The Queen City Chess Association visited the Columbia Chess Club for a friendly club match today. The QCCA Team consisted of Patrick McCartney (1978), Mark Sturman (1807), Mike Eberhardinger (1773), Charles Carerros (1650), Copeland Blackwell (1332) and Anthony Cato (1132). The Cola Team was made up of Keith Eubanks (2024), Kyle Oody (1901), George Morton (1634), Steve Boshears (1613), Richard Watts (1230) and Daniel Smith (1154).
With the close ratings on each board we expected a tough match from the boys from Charlotte and we got it! In the first round, Cato took down Smith, Blackwell defeated Watts, Carerros threw caution to the wind in the most exciting game of the day as Boshears was unable to find the win and ultimately lost the game, Morton pulled a Houdini to defeat Eberhardinger as Mike literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, Oody defeated Sturman and McCartney took down Eubanks to give the Bad Guys a 4-2 lead after the first round.
Cola Chess has a lot of fight to bitter enders and it showed in the second round as the match teetered back and forth from promising to hopeless to we might survive!
Smith missed the win against Cato but kept his cool and drew the game so we still trail by 2 points with 5 boards to go. Watts showed the never say die attitude as he continued to put up maximum resistance in a lost position to salvage the draw and save the half point keeping our slim hopes alive. If there was a Goody's headache award in this match Boshears would have won it as he saw a second promising position slip through his fingers and was defeated, now we trail by 3 points with only three boards left. Morton's position didn't look good, but for the second time Caissa smiled upon him and he was victorious! Our slim hopes are still alive. Oody wins again to pull us to within 1 point of drawing this match! This means the result on the Board 1, the last board playing will decide the match. Our club's pride is riding on Eubanks, who has been with the club from the beginning, was our first player of the year and our first club champion. Naturally, he comes thru in the clutch to defeat McCartney tying the match score at 6-6!! 
We hope to visit QCCA and play them on their turf in the future.
The match crosstable is HERE.
All in all it was a fun day and exciting day! We had the US Champs broadcast playing in the skittles room and a three round side tournament was won by Adam Shaw who posted a perfect 3-0 score. About thirty players came out to either compete or support the home team.
The side tournament crosstable is HERE.
Another side note, congratulations to Holly and Erik "The Weak Square" Murrah whose second child arrived this week!!
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