It was an interesting (and sunny) afternoon at the famous Hastings Chess Club for our Intro Cup Semi Final’s match. We had defaulted on board 4, leaving three players: Myself, John and Jim on boards 1 through 3. If we won two of our matches, we could still win, depending on which boards did so.

Jim won his match and John lost. Had I played on (and won) we would have won the semi-finals. My opponent offered a draw and after some consideration, I accepted.

It was a tricky decision for me:

  • I felt really hemmed in, in my position,

  • I was dying a time death (I had 19 minutes left whilst my opponent had about 47) - my only hope was to move much quicker, leading to more damning mistakes,

  • He was rated much higher than me,

  • I really didn’t think I could turn the game around and better a draw and

  • I was absolutely busting for the toilet!

    Having said that, that didn’t stop me agonising over my decision on the way home – a part of me felt I should have gone for it anyway.

    Here is the game for you to play through – would you have accepted the draw? Ignore the annotations on your first pass through so you aren’t biased by Chessmasters cutting remarks ;-)



    Interactive Chess Game - Please refresh page if not shown

Stephen Moon