White Knights B 1.5 Nidum A 3.5

1 (2105) Alan Young 0 1 Adam Musson (2074)

2 (2058) Nicholas Evans 0.5 0.5 Robert Saunders (2076)

3 (2006) Adam May 0.5 0.5 Andrew Gibbons (2026)

4 (1877) David Guy 0 1 Alan Bennett (1987)

5 (1811) David Buttell 0.5 0.5 Mark Evans (1923)

The skirmish before the main battle scheduled for the 31st January, ended with a comfortable win for Nidum.

Early on Boards 1 and 5 strongly favoured Nidum; two draws on boards 2 & 3 were then agreed before Adam Musson picked up his point against Alan Young, one which had been pretty much guaranteed from an early stage in their game. David Buttell performed a great escape on board 5 to draw denying Mark Evans the win. This left David Guy in the onerous position of having to win against Alan Bennett to draw the match; after turning down a couple of draw offers both players drifted into time trouble with David a pawn up. With both players down to a minute on their clocks David fell into a mating net.

20/01/2017