Our hopes of the league title had disappeared, but we still had an iron in the fire with a cup semi-final against Bristol and Clifton. As usual John had done a great job assembling a side with strength and depth whilst Bristol and Clifton had a familiar looking top six with new faces on the bottom two boards.

Steve equalized quickly against Duncan on Board 4 and settled for a draw while Max on Board 7 won a pawn early on and displaced his opponent’s king with a Bxf7 trick. The position became a little murky but black could not develop properly and his king was hunted to destruction. Peter on Board 8 had no opening problems and could have tried for more in the first ten moves. He was happy to settle for many early exchanges after which his opponent sacrificed an exchange to get a dangerous looking rook on the seventh. Peter hit back with some active play and, despite missing a fleeting chance to trap the white rook by returning the exchange on move 29, steered the game into a drawn rook ending. Early results had thus given us a 2-1 lead, but there was far to go.

How did the other boards look? On top board Oli had a promising looking position against Chris, with strong control of the d file, Aron’s position looked solid and then he picked up a pawn with a threat to trap Colin’s queen, Oscar was seeking an imbalance, never easy against John. On Board 5 Mike was gaining some space advantage but Dave’s position looked solid. Solid was not the word for Board 6 where I (Nigel) had launched my kingside pawns at Gareth’s king without bothering too much about my uncastled king. Overall the match was edging our way.

My game turned out to be all I could hope for; despite my king being forced to pirouette to d7 and then c7 to release the bishop on c8, I was able to break through on the g file with a mating attack. Aron picked up another pawn and kept complete control of the tactics so we were now 4-1 up. Mike had continued pressing and Dave’s bishop looked worse and worse, but there was no breakthrough to be found and Dave’s defiant defence led to his queen being able to break out and aim for a perpetual check, so Mike took the draw which clinched the match for us.

Meanwhile Oli’s advantage had been dissipated as he simplified too far too fast and a drawn ending was reached which for just one move was winning for Chris, but he missed the tactic and a draw was agreed. The match was finished off by Oscar who gave the crowd some entertainment. He had a rook and two knights versus John’s two rooks and a bishop, but with time short the knights pranced about and were difficult to rein in. Ultimately John lost a couple of pawns and the exchange to leave Oscar with a won rook ending, and Downend with a 6-2 win on the night with no losses. We now travel to Bath in early May for what will no doubt be a keenly contested final.