Being paired against the second weakest team seemed to be a blessing in the first round of this year's competition. But in the end the opponents proved their low grades only by failing one after another to seal victory, giving us a chance to escape a huge and embarrassing disaster.
There were 44 teams in the starting line-up, compared to 48 last year. On the table we were 400 points above our opponents. The current FIDE conversion (FIDE = ECF x 7.5 + 700) makes this equivalent to 57 ECF points per board.
| Team | Av. Grade | | e2e4.org.uk 2 | 2138 | | Fermented Sharks | 2133 | | Broadland Bitterns (1) | 2123 | | Downend & Fishponds | 2111 | | Leeds University Old Boys | 2091 | | Poisoned Pawns | 2077 | | Surbiton 1 | 2067 | | West is Best 1 | 2056 | | Celtic Tigers 1 | 2049 | | Anglian Avengers 2 | 2037 | | Guildford 4 | 2021 | | Iceni 1 | 2011 | | Shropshire | 2009 | | e2e4.org.uk 3 | 1984 | | The Rookies | 1971 | | Warwickshire Select 2 | 1949 | | Oxford 2 | 1949 | | Ashfield-Breadsall | 1945 | | The Full Ponty | 1935 | | Witney Brown Jack | 1927 | | Rhyfelwyr Essyllwg 2 | 1911 | | Barnet Knights 1 | 1882 | | Surbiton 2 | 1880 | | Iceni 2 | 1875 | | Cambridge University 3 | 1867 | | e2e4.org.uk 4 | 1865 | | West is Best 2 | 1864 | | Anglian Avengers 3 | 1848 | | Hackney 2 | 1847 | | MK Phoenix 2 | 1839 | | BCM Rhinos (2) | 1830 | | Sussex Martlets 2 | 1829 | | KJCA Knights | 1813 | | Midland Monarchs 1 | 1800 | | Celtic Tigers 2 | 1790 | | Banbury Bulldogs | 1787 | | The Pitstop | 1759 | | Check Us Out | 1747 | | Throw in the Tal | 1722 | | e2e4.org.uk 5 | 1719 | | Oxford 3 | 1669 | | BCM Hippos (3) | 1652 | | Barnet Knights 2 | 1648 | | Barnet Knights 3 | 1414 |
The match started well enough, with Mike and Martin both winning easily; however things started to go wrong when David failed to defend against a-pawn sacrifice and bombed horribly. Soon Chris fell into a poor position and Jerry failed to find a decent plan and rapidly came under pressure. Meanwhile Richard tried too hard to win and allowed a dangerous passed-pawn.
The second half of the session proved more fruitful, as Chris's opponent missed a clearly winning fork and swapped off queens, immediately agreeing a draw despite still having a slightly better position. Jerry's opponent pulled his pieces back and became passive, allowing a combination into a winning endgame. Richard performed a miraculous save to draw his game the exchange down, so the end result looked quite reasonable.
In the evening we went out to live it up in the heart of Daventry, which consists mainly of a high street with three pubs and a couple of restaurants, but the Wetherspoon's was quite enough for our entertainment. Back at the hotel a poker session till 2 in the morning set us up in good shape for the next day.