Last year in our match against Bury we had the exact same squad in the exact same board order and defeated Bury 4½-1½. This year they have beefed up their squad with Alan Merry and a couple of fast improving juniors, and it has clearly paid off.
  Bob finished first and was not best pleased about that, having made a good start with his Modern and then missing the correct continuation. It wasn't long before Simon followed suit, playing a line in his Caro-Khan that he won't play again. He was dragged into a complex line that resulted in him having to give up his queen for a rook and a knight. The hapless place of his two rooks on their original squares prevented him holding off his opponents many threats.
  Two down and we were now left to contemplate the fact that we needed three points from the remaining four boards, while Bury only needed 1½. And we had a lot of time to do that contemplating as it was a long time before any other results were declared as all four boards went the distance. Phil's Queen's pawn opening travelled rather quiet waters and after a great deal of probing and manoeuvring Phil finally managed to enter the endgame with a pawn advantage. It was R&B v R&B with same colour bishops, but his opponent was not giving in without a fight and managed hold off all of Phil's attempts to break through. The game was drawn long before Phil conceded that it was, even after his opponent had won his pawn back.
  Now we needed two and a half from three, and while it looked as though two was quite possible, any more was problematic (to say the least). It was now that Rowland's result came in, although on his board it was Rowland who was at a considerable disadvantage. His Italian was also relatively quiet with Rowland biding his time with small incremental steps. After the middle game exchanges things started to drift in his opponent's favour and Rowland had to play very carefully especially after the final pieces were exchanged and we entered a queen and pawn ending. His opponent had an extra isolated but passed pawn, which was threatening to move ever further up the board. Rowland's compensation was the position of his opponent's king and the fact that he could deliver perpetual check unless his opponent's queen could keep control of a crucial back rank square. As it happened his opponent couldn't control that square and advance his pawn at the same time and Rowland was able to find just the square for his queen to prove that before a draw was agreed.
  Two points from our top two stars is always possible, and as often as not happens, but unfortunately not tonight. Panagiotis had played his usual English and the game developed very carefully, relatively quietly and very slowly - after two hours of play we had barely reached move twelve, and only one pair of pawns had been exchanged. This was in stark contrast to their previous encounter back in October last year, where tactics abounded. As the game progressed and the board cleared a bit it looked a draw was on the cards but an unfortunate placement of his king led to a check that lost Panagiotis his rook, which resulted in instant resignation.
  The match could no longer be salvaged but Andy was nonetheless creating havoc on board two. His Sicilian led to a lively game with Andy pressing down the centre with slowly advancing pawns. Andy had to give up, no let's say he sacrificed, the exchange, which didn't seem to disadvantage him at all. Pushing down the centre, as well as the open h-file, his domination was impressive, and the final pseudo sacrifice of first one piece and then another to advance his d-pawn was even more impressive. While the first sacrifice could be ignored, the second could not and we thus ended our Norfolk and Suffolk Cup campaign for this season with a 2-4 defeat.

After that nail biting match against Ipswich Sports Club last week we started this match knowing that just half a point was needed to seal the title. However, we also had a secondary target to aim at, that of getting two points so that we could finish the season as the only unbeaten side in the league. Perhaps that explains the cautious start as everyone was determined not to risk anything until at least someone got that much needed half a point.
  Well not everyone was cautious. Rowland came out of the blocks with all guns blazing and achieved one of those positions that at fist glance looks as though it's been composed by someone who doesn't know how to play the game. Rowland went on to win with a terrific finish that gave us the boost we needed, not to mention two half points.
  Maybe it was too late now to turn around the initial caution for all three of the remaining boards were not looking particularly enterprising. Panagiotis finished next, going down to his only defeat of the season, although he will still win the Player of the Year award. John thought he had a mate in three and very nearly blundered a piece about to execute it. He was offered a draw with little left on the board and accepted it as his opponent stood slightly better. And Phil brought up the rear, unable to find his way through his opponent's defences but gave us the other half point we needed to keep our match record clean.

