Bodley A curse strikes again!

In the past two seasons, the Bodley B has exceeded expectations while the Bodley A have underperformed. One game into the 2013/14 season, and that pattern may well be repeating itself…

The Bs already excelled themselves in their opener last week, while on Saturday, the As’ first opponents were Enniscorthy, making their league debut and with no player who’d make it onto our team ratings-wise. Getting them in the opening game was a boost; with Darko Polimac and Michael Crowe behind the club, their results come the end of the season should be markedly better than at the start. As it was, we had two games effectively won within the opening ten moves, including Ger Healy on the bottom board, playing his first game in three years. He picked up two central pawns for nothing early on, added a piece by move 15 and converted with ease from there. Mihailo also picked up a piece early enough, added a second later and won with ease. All was going to plan!

It wasn’t as easy on the other boards though. Luke turned down a draw offer to reach a king and pawn ending a pawn up, but all the pawns ended up locked up, and his opponent’s king effectively barricaded Luke’s central extra pawn, so a draw had to be agreed. Jack was also up a pawn in a rook and pawn ending, lost the pawn in getting the rooks off and, it seemed gave his opponent a one-move winning window. When his opponent missed the win, Jack took his second chance at victory. Anastasija, meanwhile, had gotten into serious trouble on the black side of an Evans Gambit (much to the despair of Mihailo, who plays the line as white!) It’s the kind of opening where a mis-step can have serious consequences, and so it was here as Anastasija never got castled and came under a strong attack through the centre. She was last to finish in the end, but was always trying to rescue something from the position.

There’s no time to ponder the result though; we’re away to our bogey team Naomh Barróg B on Tuesday. It’s not yet known how promotion/relegation will operate this season – it may be group winners only promoted, or it may be that the top two from each group go into a play-off after the end of the regular season. There may be no relegation, or the bottom four from each group may be relegated to re-form Division 7, the O’Sullivan, and leave the Bodley with 12 teams. But for now at least, the table looks like this –