Dorset v Hampshire - Under 150 - 11 October 2003

This was the third time we have met Dorset in a year and they have always given us a tough time. The match did not get off to the best start, with my slightly misleading directions causing confusion among some of the players (including me!). Nevertheless, we were all at the venue 20 minutes before the start, enabling me to collect the match fees before we started playing.

With the match being over 12 boards I thought we had a reasonable team, with seven players graded over 140 and all the players below 140 being regular county players. This makes a difference, as the time limit is a lot more generous than the Southampton and Portsmouth League, so experience counts.

On paper Dorset were weaker than us, but they still had some very useful players, with G.E.Searing, Frank Kingdon and M.Litchfield being players that made an impression on me from the last two matches. The first player to finish was the top board, with Steve Smith drawing from a tricky position. I thought my game was going to be the next to finish, as after a strange opening, and a swift attack my position looked overwhelming. My opponent managed to swap down to an ending, which although lost was his only chance of survival. By the time I had managed to convert my position to a win, the match was all but over, as we had managed to chalk up a number of wins. 

In fact my opponent tried to play Shuffle Chess at one point, putting all his pieces (except his King) on the back rank!

Stuart v Kelly

So with the wins flowing in, it was a case of how heavily Hampshire were going to win. The score stood at 8½ - 1½ with two game left, in which the Hampshire players were pushing for the win. David Kinsler was two pawns up, but his opponent was proving no push over, finding excellent moves. David gave the two pawns back, to try to break through but in the end agreed a draw, when his advantage had disappeared.

Joe Coburn had a Queen for Rook and Knight, but he could not snaffle his opponents weak queen side pawn and had nothing better than to repeat the position. Therefore the match finished with an overwhelming 9½ - 2½ victory, which is one of Hampshire's best results for quite a while, certainly the best Under 150 result that I know of.

Graham Stuart

U150 Match Captain