South Wales Premier League 2005-6 R1

Report by John Trevelyan

Round 1 of this season's SWPL is now complete.

Cwmbran travelled to Monmouth for their first ever match in this competition. The time-control was a little unusual (30 moves in 75 minutes, followed by a 30 minute sudden death finish) but perfectly legal. It doesn't leave much drinking time after the match.

Peter Varley and Dave Robinson seemed to be doing well on the top boards for Cwmbran, but Monmouth seemed to be causing them enough problems shortly after the first time-control, when most of the games finished. Dave Robinson succeeded in winning his ending, in which he was always much better, to win the match for Cwmbran.

Nidum v Cardigan

When I arrived, at about 4pm, the board 1 game had already finished: a fairly quick draw between Howard Williams and Richard Jones.

The rest of the match seemed to be slightly in Cardigan's favour. Gerry Heap won fairly soon against Glyn Sinnett, but Rob Moore maintained equality by beating CE Owen on board 5. Some time later Iolo Jones converted his pressure against Alan Bennett into a win, leaving Mathew Davies fighting alone to save Nidum. He refused a draw offer, even when a piece down, to try to save the match and eventually did so.

Cardiff traveled to Abertridwr to play against Caerphilly in the first match of the season.

After two and a half hours, board 1 (Gabor Pinter, a Hungarian IM, studying at Treforest and young Ioan) and board 5 (Keith Thompson and Graham Cantello) had agreed draws, followed soon by board 2 (Alan Spice and Gwynfor Rees) after a far more interesting game. Tim Kett and I were left trying to convert small advantages into wins. Tim, after 20 moves, accepted that he was getting nowhere against John Thornton and also agreed a draw. Dave Perrett, after almost 50 more moves in a difficult ending, lost on time in a position which had, finally, become untenable.