I was unavailable for the trip to the spa city but I wasn’t unduly bothered since I remembered that the last time I went there the din from the bar next door was totally unacceptable. And so it happened again and this time our WhatsApp group has made some very critical comments about the noisy bar staff.
Anyway, we prevailed despite the racket and there were some very interesting moments. But first, we are extremely grateful to Alan, our “chauffeur extraordinaire”, for stepping in at short notice to take half the team to Bath after Dan’s car had a poorly fit.
The games finished approximately in reverse board order. John , “very unwisely” according to him, advanced his b-pawn on move 9 before bringing the knight out, allowing his opponent to attack his rook. He somehow managed not to lose any material but was always on the defensive after that. He reckons he hasn’t lost in the League to anyone so young for at least 15 years.
Dan mistakenly opened up his kingside and weakened his light squares, and when his opponent managed to force a trade of the light squared bishops he lost key defensive resources which let in the enemy queen and knight. “It looked like I’d found a perpetual but he found a nice temporary piece sacrifice which I fell for and then promptly resigned after a few more moves.”
Dave played solidly with Black against Nick until the latter had a Baldrick moment. His cunning plan to win material backfired spectacularly and one move later he resigned. Nicely refuted, Dave!
Elmira was not happy with a pawn move of hers early in the proceedings which could have led to the loss of a piece but Andreas missed the opportunity. After that, El applied pressure which Black was unable to resist and, with the gain of a piece of her own, she was able to convert the win in straightforward fashion.
Alan made a finger slip and touched the wrong bishop which led to a level game instead of a winning one. Later on Bob showed great sportsmanship by not pressing for a win so board two was halved.
Aleksei forced Christian to spend a lot of time trying to find the best defence against some serious threats down the h file. Chances were missed on both sides but on move 29 Black ran out of time in a position that was becoming very hard to defend with the clock running down.
So, the upshot of all that was a handy narrow win against another C team. We took our chances and are now level on top of division three with two wins out of two.