Horsham 2 well beaten by strong Brighton team

For a fleeting moment midway through the evening there seemed a possibility that Horsham 2 would repeat their heroics of last year when they were the only team to take a point off Brighton...but in the event the end result (0.5-3.5) reflected the disparity in gradings between the two, being an average of 260.

As non playing captain, but playing in another match, I didn't get to see much of the early evening proceedings but Ian on board 2 tells me that after a reasonable English opening he was steadily outplayed by his opponent and indeed when I looked his king did seem to be in a lot of trouble. The end followed swiftly thereafter.

By contrast on board 3, Nick as black obtained a solid position out of the opening and tells me he might have missed a tactic in the middle game. My first viewing saw just rooks and equal pawns left and a truce was called shortly thereafter. A very good result against an opponent nearly 300 points higher.

This left the score at 0.5-1.5 and when I first had time for a good look, Phil's game on board 1 seemed to be unclear whilst Rob on board 4 seemed a solid exchange ahead, hence my opening sentence above.

In Phil's case however, in what seemed to me to be a massively complex tactical struggle, his opponent found a lovely queen sacrifice to force checkmate.

At more or less the same time Rob then walked into a knight fork which handed back the exchange and whilst struggling on to the time control, eventually succumbed.