McArthur Cup ½Final– 2023 Horsham v Chichester 25.04.2023
For the first time in decades, our Chichester Club entered a team into the McArthur Cup tournament – the premier inter-Club competition in West Sussex.
After a default win at home to Brighton we found ourselves away to Horsham in a semi final.
Horsham is a thriving chess club with an excellent venue and a great deal going on. Immediately the teams were announced it was clear that Horsham were fielding a very strong team with 4 players well over 2000 rating.
On board 1: Jaimie played Gavin Lock in a tussle of the giants. Unfathomable to spectators and eventually agreed drawn
On board 2: Andrew, playing black again, had a long and tense positional struggle with the equally strong Mark Broom. A wonderful finish and this game can be found here.
On board 3: Rolandas played the equally strong James Mansson and this always promised to be a game of extreme complications and it lived up to this billing. A wonderful win by Rolandas to take this scalp.
On board 4: Norbert met the 2029 rated Antony Higgs – quite a challenge and illustrating the massive strength in depth that Horsham can muster for their A team. Again, some significant complications and Norbert slowed his opponent but some accurate play prevailed.
On board 5: Ian was facing the evergreen Phil Stimpson and had much the best of it in a heavyweight game. Alas , when approaching critical simplifications to convert, Ian fell for a cheap tactic and the point was lost.
On board 6: Steve was 200 rating points adrift of the well experienced Ian Comley. On the defensive for much of the game, Steve made it very difficult to identify the winning combo but Ian played with extreme care and a powerful Queen and Bishop battery proved too much to defend against.
Summary:
- G.Lock ½ ½ J.Wilson
- M.Broom 0 1 A.McDougall
- J.Mansson 0 1 R.Lukosius
- A.Higgs 1 0 N.Gyorke
- P.Stimpson 1 0 I.Judd
- I.Comley 1 0 S Coe
Horsham 3½ 2½ Chichester
A match in which the chess was the winner. All good wishes to Horsham in the final where they meet Lewes. This was some distance for Chichester players to travel so my thanks to Rolandas for driving the Bognor contingent. Andrew persisted in the face of a diversion on a diversion and some small country lanes so well done on that tour of West Sussex. My thanks also to Mike Spence who attended as reserve and offered good moral support.