Just half a point kept us from sealing the division one trophy tonight, but we should consider ourselves very lucky to have even got that close considering the state of play at the half way stage. Andy was in trouble, Phil was lost, Panagiotis looked dodgy (and offered a draw) and Bob had just lost his b-pawn. It was beginning to look like we would need a big score in our final match against Felixstowe if we were going to wrest the trophy from the current holders, Ipswich Sports Club.
  As it happened Bob's pawn loss was temporary, and he even gained a slight advantage from the open file. After the draw was agreed Bob realised he had missed a winning move, which would have come in very handy, but such things happen all the time (to most of us at any rate).
  Andy wanted to practice a line against David Spence's 2 c3 Anti-Sicilian that allows White options for a comfortable draw (if he wants it) or double-edged play for a win. Spence chose the latter and after a while Andy was in a very uncomfortable position with his king's defences on the verge of collapse. Andy had to give up his queen for a rook and a bishop and was then struggling to hold his own with the added disadvantage of shattered pawns. He managed to reach an ending with queen v bishop and rook and hopes were rising that he might be able to hold out for a draw, even though his opponent had a passed and advancing a-pawn. Andy had the queening square covered with both bishop and rook, but then he made a very uncharacteristic one move catastrophic blunder. Picking up an enemy pawn with his bishop he left his rook en-prise, and that was that. Caïssa was certainly favouring Ipswich Sports Club so far tonight.
  Panagiotis's English had not quite given him the sort of game he excels at, and he found himself being pestered by a pair of knights. Being somewhat on the defensive Panagiotis offered a draw, but his opponent felt he could do better, in spite of being way behind on the clock. Panagiotis defended well and things were even starting to turn in his favour when Caïssa appeared to change her mind and give Manningtree some of her favour. In a rook and bishop v rook and knight ending, Stephen Gregory inexplicably captured a pawn with his knight that was defended twice. And soon after losing the knight the rooks came off and Panagiotis had a clear path to victory with several pawns and a bishop.
  Phil had pretty much managed parity from his Caro-Kann but as the rook and pawn ending arrived things were not looking good. There were six pawns each and his opponent had control of the open d-file and a rook on the seventh. Played correctly Phil was quite lost but Caïssa seemed to favour Manningtree again and diverted Phil's opponent from taking control of the seventh and allowed him to improve the position of his King. Allowing the exchange of the rooks also went in Phil's favour and when it was clear that the enemy king could not enter Phil's defences a draw was agreed.
  There was a collective sigh of relief as the possibility of a 3-1 defeat had been averted. Had that been the case, instead of just half a point being required from our last match against Felixstowe, we would need two and a half points, and without Andy and Rowland that could be problematic.

A fantastic result and our first clean sheet of the season. This puts us on top of the division with every chance of staying there. The crunch match is after Easter when we welcome Ipswich Sports Club to Manningtree. The thing about a crunch match like this is that every half point we get means one less half point for ISC, therefore two and a half points will give us the title regardless of the result of the remaining matches. That's a big ask without Rowland, especially if they come with their full squad, but as long as we get at least one point we're in with a good chance.

