For the match against Clifton A we were lacking two regulars as Charlie was unavailable and your regular reporter, Mike, indisposed. So Nigel and I stood in...with mixed fortunes.

I had a reasonable game against Dave until I missed a re-capture that was blindingly obvious to everyone else and soon drifted into a hopeless position. Meanwhile Henry had the doubtful pleasure of black against James, not a pleasant prospect at the best of times and on this occasion he had trouble developing his QB. When the KB succumbed to an exchange sacrifice, white's bishops dominated the board, some-pawns were lost and an unsavable ending was reached.

So, two down and I am uncertain of the precise order in which the remaining games finished as I was in the other room having the error of my ways pointed out. But certainly Chris and Jerry both drew their games - Jerry had a threatening looking-pawn on the seventh but when this finally fell, Duncan was able to equalise. Chris definitely had the worse of a knight and-pawn ending against John and he said afterwards he was a bit lucky but he had done really well to hang in there.

Now with a 1-3 deficit we needed two wins to get anything from the match. In these later stages, the clock began to play a part. Richard came from a seemingly awkward position against Gareth - first he eliminated an advanced-pawn that was deep in his position and then as he developed threats of his own he was able to win a piece (actually there was an even better line that won the queen, but no matter!) and subsequently achieved a mating attack. Meanwhile Nigel built pressure steadily against Dominic and sacrificed the exchange for a-pawn or two. He was able to use his time advantage to see this through to clinch his third win in six days against serious opposition for an average grading score of no less than 242! Well done indeed.

Coming back from the brink of defeat is always nicer than the other way round and, considering Clifton are joint league leaders, I guess we can consider this a good point saved. Let's see if we can go one better next week at the draw specialists, Bath.