MALVERN played against St Johns/Droitwich in the Worcester County Chess League and lost a close match by 3.5 points to 2.5

Malvern had white on the odd boards.

Malvern v St Johns/Droitwich (Malvern names first).

1 B Turner 0-1 P Kitson, 2 G Herbert 0-1 S James, 3 I Clarke 0.5-0.5 N Harris, 4 J Knee 1-0 G Dyett, 5 D Spencer 1-0 A Kirkland, 6 T Shaw 0-1 S Foster. Result Malvern lost 2.5-3.5.

The Droitwich top board rapidly gained an advantage against a jet-lagged Brian Turner. Although Brian tried to develop counterplay, black showed his strength in simplifying to a clearly won endgame.

White played the four pawns attack against Geoffrey Herbert's Modern Benoni on the second board. The position quickly became unbalanced in typical Benoni style. White attacked in the centre by advancing his Kings and Kings' bishops' pawns and eventually won a piece with a discovered attack after Geoffrey misplaced his queen.

In a queen's pawn opening on board three, the centre became blocked and after most of the minor pieces were traded a draw was agreed.

John Knee's opponent on board four played Bird's opening and was clearly aiming at a king-side attack. John countered by exchanging the white king's knight and opening the centre. White overplayed his attack and overlooked a knight fork winning his queen, after which he immediately resigned.

In a well-played game on board five, Denis Spencer played the Trompowski opening and doubled a pair of black's pawns. After a number of exchanges he obtained an ending where he had a good knight against his opponents bad bishop. Denis was then able to attack black's queen side pawns and use his own passed pawn as a decoy to force a resignation.

The opening on board six was a classical French defence where Tony Shaw closed the centre and both sides castled on the queen-side. White broke through on the queen's rook file but Tony forked the white rooks with his queen on a long diagonal. Despite being a rook up Tony had little time and could not find the right moves. He eventually lost on time.