With Chris unavailable (or as I choose to understand it, "too lazy to play"), Mike Brigden volunteered to step in and fill the space, playing two games in two days, so our thanks go to him. Nevertheless, we appeared to out-grade our opponents by a reasonable margin and it was only current form that could stop us.
Right from the off, Henry appeared to be going for the win, launching an ambitious hack against Buckers' fianchettoed defence. Afterwards a number of the spectators said that it appeared that although Henry had allowed a position black queen invasion on the queenside, mate was inevitable. A rare sight on the board of over 200s. Richard was playing a line I recognised from a game last year that we all agreed "just lost a-pawn for absolutely no compensation" which he had somehow won, presumably with all that compensation. In any case, Rob hadn't been greedy and left material level which, according to my calculations, meant Richard was actually a-pawn up on where he should have been. Charlie and Barry appeared to be manoeuvring in a dragon-less Accelerated Dragon.
Mike's game had a calm opening without too many fireworks, saving the complications for a little later. Jerry faced a trappy opening but having spent so much time blitzing with Chris, knew exactly what he was doing. My opening also appeared relatively serene, although I was shown afterwards that there were a number of subtleties (and tactics) that I hadn't understood which left me on the back foot.
Henry, having failed miserably to mate his 205 opponent within 15 moves, appeared to be creating new attacking possibilities and eventually sacrificed a knight in order to expose black's king. Richard's game made very slow progress, and Barry's dragon finally emerged from its cave though Charlie appeared to have a favourable setup against it and eventually won black's isolated d-pawn. Mike's game looked like the sort of position I'd been hoping for in mine, with pieces slowly swapping off to an endgame in which black's pawn structure was marginally worse but with a more active king. Jerry was focussing on a weak queenside pawn but was just unable to find a plan to finally snap it off. Having played an interesting idea, but with an incorrect continuation, my pieces had become very awkwardly placed and eventually I was compelled to give up an exchange, after which the fate of my game was hardly in doubt. Spectating Dave Tipper suggested that my only hope could be a good poker-face though I suspect he may have meant pocket-Fritz. Mike was offered a draw in his game but after perusing the other boards felt he had to continue.
Not long after my game collapsed Henry's attacks ran out and he found himself defending, down a piece for a handful of-pawns and soon we were down 0-2. Not all hope was lost however, as Charlie managed to convert his extra pawn advantage. Unfortunately, Mike's position didn't have enough life in it to allow for real winning chances for either side and eventually the draw was agreed, as was Jerry's game. This left all the pressure on Richard to win and save the match. Not a problem, we assumed, after all, he's carried the team so far this season. Time was getting short and made all the more difficult by the digital clock having been replaced by an analogue clock earlier in the match, but he had an extra piece for two pawns. Despite-pawns being exchanged Richard appeared to be reasonable progress centralising his king and putting pressure on a number of weaker squares. Rob invaded with a rook and the fight appeared to be on. However, a subsequent check was met with a stunned silence as the crowd slowly noticed black's king was suspiciously low on squares. It was certainly an unexpected and disappointing end to the match, seeing a rook, knight and-pawns checkmate in the middle of the board.
Having enjoyed the thrill of a title race last season, I've chosen to believe that the team has decided to take it easy and aim for mid-table.