With any hopes of the league title flickering faintly at best we met the current front runners, hoping to avenge our defeat in December. They arrived with strength in depth, whilst we had James Thomas standing in as a very capable late replacement due to illness.

The early excitement came in my (Nigel) game v Peter Kirby. An imprecise move order gave Peter the chance to play a somewhat speculative sacrifice of a queen for two bishops, a pawn and lots of dynamic chances. I didn’t find the best way to counter it but, by giving up the exchange to eliminate the black squared bishop, I was able to set up a rickety black square blockade and, after some inaccuracies from both sides, a repetition clinched the draw.

Many of the other games were balanced, Board two saw a gradual reduction in material to a level knight ending, draw. On board one Steve lost a pawn in a knight ending but managed to eliminate enough pawns, draw. On board three Peter had the worse pawn structure but his active rook and queen won a pawn to leave a queen ending with three pawns against two all one the kingside, draw. Dave Tipper on board six had tried a Danish Gambit which produced a position where Phil had weak doubled pawns but Dave’s isolated queen’s pawn and inferior bishop prevented progress, draw.

So five draws so far and everything hanging on James’ game against the experienced and strong Steve Dilleigh. James put up a great fight but Steve won a pawn and then sacrificed the exchange to establish a huge central pawn majority which he carefully rolled forward to victory.

A deserved win for Horfield in a match played in a friendly atmosphere and they would be worthy title winners.

Nigel Hosken