Date: January 9, 1994

Honours even in junior chess tussle.

The first match between Exeter School and their visitors from Exeter

Junior Chess Club ended in a draw. The town club defaulted on the bottom board, and in a series of close games where in each both players can claim to have been winning the scores were 2-1 to the visitors, thus tying the match at 2-2.

 Scores (home team first, playing White on even boards): 1 S.Alexander 0-1 N.Frost, 2 E.Hawkins 1-0 S.Butterfield, 3 R.Turton 0-1 E.Radway, 4 R.Sharp 1-0. Ross Sharp turned up a surp2ise mate in a casual game played during the match: 1 e4, e5; 2 f4, d6; 3 Nf3, Nc6; 4 Bc4, Bg4; 5 Nc3, Nd4?; 6 Nxe5!, Bxd1?; 7 Bxf7+ Ke7; 8 Nd5#. This is the old Legal's mate, a neat example of cooperation between minor pieces.

 The games: on top board Nick Frost lost and then regained a piece against Stephen Alexander, while on board two Stefan Butterfield opened with the Exchange Lopez, a line revived so successfully by Bobby Fischer. The line goes 1 e4, e5; 2 Nf3, Nc6; 3 Bb5, a6; 4 Bxc6. Now Black usually plays 4...dxc6 (so as to be able to regain the pawn after 5 Nxe5, Qd4), when the old way of playing it was to go 5 d4, exd4; 6 Qxd4, Qxd4; 7 Nxd4 giving White a useful pawn majority on the K-side. Fischer's improvement was to play simply 5 O-O when there is a real threat to win the e5-pawn (6 Nxe5, Qd4; 7 Nf3, Qxe4? 8 Re1) which is awklard to meet. In the game Black went 4...bxc6, and instead of the recommended line 5 d4 White simply took the pawn on e5, and looked well-placed although later ran into trouble. On board three the game was level for a long time, then Black lost a pawn but soon after won the exchange. Despite ignoring a clearing combination (after Kh4 from the diagram) he finished off neatly. Meanwhile Nick Frost won a rook ending, finding a similar clearing line, and in an exciting finish Edward Hawkins found another old mate, the Arab mate, known from manuscripts of the ninth century.

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