Two new faces, both young ones, came in for the match against Horfield's second team. We expected a tough match, knowing their strength in depth.

First to finish were Dave T and me, who both held our opponents (Peter and Nigel, respectively) fairly comfortably and left it to somebody else to find the wins.

Tom was the first to oblige, building pressure against Scott down the open f file. This led to the win of material, followed by wholesale liquidation of all the pieces, leaving him with a remote passed pawn which forced immediate resignation. It had been a nicely constructed assault, resulting in a well deserved victory.

James was the first of the newcomers, facing the very experienced Graham. He gave us a bit of a masterclass in using a positional advantage to eke out the win of both a pawn and a significantly better time on the clock. It came down to R plus 3 K-side pawns against R plus 2 and he demonstrated excellent technique to force the rooks off in a position where he could win a decisive second pawn. This gave us a 3-1 lead, although the loss of the other two boards would mean losing on board count, so there was still plenty at stake.

Dave W had built a big plus against Alex by move 15, having won a piece, but he missed the best follow up and the advantage drifted lower until, in a critical position, he probably made a wrong choice and came out with B + N for R and a couple of pawns. But he made the most of the two minor pieces and, by the time James had won, was in a comfortable enough position to offer a draw to clinch the match. Alex, being aware of the match situation, declined and tried something but it didn't work and the game was soon over in our favour, making us 4-1 up.

The other new face was Toby, who was coming out of a long period of self-enforced retirement. (In fact, according to the ECF rating list, he hadn't played for two years!) So, it was a bit of a risk giving him Black against Rob on board one but we needn't have worried because, rusty or not, he defended stubbornly while Rob probed, even though he was down to just a minute for the last dozen or so moves. It was very well defended and he deserved the draw which came after 30 tense moves. Let's hope this has given him the appetite for more of the same.

Meanwhile our other team, the Bishops, were mirroring this performance at Bath. In other words, unfortunately, we lost tough games on the bottom three boards. But not before Tena had another excellent result, beating Clive Walley, while Jack and James drew on boards 2 and 3. We shall have another go at Bath in the semifinal when the Rooks go there on 5th April to try to reverse yesterday's result.