Welcome to the home of Rotherham's chess players. We're currently meeting at The Bluecoat, The Crofts, Rotherham S60 2DJ on most Wednesdays from 7pm. ➡ How to find us
Onward
We advanced to the next round of the Richardson Plate tonight after a hard-fought 3½–2½ victory over Aughton. With the Bridge closed due to floods, we played the fixture at Aughton's place despite having been drawn at home.
Perhaps feeling the pressure, an opening disaster for Oli (who was making his debut on top board) saw him miniatured in 17 moves. That levelled the match score at 1–1, with Aughton having defaulted board 6 due to unforeseen circumstances. At one stage, Rotherham seemed to be in the ascendancy in the 4 remaining games, but the tables turned rather quickly.
Phil and his opponent agreed a draw. Next, what looked like a great position for John petered out into equality. Only Mick Mc, having won an exchange with a tactic, managed to convert his advantage into a win.
Oli's defeat on board 1 meant that a 3–3 scoreline would send us out, so with the scores at 3–2, we needed to get something from the final game. We were left holding our breath as Ed, up on time but a pawn down, eventually salvaged a draw from a horrible-looking endgame to take us through to round 2.
Washout
The recent flooding left quite a bit of Rotherham town centre underwater. The River Don surpassed the previous record height set in 2007. Sadly our home venue, the Bridge Inn, sustained some damage and will have to close for a while.
It's a knockout
We went out of the Richardson Cup this week after being beaten 1½–4½ by Ecclesall on Wednesday. Our gutsy rearguard action wasn't quite enough to hold off the mighty Sheffield chessers, who brought a pretty strong side to the match.
Although our Cup dreams are dead for this year, there's still a chance for silverware in the Europa League of Sheffield chess, the Richardson Plate—we'll face Aughton four weeks hence.