We arrived at Clifton to find James Cobb missing from their team, which still had plenty of strength in depth, so it looked like a tough night.

In my game I gave every impression of having very little clue of how to play a blockading structure in a French Defence, whilst Duncan had a very clear grasp of how to storm forward on the kingside and open up my position decisively.1-0 down then but plenty of time to enjoy/stress over the other five games, as well as watching a spot of tennis.

Looking round the games all appeared fairly balanced, and indeed Peter soon drew with Dave Collier in a game in which, unusually for him, not much seemed to happen. Maybe the excitement was all in the notes. In the other games Oscar on Board1 had developed successfully, but I never understand his games, Steve v Gareth Morris was on the black side of a typical Kings Indian ending, Aron had a queenless middlegame with a symmetrical pawn structure v John Curtis, and Martin's position had chances for both sides, with Dominic Goodwin having some attacking chances but his centre pawns on d4 and e4 were subject to plenty of pressure from Martin's pieces.

The next game to finish was the top board. I didn't see much of what happened but Chris Beaumont won a pawn and then wrapped things up efficiently. 0.5-2.5 down bur there was plenty of action to come. On Board 6 Dominic sacrificed the exchange to open up Martin's king a bit, but Martin had everything under control as he ran short of time and gave the exchange back to reach an ending with R and N each but three extra (not very mobile) pawns. Martin kept the enemy pieces under control, forced the rooks off, and, with the knight unable to restrain the pawns on both sides of the board, promoted three of them to clinch mate. 1.5-2.5 and hope was still alive.

Steve had been under pressure and lost a pawn but he successfully blockaded with his king and, despite great efforts from Gareth, Steve's pieces were active enough to clinch the draw. A fine defensive effort! Finally we turn to Aron's battle. He had engineered an outside passed pawn which cost John the exchange but it still looked as if the win was difficult as John had chances of a blockade on the dark squares. Aron produced some fine and delicate dancing with his king to infiltrate via b7 towards d5 after which a pawn was to be won and the win was certain.

A match that could easily have gone against us and to be viewed as a point won.