Last Tuesday, Horsham faced Brighton in the quarter finals of the McArthur Cup. The match was played at Horsham. It was a tough encounter, with Horsham eventually prevailing 4-2. I contributed a win, although as we shall see, I was a bit fortunate!
I was Black against Brian Denman on board three. The game started with the Ruy Lopez and I adopted the Steinitz Deferred in response. Out of the opening, I soon went wrong and fell into a very bad position. My opponent carefully consolidated his advantage and looked on course to victory. However, on move 42, he allowed his flag to fall, mistakenly believing that he had reached a time control. In fact, we were playing the standard Sussex League time control of 65 minutes plus 30 second increment, with no time control, but a potential adjournment and adjudication at the end of the 3 hour 10 minute playing session. As a result, I was able to claim a rather fortunate win on time.