4NCL Round 7 Highlights

Paul Cooksey scored 2/2 on the 4th weekend, with the Black pieces on both days. Here is Paul’s Saturday (Round 7) game against Watford 1.

Paul won a pawn out of the opening, and pressed home the advantage with a nice exchange sacrifice which gave him a number of positional pluses.

A smooth performance by Paul, who made it look deceptively easy.

4NCL Fourth Weekend Report

Crowthorne went into Weekend four of the 4NCL season, played over 13-14 April, with a weakened team because of holidays and clashes with other events. The first team was missing Ken and Richard, and unfortunately it was not possible to raise a second for the weekend – the 4NCL was notified well in advance of this so that Crowthorne 2 was not included in the pairings. We expect to reinstate the second team for the final weekend (4-6 May).

Fears that Crowthorne 1 would lose top place in Div 4 were unfounded, as the Saturday game saw them beat their closest rivals, Watford 1. It seems that Watford also had problems getting their strongest team out, and in the event Crowthorne outgraded them. Paul Cooksey, Peter Tart and John Upham won their games, with Harvey Duckers, Mark Cross and Colin Purdon (somehow) drawing theirs:

In the Sunday Game, round 8, Crowthorne was paired against Wessex B … and were again successful! Paul and Peter both made it 2/2 for the weekend, with Harvey also winning. Colin drew, and Mark and John lost to substantially higher-rated opponents:

This leaves Crowthorne with a healthy lead at the top of Division 4, but with a number of teams still able to overtake us in the three rounds of the final weekend:

Full results tables etc can be found at the 4NCL web site