On Wednesday 29th January, Newark 3 managed a convincing away win against Grantham 4, scoring on the top 3 boards leading to a 1-3 result.
Martyn, who was playing black on board 2, provides this interesting insight:
Black’s last move, Qf5, threatens a double attack on the h3 and c2 pawns. However, if the black queen was to leave the defence of the knight on c5, white could have ideas of Qe8+, Kg7, and then win the knight through a fork by playing Qe5+
The pivotal moment occurred when white chose the slightly inaccurate next move, Ne4. This blocks the queen’s path to counter-play and allows black to play Qxa3+ and is essentially a ‘free move’.
After Ke2, black can trade knights and force the queens off the board on the very next move – either via QxQ if white recaptures with the pawn, or Qe6 should white recapture with the queen (pinning it to the king).
The resulting position sees black a pawn to the good, with a passed pawn on the h file, should go on to win comfortably.