The omens for this match were not boding well. First of all this is the postponed match from September and we were now without Rowland. Second, the road to Sudbury via Hadleigh was closed, and without any advanced warning, you didn't find that out until you got there. A U-turn and a recalcitrant satnav meant the captain arrived with no time at all to spare. And third, the said captain had failed to notify three quarters of the team that Sudbury had changed their venue so they turned up a the Quay Theatre only to find that out for themselves. Fortunately Bob was able to find Sudbury's web site and deliver his section of the team to the Sudbury Institute Club as required, although as neither Panagiotis nor the captain had arrived, there was some anxiety that they might be off to the old venue as well. Fortunately that was not the case, and with nothing further going wrong the match was started, albeit five minutes late and with incorrectly set clocks (more on that later).
  The Sudbury Institute Club had quite a lively chess atmosphere with a dozen or more members playing on six tables in the bar. The match itself is in a side room off the bar, not ideal as it's quite small and noise from the bar tends to filter in, especially when the door is opened. That being said it is quite comfortable enough.
  Bob finished first after a somewhat unusual game the second move being h4. This is almost the same as what Jamie faced in last week's C-Team match against Sudbury C, so clearly there has been some team analysis of this opening going on in Sudbury, variously know as the Despréz, the Kádas, the Anti-Borg, the Samurai Opening, Harry's Opening or Reagan's Attack (according to Wikipedia). Bob responded with 2…h5, fianchettod as normal, and castled (eventually). After twenty or so moves, many of said moves made by pawns, and few of which involved exchanges, a very busy and rather blocked position developed without a single pawn coming off and no open files to fight for control over. Without willing to risk anything drastic both players agreed a draw.
  It was a while before Panagiotis put us in front. His English was off to a flying start, but after the queens and three pairs of minor pieces were exchanged things began to look rather drawish. And as the game entered a 2R+B v 2R+N ending with equal pawns the pace slowed down and Panagiotis began do develop a hefty time advantage. The bishop proved to be the stronger piece and Panagiotis had it, and he was eventually able to obtain a pair of connected passed pawns on the queen's side and start moving them up the board. His opponent defended well and things didn't go quite to plan so Panagiotis had to give up one of those pawns and switch his attention to the king's side. He eventually managed to squeeze out the win, but there were times when it looked far from certain.
  Phil kept us in front but had a tough time doing so. He answered a Sicilian with 3.c3, which incidentally was the same line adopted by Rob Sanders on board 2, but the black players diverged after that and a long struggle began on both boards. As the game developed Phil became hampered with an advanced c-pawn that he was never given the time to defend with his b-pawn, and when it eventually fell things were looking doubtful. In a queen and knight ending Phil had a little compensation in a well placed and active queen, and when his opponent tried to advance his king's side pawn majority Phil was able to grab a pawn back and a draw was agreed soon after.
  Now it was up to Andy to get us to our target of three points per match for the rest of the season. Rob Sanders as White played a solid c3 Anti-Sicilian. Andy equalized comfortably, but it was very hard to see how Black could make progress. Unfortunately, White was over eager to exchange rooks; and on move 20 he lost his h-pawn to a neat tactic. Further exchanges helped Black and after 50 moves Andy looked close to victory in a B v N endgame a pawn ahead, albeit with both players close to playing on the increment.
  But on move 54, the game hit the buffers. Andy's teammates had noticed that his clock was not giving the full increment of 15 seconds per move, while still giving Rob his full increment. Thinking there must be a fault with the settings the clock was stopped. Based on what had been seen it was estimated that Andy would have lost about 6 minutes during the course of the match. Unfortunately, the Sudbury club has yet to master the complexities of their newly acquired DGT2500 clocks and proved unable to make the requisite adjustments, but in their attempts to do so they discovered that the fault was not with the time settings, but that the home team had set the clocks to a Bronstein rather that a Fischer increment. To the relief of the home captain, Rob threw in the towel in a demonstrably lost position and we were relieved, not only that a major incident had been averted, but that we had achieved the minimum three points we wanted.
  We are now just half a point behind Ipswich Sports Club with a game in hand, but that by no means makes us favourites, there is still an awful lot that could go wrong between now and the end of the season.

Of all the matches we have left (apart from the showdown against Ipswich SC) we expected this to be the toughest, especially as Bury defeated Ipswich Sports Club 3-1 last month. As it turned out, we did rather well.
  While Panagiotis got off to a racing start on board one, it was Andy who finished first - and by quite a margin. The Dutch Stonewall is associated with a solid approach by Black, but not in the hands of Alan Watkins! Alan threw forwards his K-side pawns, without developing his Q-side. Andy offered a neat sacrifice to enable his queen access to the exposed Black king. Alan declined the sacrifice but got quickly mated anyway. A rare victory for Andy in under 20 moves and just over an hour's play.
  It was a long time before Phil was able to chalk up our second point. Phil opened with a Ruy Lopez, his opponent an Italian. A steady and largely equal game progressed with Phil accumulating small advantages that gave him a very strong middlegame. In the complications Phil's opponent lost a bishop, but he fought on and made Phil work hard for his victory.
  Panagiotis's King's Indian proved very effective, giving him a slight but definite plus throughout the game. It was still hard work, and quite nail-biting for the spectators as his opponent didn't go down without a fight. This game will shortly appear in our games section.
  With three points in the bag all eyes turned to Rowland, who was playing his last game for us this season - although not for ever we hope. This wasn't a typical Rowland game in that knife edge attacks were very much absent. It was a long time before the first pair of pawns were exchanged and a long strategic battle commenced. Although a pawn up Rowland appeared to have lost the tread for a while, allowing his opponent to penetrate a rook behind his lines. Rowland was now most definitely on the defensive, and he showed he was just as adept at that as he was at attack. However Laurie Pott had smelt blood and was pushing his advantage to the point where Rowland had to surrender a bishop to avoid mate. Laurie's only problem was the clock, and running very short of time he blundered his bishop leaving a rook and pawn ending that he had to concede could not be won.
  Three and a half points was a lot more than we could realistically have hoped for, but keeps us firmly on the heels of Ipswich Sports Club.

