It was the third time in rap that I played in Valby in freezing temperatures – at least outside. Almost fell on the icy road. And inside it was also bitterly cold, both literally, so that several of us played with winter jackets on, and also in terms of playing there was quite a bit to warm up.
The first point went to Valby before we even got started, as we could not field a full team.
And it didn’t take very long for Sandanu to succumb to the cold as well. 2-0 to Valby. On the way home, Sandanu told that he had made a decisive mistake quite early in the game.
Jesper was on the 7th board. And when I came over to look after less than an hour, it was clear that he and the opponent prefer Blitz games to this slow game, where you think for a quarter of an hour about the most obvious move, as Jesper formulated it afterwards. I just watched as the last officer disappeared for both of them. And when there were quite a few more Valby pawns on the board, it became 3-0.
But, but on board 1, Henning Holst played an excellent game. Admittedly, he was a pawn behind quite quickly, but came back strong. After first rejecting a draw offer, the opponent offered a draw himself some time later, to which Henning said yes. I exclaimed “we are on the board”. 3½ – ½.
I played on board 2 and felt quite comfortable on my French home court. After a short castling in move 16, I remembered a tip that Leif came up with a few years ago in connection with teaching the youngsters, namely to open the game with f6. So thought so done. A few moves later the rooks via the f-line were swapped and I thought it was fair to offer a draw. But my opponent had probably seen that he had 140 points more in rating and wanted to play on. For about 20 moves, 3×2 pawns on each side + bishop and knight played against 2 knights without hitting a piece. And at the end, the Valby man then offered a draw at move 40. 4 – 1.
Next to me on board 3, Sujeewa with the white pieces had something very exciting going on. At one point, however, the exciting action took place largely alone in the first and second rows. And in the distance the black king with a team of pawns was largely offside and out of danger. Sujeewa was actually ahead with a full rook. But in the end the white king was trapped by his own rook and queen and could not get out of checkmate. After the match, his opponent, Sujeewa himself and us spectators agreed that Sujeewa should have given his queen for a rook, i.e. play on with 2 rooks against the queen and in this way could free the king. But unfortunately 5 – 1.
Then we had two games left to look at: Ivar and Morten fought in true Brøndby spirit in difficult positions. Ivar apparently only got a rook and a light officer for his queen. And although he had some good checkmate threats in hand, if his opponent were to play too loosely, in the end he had to watch as the opponent’s queen quietly, in concert with a bishop, checked Ivar’s king. 6 – 1.
Morten is almost by definition always the last to finish. After all, it testifies to good, cool matches with lots of good chess. As they neared the end of the game, the opponent had 3 more pawns, but we owls and Morten himself hoped at the very end that Morten could checkmate with the queen. But the opponent could prevent that with a clever queen move. After the exchange of queens, it was game over. 7 – 1.
The result seems a bit overwhelming. But not entirely surprising. On each and every board, Valby was at least 100 rating points stronger. Probably there will be more compliant opponents in the coming rounds.