The Ides of March, not as bad for us as they were for Julius Caesar, but it was the day on which our dreams of sneaking away with the Division One title were revealed to be fantasies as we played against University A.

Steve Meek was first to finish with a draw, having missed a chance of a great advantage on move 13 with a central pawn thrust. This was followed shortly afterwards with my (Nigel) draw on Board 5. My opening line (trendy in the 1970s) was well known by my opponent who quickly reached an ending where he had some initiative. Fortunately I was able to further simplify to a rook ending where I was a pawn down but my active rook secured the draw.

The draws kept coming as Peter misplayed the opening and failed to generate enough play for it. He reached a lost position several pawns down but then displayed his resilience to escape with a neat tactic involving a pseudo rook sac which could not be taken due to a mating threat. The next draw came on Board 4 as Mark’s play around the weak white squares near the king persuaded Ian to repeat the position.

A rare event happened on Board 1 where Oscar could not infuse any excitement into the position, a draw was agreed. Finally Aron was a couple of pawns down but with a great knight on d5 blockading the backward pawn on d4. Aron had to settle for his knight getting pushed back so he could regain one of the pawns. James seemed to have him tied up and Rc8 looked very promising but he allowed Aron to rearrange his pieces and escape to a rook ending where it proved impossible to convert the extra pawn as Aron defended immaculately so the sixth draw ensued.

A drawn match, with all six games drawn, a rare event and a result which means we can’t catch Bath, though we will be out to win the match at their venue in April.