report-3-18

Report 3/18 December 2018

There were only five December matches in the run up to Christmas and Poulton first and second teams both earned victories in their games. In Division A their First team beat Preston Firsts by 3 - 2 with fine wins by Barry Hymer over Graham Ashcroft and by Graham Dobson over Geoff Pennington. Preston's ace, Brett Lund pulled one game back by beating Dave Phillips but draws by Oleg Cukovs and Michael Parker against Malcolm Peacock and Alan Pidcock respectively, saw Poulton enhance their top of the table position. In their earlier match at Lytham Firsts, the Preston result was again a 3 - 2 defeat. Lytham's Paul Evans and John Cooper both won their games against Malcolm Peacock and Geoff Pennington and while Graham Ashcroft secured a fine victory for Preston over Tom Leah, draws by Roy Ellames and Rob Gallagher against Brett Lund and Alan Pidcock secured a win for the Lytham side. Remarkably, frequent past champions Preston have now lost three games on the trot, and sit uncomfortably at the bottom of the table, some five points adrift of a resurgent Poulton.

The table for Division B is very tight but Morecambe lead on 4 points closely followed by Bispham Firsts and Preston Thirds on 3 points with Lytham Seconds on 2. Morecambe could not beat Preston thirds only drawing 2 - 2. On board 1, Alan Giles beat Preston's Geoff Pennington, but on board 4, Morecambe's Gary Bennet lost to Preston newcomer Joss Daune to even the match. Norman Blade and Alan Pidcock drew on board 2 while Nick Jameson and Bill Moffatt drew on board 3. In the other match in this division, the lower graded Bispham four surprisingly beat Lytham Seconds by 3.5 - 0.5. While Phil Raynor managed to secure a draw against Jakub Sosinski on board 1, the other Lytham players managed to lose their games. Blaine McGrady beat David Aspinall, the resilient Keith Wilcox beat Graham Taylor and on board 4 Ron Broxson scored a fine win over Lynne Morrison.

Like their first team in Division A, Poulton Seconds lead Division C with six points, 3 ahead of Lytham Thirds and Poulton thirds. In the only game this month, Poulton seconds beat a plucky Lytham Fourths by 2.5 - 1.5. Poulton's Ken Gorman and young Ben Fernhead put Poulton ahead beating Keith Sansom and Graham Taylor and while Lytham's Colin Wilks beat Paul Worsley to give Lytham hope, John Cox could only draw against Liam Bromley.

With seasons greetings to all chess players on the Fylde.

John Regan
20th December 2018