I arrived in Clevedon in mid afternoon with time to walk around the southern headland and enjoy my sandwiches sitting on the sea front before making my way up to the Clevedon venue to find that they had strengthened their side with a few new players so a close contest was in prospect.

Aron was first to finish as Hugo weakened his kingside with some early pawn advances. This gave Aron the chance to sacrifice a bishop temporarily to pick up a loose knight on a5, after which the exposed black king enabled Aron to finish off efficiently. Next to be done was Martin on board 6. His opponent lunged forward on the kingside without castling and Martin's classical centre counterthrust soon won a piece and the game. At this stage my opponent offered me a draw and I had a chance to weigh up the other games before making a decision.

Oscar's position was looking good, a pawn up with the enemy king stuck in the centre. Steve had equalized on the black side of a King's Indian, with the central pawn push e4, but his omission of d5 to support it had enabled Kevin to open the centre and launch an attack on the black king. A knight had been sacrificed on h5, whereas increasing the pressure by doubling rooks on the f file may well have been better. Nonetheless if was not clear (to me at least) who was winning. Peter had played an unorthodox opening in which he had sacrificed a pawn for good practical chances and indeed my some aged Fritz6 rates the position as levelish.

Given all this I decided to play on in an ending with a symmetrical pawn structure but with B and N against 2N. Remarkably I had had a very similar ending with colours reversed a fortnight earlier and had struggled to hold it, so I felt the omens were promising.

Steve's position was soon resolved in his favour.23 Qg5 followed by bringing the R to the f file was better; maybe Kevin missed that he couldn't recover the N on c7 because 32...Qg3 would be a decisive counterattack. Peter's position fell away as Matthew consolidated. I managed to restrict my opponent's knights and breakthrough with the king to clinch the game whilst Oscar reached a rook ending with an extra pawn which he converted calmly.

So a match in which we always looked like ending up on the winning side finished with a somewhat flattering 5-1 scoreline. Off to Regency Bath next!