WELLINGTON Chess Club hosted Glastonbury in their last home fixture of the season in the West Somerset League Division Two. Glastonbury used to be a real force in Somerset Chess but have fallen on difficult times and could only produce a team of two players to take on Wellington. Sportingly Wellington agreed to play the game over two boards rather than enforce the league rules that matches are to be over a minimum of four boards and claim two points by default.

Wellington were without the services of Alex Conway on board 1 so John Morrison in his excellent debut season moved up to top board with the experienced Simon Pickard on board 2. John played the opening flawlessly and had all his pieces nicely developed enabling him to get on top. He presurised his opponent into a disastrous blunder which cost him his rook. There was only going to be one result after that and John soon ran out an easy winner.

Simon Pickard was heavily outgraded by his opponent but did not allow this to put him off his game. Despite being level on material Simon kept up the initiative throughou,t forcing his opponent to eat heavily into his time allowance. As the game reached the endgame stage although the players were level on material, Simon had joined up pawns which were capable of defending themselves but his opponent’s pawns were scattered and harder to defend. Eventually Simon’s opponent found it impossible to find a way to avoid defeat and lost on time with defeat staring him in the face. This result leaves Glastonbury bottom of the league with Wellington in mid table.

Wellington’s club championship looks like being a closely contested affair this season. Six players have fought their way into the final stages and will all play each other once with the champion being the player with most points. John Morrison and defending champion Alex Conway are setting the pace at present, both with two wins from two matches but Ed List with two points from three games is still in the reckoning. Ed’s loss was to Alex Conway so he will need other results to go his way to keep his chances alive.

Wellington have seen a large increase in membership numbers and there is a field of seven juniors who have their own championship. This is a very closely contested tournament this year as junior players can be inconsistent with surprise results occurring from time to time. At present Max Kaye leads with three points from four game closely pursued by Eric Wall and Isaac Pickard with two points from three games. However it is fairly early at present to make any firm predictions about the eventual winner.

Robert Harris