Nigel was not available for this match against Horfield A, who were also not at completely full strength but we were glad that Dominique was able to step in.

The top two boards featured some early skirmishing as Steve gave up a pawn against Callum for promising prospects against an un-castled King, while Oscar also gave up material against Derek, the exchange in his case, for an extra pawn and considerable Queen-side pressure.

Meanwhile, Peter was playing one of his wacky innovative openings against his namesake. He, too, shed a pawn although it was potentially only a worthless doubled one. By the time he had regained it, both pairs of rooks had some threats but they pretty much cancelled each other out and White had to settle for a draw. Little did our Peter know how important that would turn out to be!

Dominique certainly had the better of it in the opening exchanges against Phil. By move 25 he had built a comfortable two pawn advantage but possibly the clock had a hand in causing Dominique to overlook the peril that his bishop was in. After it was lost that game unfortunately went rapidly South.

Aron was overdue for the Black pieces, so he took board four against Andy and soon had a very unclear game. Aron castled and then un-castled, to leave both Kings under threat of potential enemy invasion. By move 36 Aron was still a pawn down but then Andy overlooked a strong continuation and compounded his error by blundering a piece next move. I think we can admit that Aron got a bit lucky on this occasion but, as they say, you make your own luck in this game!

All of which meant that the match was now tied and we have to thank Dave for taking a few snapshots of Martin's game with John to enable it to be re-constructed. The game was level when John snaffled a loose pawn that was close to a somewhat denuded Black King. It looked right and so did a knight check on the next move but all that it achieved, in fact, was the probable loss of the exchange. John tried a different tack which instead lost a knight for a couple of pawns. Once the Queens came off Martin was able to make the extra material tell.

Around the same time Oscar made his linked a and b pawns count with a neat manoeuvre to force one of them home, which clinched the match for us. Although Steve was a piece down by now, he had various threats but Black had just enough resources to stave off any serious disadvantage. A win for Callum meant that Black had won five of the six games so it was only now that we were able to recognize the importance of Peter holding on with White on board three!