In many respects we were lucky to come away with three points from this match. And in a few other respects we were unlucky not to get all four. Half way through the match our prospects were not looking all that good. Panagiotis's attack seemed to be running out of steam, Andy's position looked far from convincing, Phil looked OK but not dominant, while Rowland looked chaotic enough to go either way. But let's start at the beginning.
  Panagiotis deployed his queen early in his English Opening tonight, and exchanged his fianchettoed king's bishop to disrupt the enemy queen's side pawns. Panagiotis was playing very quickly and gave his opponent no end of things to work through, so much so that after half an hour of play he was 25 minutes ahead on the clock, which eventually become 45 minutes. Tim Lunn was not squandering his time however, and eventually reached a reasonably safe looking queen, rook and bishop ending, a pawn up and offered Panagiotis a draw. Panagiotis rose from the board only to see a lot of uncertainty on the other boards, and it was some time before he retuned to continue his fight. He somehow managed to resurrect his attack and eventually break through Tim's defences to claim victory.
  Rowland had answered his opponent's Sicilian with an early g4, leaving his king in the centre. This had the effect of both creating huge complications and causing his opponent to consume a considerable amount of time deciding his response. The threats to the enemy king had to be answered but at the expense of a severely underdeveloped queen's side. Conversely, all of Rowland's pieces, that's two rooks, two bishops and a queen were bearing down on that king, along with several advanced pawns. Rowland had already sacrificed one pawn, so when his opponent had to give up the exchange, gaining a second pawn in the process he might have thought it possible he could hold out, but the final thrust of Rowland's last remaining king's side pawn proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
  Things were now starting to look better. Andy had rapidly equalized against Stephen Lewis's London System, but overlooked an enterprising exchange sacrifice. Stephen obtained full compensation for the exchange in an endgame, with 2 Bishops, a pawn, and the initiative; but he followed up inaccurately, allowing the exchange of pieces and a bind on the dark-squares. Andy then converted his material advantage without difficulty.
  With three points under our belt it now looked as though we were going to get a clean sheet. Phil's Caro-Kann had developed steadily, but as we entered the ending Phil was two pawns up. His opponent was running short of time and had to give up a bishop for one of those pawns, and now with queen and bishop versus queen, Phil began hoovering up his opponent's remaining pawns. And then, quite uncharacteristically, Phil made a one move catastrophic blunder by placing his queen en-prise when taking one of the last of those pawns. With just a bishop to fend off a queen, Phil immediately resigned, and we were all left to console ourselves with the thought that at the half way stage of tonight's match we would have been content with a 3-1 victory.

Last week it was Manningtree C, this week it's just Manningtree, that's two visits to Saxmundham in a week, and once again we were not in the usual playing room. Which was just as well for the noise coming from the darts match in the main hall would make Felixstowe's Dooleys appear like an oasis of calm. And for some reason this seemed to make those engaged in their post mortems less hushed than usual. That notwithstanding, as defending champions of the Suffolk section of the Norfolk and Suffolk Cup we did the job and go into the final.
  As the games got under way there was no sign of the margin of victory that was to follow. Rowland felt the need for an early draw tonight, so he offered his opponent one. Not in the usual manner mind you. He saw the possibility for his opponent to give up a piece and go for a perpetual check, so he offered it and his opponent accepted. In the meantime Simon Wilks had played an Exchange Variation against Andy's King's Indian, swapped off the queens, and obtained a slightly favourable position. Andy sacrificed a pawn on move 15, but Simon miscalculated and soon found himself worse in an ending in which the two bishops proved decisively stronger than a bishop and knight.
  Shortly after that Phil finished his game, which kept us one point ahead. It was a while before John converted his one pawn lead (given to him on move four) into final victory on move thirty four, and now we just needed half a point from either Graeme or Bob to secure the match.
  Graeme's was a typically active game which eventually led to him giving up both his rooks for a queen and a pawn. It was later to become several pawns plus the exchange but when we reached the stage where it was Graeme's queen and knight versus his opponent's rook and two knights, his opponent allowed an exchange that would have lost him all three of his pieces if it were it followed through, so he resigned instead.
  Now Bob had to suffer the pressure of more than half a dozen pairs of eyes scrutinising his every move while every minute or two a load roar would enter the room from the darts match. Bob had by far the better position with passed and connected a and b pawns securing his long term future, but also he had to be careful not to fall foul of a crafty mate delivered along the half open h-file. With his opponent running on increments Bob's breakthrough came in the centre with a pair of bishops and the match was over. And as far as we know (apart from a 6-0 default win) this is the largest margin of victory we have ever had in this competition (although we have been on the receiving end of a 5-1 beating in the past).

