Our winning ways came to an end

Our winning ways came to an end this month with a 2-2 draw against Slovakia.

On board 1 Chong Han was in for a tough game against Pavol Lisy 6d, under-20 European Youth Champion in 2011. Chong had some nice attacks, but Pavol defended well and Chong didn't manage to use the attacks to reduce Pavol's left or top side moyos, leaving him short of points. The ending was rather unfortunate with Chong resigning when a group died after filling dame.

Des Cann played his favourite high-Chinese opening again, but at a crucial moment invested another move in growing the moyo instead of helping his weak group which died. Maros Kral then killed another group and although Des made his big moyo into territory it wasn't enough and he resigned.

Andrew Simons' game against Marian Hrdina started fairly peacefully and featured a textbook invasion at the top right, but was then plunged into fighting with several trades. After many ups and downs he played a better yose and won the three-and-a-half-hour marathon by a fitting three and a half points.

David Lee did well on his debut game for the team, with a comfortable 23.5 point win against Miroslav Poliak. Victory was assured when he picked up the tail of a group in the late middlegame.

We are now 5th in the table, with the final round next month against 6th placed Denmark.

Games and Full seasons results