09.01.17 – Thames Valley League: Hammersmith v Wimbledon 2
The first Thames Valley dispatch of the New Year was meant to bring good news to all Hammer Chess folk.
Things were looking up – we were fielding our strongest team of the season (in any league) – the inclusion of Tony, Carsten, Pavel and Jeremy, along with the usual suspects, gave us a fighting chance. Expectation were high that we would notch our first win in a tough league in 2016-17.
Alas the New Year hopes were quickly dashed as the effect of too much Christmas Grog, or more realistically the fact our opponents – Wimbledon 2 – played very well on the night. The scoresheet is painful to look at!
The glorious or inglorious defeats were down to Bajrush, Adam and your correspondent. There is no silver lining here no matter how much journalistic license I would like to employ to ease the pain. The sad verdict is we just did not deliver on the night.
The draws were picked up by Tony, Carsten, Paul and Pavel.
Tony’s game was a fighting draw with a very interesting ending. A pawn down but defending very accurately, Tony secured the draw.
A similar story for Pavel – another fighting draw.
Carsten and Paul always had the edge in their games but could not convert. There has to be a break coming for us in the TV League!!!
The one bright spot of the evening was Jeremy winning on Board 6. I think he would agree not his best game but the mantra has to be a win is a win!
Hammer need to get their act together for the last few matches in Division 1, and start getting a few positive scores posted. Otherwise it’s going to be a long season.
Come on Hammer!!
John.