We traveled outside Bristol for the second successive match, hoping for another good win but aware that Bath are always strong opposition. We were missing Oscar but Dave had lined up Reinhold as a strong replacement, so with John Stubbs helping with the transport we were ready for action. It soon became clear that the customary backing track of 60s music was not going to appear, but it had been replaced by a phone which rang very loudly and unexpectedly.

More predictable was the short draw on Board 1 where Steve again showed his ability to keep David Buckley at bay. Always a useful half point to get us going. Reinhold produced some 16 moves of theory in a sharp line of the King's Indian and, when Clive was tempted into a knight check on e3 rather than developing his bishop on f5, he was able to exploit his active pieces and Clive's undeveloped queenside to win material and shortly afterwards the game.

The other games were not going badly for us. On Board 2 Roy Philips' early queenside pawn advances had not worried Aron and had produced a roughly equal middle game. On Board 3 I was trying to advance on the queenside and making optically good progress. Peter had transposed into a French type position and his h5 thrust was looking like a strong attempt to whip up an attack on Rob Hearne's castled king. Board 6 had seen an unusual line in which Martin had an awkward looking pawn on d6 but plenty of piece activity to compensate for it.

Peter's attack grew in power as Rob reacted a little too slowly with pawn moves when some piece action to b5 was needed and then, when he failed to attempt to counter the attack on g2 with Qf3, Peter's attack crashed through with even the passive white squared bishop being released with d4.A useful match score of 2.5-0.5 in our favour.

My game now became very tense as I avoided the promising pawn thrust 20 c5 in favour of some oversubtle knight play which gave Steve a chance to break out and, although I ended up with a useful c pawn, which the computer says gives me some small advantage, the human reality was that I was running short of time and his knight was bouncing all around my position. I managed to drive it back and to prevent his queen joining in on some sneaky mating attack. When I got my queen to b7 with less than 2 minutes left I was happy to offer the draw which was likely to clinch the match as the other games were going in our favour. The position was drawn as after ….Qxa5 I can win a pawn but Steve can force a perpetual check. Both players were relieved.

Aron now generated an attack on Roy's king and despite apparently missing a tactic with 22 …. Nxf4 a similar chance presented itself after Roy had failed to bring his queen to the defence with Qf1 instead of Kg2. Aron wrapped up the win as he usually does. Finally Martin had maintained his piece activity and converted it into a won rook ending in professional fashion.

So we were pleased to finish with a final score of 5-1 and even more pleased to be visited by Mike Brigden who is not playing these days but enjoyed watching us struggling with the stress of it all. Mike is keeping well and enjoying this phase of his life and sends very wishes to all club members.