It was not exactly an inspiring first half of the season for the B-team. But what a relief to finish with a couple of points to cement a mid-table position - though I'm not sure I should call it respectable!

Andrew C was indisposed fairly late in the day so we had to budge up on the White boards and were very grateful that Aron was able to play at short notice. Clevedon had also called in some unexpected players, which had the effect of nullifying any forward planning we might have done.

Matt arrived rather hot and bothered, having had trouble finding our new venue, which of course had changed since he last played for us. I managed to pick up a pawn and then he blundered a knight, after which the matterial advantage told and I was relieved that he didn't play on to try for a swindle.

Meanwhile Oli and Max seemed set on a junior grandmaster draw and they soon shared the point once they were each left with just a bishop and some defendable pawns. It was a good result for us on board three as Oli had stubbed out any possibility of his opponent max-ing out with White.

Peter had evidently prepared something a bit tasty for Steve. At the cost of a pawn gambit, he built a dangerous King-side attack and could utilize a hole on f6 and gang up on Steve's f-pawn. But the attack petered out when Steve got the queens and a pair of rooks off. It became a knight ending with an extra pawn and a better King position and absolutely no timidity as Steve posed too many threats for Peter to try to counter.

The bottom two boards were harder to call. If anything I thought Aron had the edge against Chris (he certainly seemed to be calling all the shots) but the opposite applied to Andrew versus Stuart.

Chris activated his queen to try to get counter-play, only to come under constant attack from Aron's knights and rooks. Somehow one of the knights dropped off and with that there was no way back for Aron which was a shame after such a spirited effort against an experienced strong opponent

I am not sure If Andrew had prepared for the possibility of facing Stuart, probably not so he almost certainly hadn't had a chance to polish up his openings accordingly. He had a sniff of an attack in a rather blocked middle game but it suddenly evaporated and left him with terminally weak pawn islands and after Stuart forced the queens off it was not really worth continuing.

All of which brought the scores back level with just Mike versus Paul to come. Mike had built steady pressure and also gained a time advantage. At one point it looked as though his pieces would spill over into enemy territory unrestricted. Paul went down to only a few seconds but found a sequence of moves to stay alive and regain some time. Then it started all over again when they were down to R+3 v R+2 and this time Mike's rook on the seventh restricted Paul's king until finally one indiscreet pawn move led to Brigadoom. A very hard fought game but Mike's win clinched the match points.

So we finished with three wins, three draws and three losses and the squad had stayed together very well with only half a dozen reserves required and all the team contributing to those nine match points. We took some good points from Bath, our A-team and, perhaps the strongest of them all, Clifton B but we made very hard work of some other matches. This is possibly the toughest set of division one teams to be seen in recent seasons. Don't laugh but if we could win the last nine matches we would finish on 27 points which, with other teams continuing to drop unexpected points, would probably be enough to win the league. However, don't hold your breath.

Please look out for the 12 games of Chessmas, coming soon on the website. The Buzzerless is on New Year's Day - should be great fun. And finally may I wish you, dear reader, a very Happy Christmas!