Is it a coincidence or has Caïssa got it in for us? A week or two ago we received notice that for three nights from February 9th the road into Manningtree from Suffolk would be completely closed from 7:00pm until 5:00am. Something unheard of in living memory. Also unheard of in Manningtree's memory is having three matches on three consecutive nights, which also started on February 9th. Now factor in the fact that two of those matches were away to Felixstowe and Saxmundham. Only Bury could have given us a further starting point for the long diversion home.
  While it took ages to get out of the Manningtree station car park, our trip to Felixstowe was quite uneventful and we arrived with a 15 minute cushion. But where were Felixstowe? Fears of being at the wrong venue arose, but after a few minutes a couple of them turned up but couldn't begin preparing the playing room because they didn't have the key to the equipment cupboard. That's all we needed, a late start with two of our team dependent on last trains and a long circuitous route back to the station. With less than five minutes to spare the captain appeared and the match finally got under way, surprisingly only five minutes late.
  Rowland was off to a quick start. After barely more than half an hour his opponent overlooked a tactic that got his queen skewered. Panagiotis wasn't too far behind giving his opponent all kinds of trouble with a pair of knights planted in the heart of his position that eventually yielded the exchange and not long after that, the game.
  By contrast Phil and John's games both went the distance. Phil's game was quite tactical but he navigated the complications better that his opponent and kept the score sheet clean. John blundered a pawn in the middle game but after a desperate struggle his opponent blundered a knight. With a bishop for a pawn and a pair of rooks each John thought he should win this, but a repetition of moves could only be avoided by giving up another pawn. It was a terrible decision which cost us that clean sheet. It remains to be seen how much it will cost us in the race for the title.

Although defeated, Sudbury will probably see this result as something of a victory, and while it has put a small dent in our championship campaign, we are still on track, so long as we don't suffer too many more of such hip-cups. The evening started without fireworks and without too much in it on any of the boards. It wasn't long however before both Panagiotis and Rowland squeezed wins from their respective games and put us on course for a comfortable win.
  Unfortunately Phil slipped up along the way and found himself in rather tricky waters, eventually being forced to give up the exchange. It only delayed the inevitable as a dangerous central passed pawn proved decisive.
  From a Queens Gambit Declined, Andy laboured to prove a technical advantage in an IQP position. However his opponent, Robert Sanders, defended stubbornly. Chasing the win, Andy overpressed in a B+N endgame, and walked into an obvious tactic. Fortunately, his opponent, with only 2 minutes left on the clock, cautiously offered a draw in a now highly favourable position: which Andy had no choice but to accept.
  Although this leaves us eight points off the leaders, we have three games in hand, and as our next two league matches are against the bottom two teams, we will soon have a pretty good idea whether or not we are going to catch them.

