Round 2 of The Club Championship saw all twenty-six planned players turning up on the night. Thanks to every one.

On the top boards, reigning champion Graeme King was the first to show. With castled positions on opposite wings, his attack gained momentum before Jainill’s, ensuring the 11-year-old would not be repeating his giant-killing exploits of the first round. While the top two boards remained tight, Tony underestimated a back-rank riposte against Danny in a choppy position and resigned. Meantime, Craig Fay appeared to survive a ferocious king-side attack from Angus MacLean, emerging with two pieces for a rook and two pawns. But even the two bishops could not co-ordinate in time to stop steam-rollerring passed connectors.

Still the top two plugged away, with the only obvious advantage for the top seeds being in time used. Elsewhere, the juniors were having mixed fortunes. I noticed Austin grinding down Brian Fitzpatrick, whilst Luke’s game essentially finished with his holding Duncan’s pawn in one hand, his own Queen in the other…suddenly wishing he had only touched one of them, and could avoid the immediate pin and loss of his Queen after QxP rather than PxP (if you youngsters understand the terminology).

Top games were now critical. Eric had played most of his with a bishop and knight deep in Jalal’s camp, intermittently supporting each other in a complicated position. He may have missed a simplification that would leave him a pawn up, but with 1-2 minutes against ten, a later simplification backfired.

Mahmoud and Robert diligently kept recording their moves as the latter’s clock joined his opponent’s in the red zone. But by this time, Robert’s was around the one-minute mark, and late middle-games are not suited to such pressure… (he rebuked me – quite correctly – for later suggesting he stop writing moves at “five minutes left” in a quickplay finish… but I make no apologies for mentioning it here…just so as you know the rule…as you guys all play for MY CLUB’S TEAMS!).

Thus, one of my two predicted “games of the round” was finally over. The other was still going. Dairena also demonstrated the difficulty of co-ordinating the two-pieces- vs-rook “advantage” and eventually succumbed to Gilbert’s whittling away with his rook pair.

At the end of the day, eight wins for White, five for Black. NO DRAWS. After two rounds, 24 games have been played, and there have been just two tied matches. After twelve draws in twelve, maybe Magnus and Fabiano should come around for some tips. Or maybe, just maybe….

(PS apologies for any inaccuracies…I’m just wandering around…)

Positions after Two Rounds (provisional)

2          J Shaheen          M Alagha        G King                      D Breslin

1.5       M Matar            D McClymont  A MacLean             A Connor

            G Alomenu       A Heron

1          RA Gibb            C Fay               T Clarke                   E Martin

            R Innes              J Papillon          C Takamashi         J Vadalia

0.5       J Eldridge          L Power            B Fitzpatrick           S Osman

0          D Gaffney         J Prentice           J O’Neill                  A Goss-Pastor

After one match:  0.5: C Anderson     0: A Marshall