Clevedon brought a strong and experienced B team to play our C team, so we knew we would be in for a tough fight.

Stuart treated Keith to his favourite Polish Opening. After 14 moves of jockeying around, neither side had seen fit to castle and the position was level, although Keith's pawns were somewhat more raggedy. Both Queens were eyeing up attacking possibilities as the position became more unbalanced. Then Keith allowed Stuart to grab his g pawn, attacking the undefended rook on h8 and with a back rank check to follow, picking up the other rook on a8. Very nasty, except that Keith had the perfect refutation in the form of mate in two! If Stuart hadn't helped himself to the second rook but kept his Queen more central he would have been the exchange up with winning chances but well done to Keith for laying such a diabolical trap. All over on move 20!

In no particular order, first Haroon, with Black, was under a certain amount of pressure against David, who had given up the two bishops but retained a slight edge. However he missed the best continuation and reached a heavy piece ending a passed pawn down. He blockaded it and threatened to win it back for several moves but, when he finally grabbed it, Haroon had seen further and emerged a whole rook up.

Tom had White against Oliver and was level after 16 moves in a position where he had castled King-side while a phalanx of enemy pawns was looming towards him. He should probably have avoided letting them march on and incarcerate his bishop on h1. A few moves later he was obliged to give up that bishop for a couple of pawns but he did have interesting play against Oliver's King which by now was somewhat exposed on the f file. Tom was able to open that file and, with complete control of the d and f files, although still a knight down, he so dominated the board that Oliver could only gain any freedom by giving up his Queen for a rook, which turned out to be a hopeless venture. To quote Tom, it had been a bit of a Houdini effort.

Elmira had Black against Brian and lined up all her pieces to attack the enemy King, by her own admission, slightly prematurely. In the event nearly all the pieces came off and with each side holding R + N + 5 pawns it drifted to a level ending with the point shared.

Alexis was holding Jason for much of his game but went astray in the later stages.

Finally we have James’ game which by all accounts ended with an exciting exchange sacrifice, leading to our fourth win of the night. More detail to be added later!

So the final score was 4½-1½ and an excellent first win for the C team.