Ipswich Sports Club is a very active place, so much so that the newly formed Chess Section already has 26 names taking part in its club championship (according to the table on the notice board anyway). And while we were playing our match, there was a mixed doubles tennis match taking place on the floodlit court in the rain outside. Such dedication! Unfortunately that activity is prone to invade the chess playing area, and the concertina doors are hardly sufficient to keep the noise out. Especially as they make even more noise when you need to open and close them to visit the loo. All very reminiscent of Felixstowe's Dooley Inn, and not somewhere you would want to play during the run up to Christmas. Ear plugs are worth considering.
  If you look at the stats, Bury, ISC and Manningtree are the highest rated teams (in that order) so we started the season thinking we would need to hold own against Bury and ISC and hope that we would score better than they do against the rest of the field. And while we did that against Bury (even though we were three men down) little did we imagine we would thump ISC, even with our full squad. Mind you it has to be said, we did have a slight head start when we discovered that for the first time this season they were without their board two, veteran Stephen Gregory.
  As the games got under way a common theme seemed to be running through the boards - expand the pawns, and after an hours play all boards were finely balanced (that's a euphemism for "didn't have a clue who stood better"). Panagiotis was the first to pick his way through the complications. His game started as a symmetrical English, with David Spence opting for the Botvinnik triangle formation (c5-d6-e5). Panagiotis failed to demonstrate any tangible opening advantage and went for a threefold repetition before move 30; this was probably not a very memorable game, but it gave us a crucial half point against their formidable board one.
  Phil then gave us our first full point of the evening. On move ten of a Caro-Kann he obtained a strong central pawn duo at the price of granting his young opponent the two Bishops. Phil then strove to keep the pawn centre under restraint, while his opponent tried to liberate it, and in conjunction with an open f-file, launch a major attack on Phil's king. To this end his opponent offered an imaginative but speculative temporary sacrifice of his knight on c3. Phil had to accept or go under but in the longer run his opponent had misjudged his attacking potential. Phil defended with central play v wing attack, taking over the central files, winning the exchange with the dark square bishop, whose counterpart had been allowed to be exchanged for a knight. Phil's opponent's back rank was weak and on move 24, Phil's queen took a bishop, putting itself en prise to his opponent's remaining rook. However, if taken he would be mated in one and if declined, would be left to play on with three pieces down, so instead he resigned.
  Of the remaining two boards, we looked to be winning on board one, but board three looked precarious, although according to Rowland, it was all under control. In an Italian, in which Rowland had spurned a fried liver, he played an early a4. But it was sometime before it advanced to a5, and by the time it got to a6 (unsupported by the way) it looked more of a liability than an asset, but in the end it proved to be the killer. Rowland played an outstanding game where every defensive move was an attack in disguise. His opponent may be a little rusty, returning for his first season in five years, but he is still a formidable force to be reckoned with and Rowland showed he can handle a quieter game just as much as one full of fireworks. And he finished the minor piece ending with precision, giving us a two point lead.
  Would we make it three with just Andy left to finish? As Black he faced Martin Fogg in a sharp, theoretical Richter-Rauzer Attack against the Classical Sicilian. Neither player knew the theory, and White offered a pawn sacrifice for nebulous compensation. When Andy seized a second pawn, a few moves later, forcing the exchange of queens, this should have been the end of the matter. However, to his credit, Martin continued to play actively, forcing Andy to play accurately, right until the end when both players were playing on the increments. On another day, Martin's tenacity might have been better rewarded.
  Coming away with 3½ points was more than we could have hoped for, and it puts us just half a point behind ISC in the table with a game in hand.

Once again we were upstairs tonight as the lighting problem in the main hall is still outstanding. And this seems to be the room of choice now, due mainly to the excellent lighting there. Mind you, it is a little bit cramped for two simultaneous matches, not helped by the fact that the smaller tables appear to have disappeared, and some of the longer ones are even longer. In spite of being significantly out-rated, Ipswich put up a spirited fight and made us work hard for our points. This result puts us second in the table and 3½ points off the lead, who we just happen to be facing in two weeks. That will be a crunch match and will no doubt go a long way towards determining who will be lifting the trophy this season. But back to tonight.
  Panagiotis and Rowland were relatively early finishers while Phil was making headway in his game where he had exchanged two minor pieces for a rook and two pawns. His perseverance paid off and he was eventually able to convert that into a win. With two and a half points from three, Andy was bringing up the rear.
  Andrew Shepherd as Black put up stubborn resistance against Andy in a Nimzo-Indian. Andy obtained a small advantage in a triple minor piece ending (B+B+N) vrs (B+N+N). The best that Andy could do was to trade pieces into a Bishop ending a pawn up. That ending was defensible with best play. However, Black had almost run himself out of time, and Andy converted his advantage without difficulty.

