Keverel Chess

Cornwall may have been rocked by an earthquake on Saturday night, but it had nothing to do with their chess match against Devon earlier in the day, which involved no such shocks and went mostly according to expectations. It was the same old story for the Cornish - quite capable of holding their own on the top boards, but liable to fall away as their lack of strength in depth took its toll.

In this case, the top 5 games were shared 2.5 each, including 4 Black wins on Bds 1 - 4, but the lower 11 boards could only muster 4 draws. An illustration of the difference in strength can be seen by comparing the match on Bd. 5, where the experienced Simon Bartlett (162) was reasonably close in grade to John Stephens (173) and quite capable of securing a result. Yet whereas the Cornish team fell away sharply below that, Devon’s Bd. 16 player was the same grade as Bartlett (Pollock - 162).

Having said this, playing the Cornish side is never a formality and they can never be taken lightly - they are quite capable of beating any WECU team who think otherwise, and Devon’s captain, Brian Hewson, knows better than to fall into that particular trap for the unwary.

The match was played at a new venue, the Burraton Community Centre, Saltash, and Devon had White on the odd-numbered boards.