A tense evening of chess saw Newark’s first team lose 3-2 to fellow relegation strugglers Gambit 2.
The first game to finish involved Newark’s top board, David Coates, playing with the black pieces. This ended as a draw with a Sicilian defence against Drag Sudar.
Interlocked pawns and bishops of opposite colours produced the second draw of the evening, when neither Graham Ladds nor his opponent could break open the position.
Alex Combie also had a game with bishops of opposite colour, and despite a pawn advantage he could not convert this into a win and a third game was drawn.
Nigel Bowler secured a good material advantage of rook over bishop as his game went into an endgame with equal pawns. Unfortunately, Nigel chose the wrong move, and gave his rook up for a bishop to win pawns and the game. Both sides found counter-play to promote a pawn, and then both queens neutralised each other to produce another draw.
The match result depended on the final game to finish involving Martyn Wynn. This was a very interesting and open game and Martyn created a lot of pressure on the rook file against his opponent’s king. However, the game swung in Gambit’s favour when their player opened up the centre, and his strong attack won the game and the match for Gambit.
With their win against Newark, Gambit 2 are now on equal points (7) in the league as Newark, but Newark’s individual points difference is one better at minus 15 to Gambit’s minus 16.
For Newark’s last match of the season, they are away to bottom-of-the-league Nomads on Monday 14th April. Interestingly, if Newark win this match they shall be safe. Even if Gambit 2 win their final game against West Bridgford by a bigger margin than Newark, West Bridgford, currently on 9 points, will be relegated as their individual points difference will then be worse than Gambit’s.