Epsom Salties: 4NCL Online - Season 13, Round 2

4NCL Online - 3rd February 2026 - Division 3 and 4 - Round 2

4 boards, Online

Epsom Salties 1    3 - 1    Wessex F

Epsom Salties 2    3 - 1    Worcestershire Wolfpack C

Epsom Salties 3    0.5 - 3.5 War & Piece Nimrod

It was overall a great night for the Salties - one of the best, but marred by events in the Salties 3. First the good news. Despite being really short-handed for these matches and with careful discussion about which players Epsom 4 were using their over the board match, we did well.

Salties 1 got a nice 3-1 victory and I would say a reasonably comfortable with wins for Ethan, Alistair and Sammy. Tiara fought hard in her first game in the 3rd Division.

Salties 2 got an amazing win. Superb wins for Alex and Ziyad. Haris brought us the points with a careful draw and Leia showed her expertise to set up a fortress and she knew how to defend it to get the draw. The team were out-rated on average by 1624 to 1311.

Salties 3 also faced a strong team and were out-rated 1595 to 1203 - unfortunately no miracle win here and received the unusual loss of 3.5-0. Gary didn't manage to start his game - it seems to have gone as a default to us, though Gary was trying to join. Usually in these circumstances the captains just want to get their players playing - but their captain seemed more intent on getting a default than solving the issue. Dom valiantly dealt with this but it clearly affected his very winnable game, but he got a very honourable draw. Unfortunately Lucy and Andrew couldn't find the wins either.

A bit more detail on some of the games

	Here we have the two puzzles in one. Alex moved the queen into a square allowing a tactic. In the game, white tried Bg5. Puzzle 1, how did Black successfully refute the move? Puzzle 2 – what should white have done instead of Bg5? Alex had no problems after this.
After round 1’s excitement for Leia – this was a very calm game. Here was a missed opportunity for white on the left. f5 and black’s pawn will fall. The was missed and Leia set up a fortress, she shuffled her King and Bishop expertly round to keep Black at bay.
The psychology of chess is important, here Dom is riding high. Stockfish recommends Nxe6, smashing open the defences of the King and it is very difficult for black. Dom went for the more obvious g3, trapping the Bishop – but this leaves Dom winning but his King exposed. Around now he had captain duties which were very draining and the position slipped away from him. The game ended in a draw, where he has objectively a better position.	Ziyad played confidently and had a comfortable game. Here is a nice example of his play. His knight is attacked, but he ignores the attack and carries on with his attack with hxg6. He left his knight en-prise for 3 moves until his opponent exchanged it off with a Rook.
A short time of prep is possible in these online games, in the brief time this was one of the positions I looked at and there is a great move here, trouble is I couldn’t remember it. Can you see the move? I ended up with an inferior position instead of winning.	In the endgame – the King is a fighting piece and they need to get in the game, black followed that idea, but marched into a trap, although there is no forced checkmate here, black quickly lost a piece and gave up the game.
Haris faced a French – he used an early Bc4. The game looked to be a draw the whole way through – as they remarkably only had one inaccuracy between them in the whole match. Nice play by Haris on board 1 against a good opponent.

Solutions:

Alex game 1) Black played 11 Bg5 BxN 12 BxQ BxQ 13. Bxg7 BxB

Alistair game: 8. Bb5! c6 9. Ne5! (threaten checkmate and attacking c6)

Alistair Mackenzie