Epsom Salties sweep up in 4NCL Online Round 5
- Alistair Mackenzie
- Apr 3
- 3 min read
4NCL Online - Tuesday 1st April 2025 - Round 6
4 boards, Online
Epsom Salties 1 3-1 Colchester JFF B Epsom Salties 2 3-1 Wessex J
A great night for the Salties with two 3-1 wins. It was a rocky start getting everyone playing - Gary waited for his opponent, the Hedges were a bit late in starting. Then Trevor had difficulties waiting for his opponent and then managed to get two games going - leaving me wondering why no one was moving and confusing the tournament controller.
Alex faced the CalmestCariboo - more like CrazyLemming as they threw pieces at Alex. Who snapped them up and delivered a nice pawn checkmate.
Pietro was also very comfortable, so relaxed he missed a mate in one.
Sammy game was mostly smooth after starting with a nice early tactic of Nxe4.
Meanwhile Dad, Trevor - didn't have such a smooth game. He got into a very complex middle game, with lots of potential tricks to be avoided unfortunately when the dust settled into the endgame - Trevor was down a queen for knight and it looked over but he fought on and improved his position, and frustrating his opponent to win the won game - and the opponent cracked and allowed a fork of the queen and king and then didn't blockade Trevor's pass pawn - result for Trevor's perseverance.
Aryna played well but missed a simple bishop + queen attack on her h2 pawn - a loss of a pawn is OK, but it meant her King was chased from safety and she didn't get enough time to use her own attack.
Lucy wasn't paying attention to the previous discussion on 2...f6 and missed the 3. Nxe5 trick. But she did spot the neat trick of uncovering an attack on their undefended queen with a knight check - after that she swiftly finished off the match.
Gary went for his favourite 2..f6... it was a wild game where 2 bishops faced off for 15 moves - before white blinked first (and incorrectly took) - pieces were en pris all over the place, Gary got his king safe after long castling then immediately starting shifting the a and b pawns and sent his King off for a wander. Unfortunately, had the bad end of that result, but could have gone either way. A bit more checking of what pieces are defended would have swung that game.
But if that was wild - then we had the master of entertainment - Dom! If Thorpe park based a roller coaster on his computer analysis - then it would be banned! He hit white's prep and was quickly down a pawn and in a poor position. His opponent burned through his time for some reason and Dom needed to keep it tight and complex and see if he could force a time mistake - but a miscalculated sacrifice by Dom and it looked he was down. But Dom fought on and finally the mistake came from his opponent - then another pawn race and we reach this typical position -
Dom has the advantage of queening first and white does not have check - then it should be 67...g1=Q 68. e8=Q Qf1+ 69. Ke4 Qe1+ (and skewer that queen). at g1=Q the crowds starting yelling 'Skewer and toast' followed by a loud groan at Qg3+?? (white can save themselves with Ke2) but Ke3 left the crowd holding their breath until ecstatic cheers when Dom played Qe1+!!! And white resigned.
