With all of our A team away for varying but legitimate reasons, and with Bury unable to offer us a suitable date for a postponement, we were forced to field an ad hoc B/C team combination with the inevitable result. It's not that our three intrepids didn't make a good fist of it, they most certainly did, nor that any of them couldn't have overcome such opposition on a good day, but today was destined not to be a good day for any of them.
 This was made all the worse by the 4-0 drubbing that Ipswich Sports Club gave Ipswich A the previous day, which opens a two and a half point gap between us, and gives us a mountain to climb. Well, climbing boots, harnesses, ropes and oxygen tanks to the ready, we have two more matches before Christmas to close that gap.

In spite of a total of nearly 900 rating points separating theses two teams, this was far from a straightforward win for Manningtree. All boards were tightly contested and it was a long time before Andy brought home our first point. His game started as a straightforward QGD but as it developed it looked far from straightforward. A pair of doubled pawns gave him a half open d-file into which he advanced a solo pawn to the seventh, which protected by an immoveable knight gave Peter Coleman a rather cramped position. But he defended well and it was a long time before Andy was able to bring his king among the vulnerable king side pawns (by now Andy was half an hour behind on the clock). Being careful not to allow any rear guard counter play Andy was finally able to make that advanced pawn pay.
  Some time later Phil and Bob finished their games almost simultaneously. In Phil's game Andrew Donnelly blundered the exchange on move 13. However, two moves later Phil allowed Andrew to regain the exchange and gain a pawn as well, but Andrew didn't see it! Seven moves later, with Andrew's position collapsing, Phil missed a forced Mate in 3 and 2 moves on missed winning Andrew's queen very cheaply. However, on move 32 Phil forced the exchange of Queens, creating an easy to win endgame (for any half decent player) being the exchange up. Phil then blundered the exchange back but in the ensuing opposite coloured bishop ending he had enough extra pawns (3 of them!) to at last force Andrew's resignation. A game in which both players will want to forget as neither deserved to win.
  Bob's game was wild with errors on both sides, although at one point it looked curtains for Bob, with Robert Kent having a pawn on h2, and a host of pieces threatening mate, his attack would have been held at bay with accurate play. The game started off as a Reti opening with black opting for the "Great Snake Variation" with e5 and f5 which usually suggests a pawn storm on the king's side by black. This duly arrived and handed Robert the initiative after a couple of dubious moves by Bob. However, Robert could not find a way through despite going a piece up. One possible disadvantage of this variation is that in pursuing his attack, the black king does not castle and is left in the middle of the board so potentially open to attack should the opportunity present itself and for most of the game, Robert's queen's rook is not in the game. Robert had a couple of opportunities to really apply pressure but missed them and after queens were exchanged, Bob missed a relatively simple opportunity to win back the piece lost earlier by playing moves in the wrong order. The resulting end-game saw Robert with a knight, rook and three pawns versus Bob's rook and five pawns, which should have been winning for Robert, but a final error meant the black knight was lost and the game ended in a draw.
  Meanwhile on board one Panagiotis was still trying to break down Rob Sanders and Rob was doing a sterling job trying not to be broken down. All of the major pieces had come off and an endgame ensued with a bishop, knight and six pawns each. Panagiotis's main plus point was a passed and protected central pawn, but it was proving extremely hard to make progress against Rob's stubborn defence. Eventually that central pawn was accompanied with another, but Rob now also had a passed and protected king side pawn. And then disaster for Rob! After a long range check from Panagiotis's bishop Rob could drop his king back to maintain his stubborn defence, or move up the board and help the advance his pawns. With less than two minutes to decide he chose the advance and the king was promptly skewered against his knight by the bishop. Seeing that he was about to lose the knight Rob resigned.
  We had a fair bit of luck tonight, which keeps us in contention, but there is still a very long way to go.

We obviously couldn't have hoped for a better result, but it was far from plain sailing. Bob was probably the least troubled and got the upper hand quite early. To prevent a smothered mate Hugo had to give up the exchange but was mated anyway a few moves later. Panagiotis had a typically complicated game that appeared to the novice observer that it could have gone either way at times. Meanwhile Phil ground down his opponent one pawn at a time putting us 3-0 up.
  Andy's game was another long grind. John Feavyour put up considerable resistance, particularly after an enterprising exchange sacrifice, which meant Andy had to be equally enterprising. As the ending approached it seemed as though John's bishop was sufficient to hold his position together so Andy gave the exchange back for an advantageous rook and pawn ending. That however was far from guaranteed and Andy had to advance his pawn majority with great patience as John proved a very resourceful opponent. Eventually Andy succeeded and John resigned when the queening of a pawn could no longer be prevented.
  A comfortable win on paper, but a lot of work went into it, keeping alive our challenge for the top spot.

We travelled to Stowmarket knowing that Ipswich Sports Club had taken 3½ points from them just two weeks earlier, so we needed to do at least the same to have any hope of retaining the division one trophy. And it is a great credit to the team for achieving that because they had to fight for every square as Stowmarket put up stubborn resistance on every board, even when losing. The match began without any fireworks but rather with more cautious manoeuvring with each player seeking that crucial positional advantage - in fact after half an hour of play not so much as a single pawn or piece had been exchanged.
  Nowhere was this more evident than on board three where Phil had tried a queen's side fianchetto to his opponent's Sicilian but got himself stuck with a backward central pawn. After two hours of manoeuvring the board was looking rather crowded and cramped - just a single minor piece and a single pawn from each player had left the board and it was hard to see how either side could make much progress. Not long after that Phil and James reached the same conclusion, thus each team chalked up half point to open the scoring.
  Andy wasn't far behind as his position had started to open up before the others. His opponent, Stephen Lewis, tried the Barry Attack for the third time in succession - with an identical result to their previous two encounters in this opening. Stephen started off in enterprising fashion with an early h4, but that never troubled Andy's King's side. Later Stephen got his minor pieces tangled up after unwisely taking a hanging pawn and had to concede a piece for two pawns and a lost endgame with two bishops v one on move 17. Needles to say, the extra bishop was more than a match for the two pawns.
  Panagiotis wielded his English with his customary flair for complications, which cause Tim Lunn to consume considerably more time. However, Tim is nothing if not resourceful, and was able to mix the game considerably. After a complex series of tactical exchanges Panagiotis was able to pick up a pawn, but this was no longer a game in which the pawns featured very much - the 4v3 pawn advantage Panagiotis enjoyed was unusual in that all seven pawns were isolated. It was the piece play that now dominated and each tactical threat seemed to be answered with another one. Tim may have been able to hold things together had he not missed a crucial line in the closing minutes, but then he was getting very short on time and the position was still on a knife edge.
  Bob had faced probably the most aggressive start with a phalanx of three pawns approaching the centre of his Modern Defence. It took a while for him to get to grips with the game and as the middle game approached the endgame, things were still all square. Then Bob saw the opportunity of grabbing what appeared to be a defended pawn with his knight, but a second pawn would have fallen if the knight had been captured. Although a pawn up the ending was far from won - they had a bishop and knight each with the bishops being of opposite colours. Josh Cobbold is clearly capable of playing a lot better than his rating would suggest, but he made a strategic mistake of exchanging his knight for Bob's bishop, significantly reducing his drawing chances. The game was probably still drawn but Bob was determined to get the 3#189; points we needed and in what looked like one of those puzzles we had in our coaching sessions where you have to find the only winning move, Bob played a blinder and found that very move.
  An excellent result for us, but unfortunately 24 hours later Ipswich Sports Club defeated Sudbury with another 3½-½ scoreline keeping themselves firmly in pole position.