Epsom Salties: 4NCL Online - Season 13, Round 3

4NCL Online - 17th February 2026 - Division 3 and 4 - Round 3

4 boards, Online

Epsom Salties 1    3.5 - 1.5    Dundee City E

Epsom Salties 2    1.5 - 2    Malpas & Friends

Epsom Salties 3    2 - 2 War & Piece Banner

So a comprehensive win for the Salties 1, 3 wins and a draw for Mike (incredibly Stockfish gave >95% accuracy and no inaccuracies between them). Salties 2 would have got a great draw, unfortunately Gary couldn’t get his game started no matter what he did, so there was a half game point penalty. Salties 3 got a draw from a nice super quick win by Dom and a default by the opponents, this is important to try and avoid getting a bye in future rounds.

The themes for today are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory (Again!) and also loose pieces – and probably both linked by spending a bit of time checking the board.

A bit more detail on some of the games

	Trevor is on the season of his life. Playing in the heady heights of board 2 of Salties 1 – he eased to another win. Not sure that Sammy is impressed about playing on a lower board than his Dad. Trevor played well apart from two moves, here neither player noticed that the e4 pawn was there for the taking, thinking that the Knight was pinned. He then played solidly, just taking advantages of black’s slightly poorer moves. A terrible move at the end (when there was a good simple move available) – allowed the possibility of the opponent equalising but instead resigned, probably due to the terrible time pressures.
	Ethan comfortably won his match. This was the critical move. White need to stop the march of the f-pawn – f4 was the critical move – his opponent didn’t but Ethan didn’t hesitate and played it and marched his pawn confidently to f3 and there was no hope for white. Great understanding of how to tie down a match.
	Sammy was comfortable in his match. Just picking up loose pawns and then Bxe4? Ultimately sealed the game, I presume that Black’s aim was to open up the white’s King to attack. But Sammy didn’t flinch and cleared up.
	John had a of a to-and-fro game. John was falling behind, and unfortunately fell further behind with an unfortunate pawn grab and then his piece became pinned.
	Alex game was very even until this blunder by black, these are the tactics that you need to spot during a game. Black was showing that you need to attack the pinned piece (B on e4), but that didn’t work in this case. Alex found the tactic (can you?) and kept the lead easily after that. Three wins out of three for Alex in season 13.
Dom brought out his favoured Caro-Kann and took an early lead. On the left, Dom had played h6 and chased the Bishop back to h4. What did Dom do here? On the position on the right, Dom has lost the lead a bit, but still has the advantage. There are some weaknesses in his position that he needs to fix. Instead he goes pawn grabbing with Qxc2. What is the plan that white missed to equalise the game?
Daniel (aka OneBlunderAhead) played a game of wild swings and unsurprisingly blunders. The position on the left shows a missed idea. White can castle and he did, but he can wait and take advantage of black’s king being stuck in the middle and can’t castle straight away and is also behind in development. So exd5 breaks open the position and he will go up a pawn as he has two attacking the d-pawn. On the right, black gets in trouble with the classic f6, then pinned his own Rook. What move did Daniel miss? Daniel then followed his username – he won a rook for nothing, lost a rook for nothing, missed a fork to win a rook, then allowed his rook to be forked and lost the game. These things happen, but there was a lot of time left on the clock and so there was a bit of time to check the moves.
Aditya is another one adapting to competitive chess in the 4NCL. Like Daniel, he needs to use more of his time checking. Generally, his moves were fine, but: His opening choice left him behind in development early on(left board), e.g. h6 early on just used a move to no gain. Pawn grabbing: on the right board, he is positionally behind, but he decided to grab the a-pawn, taking his queen out of the game and into a potentially trappable position.

So looking at these games there were three of the games that could have swung at the last moment. We survived two, but lost a third. This was on top of similar results last time. We need to be careful at the end – a game can turn on one move.

There is also a need to ensure that we use our time to check for loose pieces or pieces that can be made loose (our own and their pieces).

Overall, this was a good evening for the Salties, and I hope that we can continue to have fun.

Solutions:

Alex game: Bxb7+ and white get the loose rook. Second prize to those who said Bf5. A bonus to those who saw both, and decided Bxb7+ was best – it does show the old adage, if you find a good move then look for a better one.

Dom’s game (left): g5! Attacking the Bishop on h4 and breaking the pin on his knight on f6 and allowing him to take the Bishop on e4.

Dom’s game (right): c4! This will force the black queen off of the diagonal and the Knight becomes a free piece.

Daniel’s game: NxNd7 and the pinned Rook will fall (the tactic was missed, but black gave up the Rook anyway). If the Rook was not pinned then they would have used an intermezzo of RxRe1+.

Alistair Mackenzie