question mark from Fritz with a comment that I hadn't seen before: "the position is going down the drain". I think that this comment makes into my favourite top five Fritz double question mark comments at Number 5, the others being:

Number 4 - "causes more grief"
Number 3 - "a transit from better to worse"
Number 2 - "not a good decision"
and at Number 1 "terrible" (tell it like it is, my Silicon Chess Buddy).

The new Number 5 knocked out "what a pity, victory was in sight."

The Minor Section of the Championship is now very interesting. Dennis has finished with 4/6, Guy Closs has 3.5/5, Ray & Andy Carter have 2.5/4.
So there is still a lot to play for.