With three of our squad unavailable for this crucial match against fellow contenders Bury St Edmunds (the team with the highest average rating in the league), we feared we would go down heavily and suffer a huge dent in our hopes of keeping Ipswich Sports Club within touching distance. And while Bury were without two of their squad, they still out-rated us by an average of 135 points per board, so it was a great achievement to share the points with them, although we were so very close to causing quite an upset by actually winning the match.
  Jim finished first, which was a little ironic as his board was played at the slowest pace - about half that of the other three boards. After 1.e4 e5 Jim continued with the rarely seen Bishop's Opening, which explains the slow pace as both players carefully trod some unfamiliar paths. It was a solid performance, with little coming off the board, and with neither willing to risk everything on speculative manoeuvres a draw was agreed.
  It was some time before Graeme followed. He opened with a Sicilian in which his opponent gained a significant special advantage on the queen's side and Graeme came under a significant amount of pressure. His opponent miscalculated a piece exchange and recaptured with the wrong pawn and lost his b-pawn, or it could have been a deliberate sacrifice, for it didn't look like a pawn that could be held for very long. Graeme had a very long think before trying to hold on to it, for a couple of moves at any rate, and the position rapidly descended into a rook and bishop ending, with Graeme now a pawn down and a significant time deficit. And when the remaining pieces came off the pawn ending was looking decidedly precarious, but thanks to some very precise defending Graeme was able to hold on and keep the match score level.
  Meanwhile Panagiotis was putting in a tremendous performance on top board. His English had led to a fairly complicated middle game when his opponent ill advisedly captured Panagiotis's d-pawn with a bishop following which he immediately faced the loss of that piece. He had a very long think before responding, which meant he was not only material down he put himself so far behind on the clock that he ended the game on the increments. He managed to fight on however in spite of his material deficit until a pseudo rook sacrifice threatened mate in two. He declined the sacrifice of course, but Panagiotis followed it with a check whereby the only legal move was to accept the sacrifice, so he resigned instead.
  We now found ourselves in the unexpected position of being ahead, and an assessment of Bob's position gave us reasonable grounds for hope that things would end that way. Bob kept his usual Modern approach and developed very well to equalise out of the opening. The board was threatening to become pawn-locked and as the pieces were exchanged we entered a rook and bishop ending with seven pawns each. On top of that, the bishops were of opposite colours, so a draw looked decidedly possible. Time was running low for both players, and Bob's opponent was clearly not going to be satisfied until he'd exhausted all avenues. Had Bob been able to exchange the rooks a draw would be easy, but constant attempts to break through finally succeeded when Bob ran out of moves and had to resign when his bishop got trapped and could not be saved.
  Considering how things could have gone, we were very happy with a draw. And while we may be seven points off the top, we have two games in hand, so a couple of 3-1 wins and we're back in the fray. Not much to ask is it?

Our first match of the new season, and we were hoping to emulate the demolition job Ipswich Sports Club had inflicted on Sudbury two days earlier. After all, the title could well be decided on how well the top three teams handle the bottom three. Rowland got us off to a good start, finishing first, and some way. He quickly established an advantage with the white pieces and wasted no time pressing home with it.
  It was quite a while before Panagiotis made it 2-0. He faced a Dutch opening and had a slightly better position throughout the opening. His opponent started burning time on the clock and soon enough Black's position became unpleasant. Down to a few minutes, Black moved his knight to b4 and resigned after Panagiotis responded by playing a5 with tempo (and taking that square away from Black's a-pawn), as the knight would soon be captured.
  Phil made it 3-0 after a trendy White line in the Caro Kann Exchange System (6.h3) quickly led to a set-up where Black gets the 2 Bishops at the price of an isolani d-pawn. Then Lots of manoeuvring for an advantage by both sides with nothing tangible, until Black grabbed White's a4 pawn on Move 25, unleashing a ten move flurry of tactics almost from nothing. The isolani d-pawn unisolates itself and becomes the hero of the hour, advancing to e3, granting his comrades a monster attack against White's king, none of which the player of the Black pieces had planned or anticipated. White wards off mate at an overly high price in material, counters with verve, traps and tricks but has to resign on move 40.
  Three nil up, but the chances of getting a clean sweep were looking very slim. Something went badly wrong for Andy against Tim Lunn's anti-King's Indian Smyslov System. Tim achieved a huge space advantage with powerful constraining pawns on d5 and f5, and a half-open h-file from which to attack the Black King. Both players ran short of time, and either side might have won in the chaos of the final 20 moves. An entertaining game to watch, from which a draw was probably the only fair outcome.