A warm sunny day greeted us in Clevedon and with the tide high we were hoping to hold on to be number one. We were lacking Oli and Mark, but with strong replacements in the forms of Peter and Humphrey we felt we were in with a good chance.

The early developments were promising; Haroon had more space and a better pawn structure against Rob, James looked solid against Oscar, Reinhold’s game on board 3 and my (Nigel) effort on board 4 were hard to judge, Peter was working his magic on board 5 and Humphrey had chosen an aggressive line on board 6.

Peter’s game was unbalanced but in his favour as Matthew castled Queenside, which enabled Peter to win a couple of pawns on the Kingside. This exposed his King to a potential counterattack along the open files but he kept this under control and successfully reached a won endgame.

Humphrey had made efforts to stir up some tactics but David simplified remorselessly into a drawn rook ending. Meanwhile Haroon’s position had fizzled out to a rook ending where he had a passed a pawn but Rob was active enough to hold it easily. So we were 2-1 up.

The remaining games went the distance. My (Nigel) game saw the advantage swing both ways before Dave ran short of time and in an effort to force a win let slip a pawn, after which my central pawns began to roll forward and were very likely to win the game; as it was, Dave’s flag fell before they could touch down. 3-1 up!

Reinhold had castled Queenside and established a big pawn centre. Oleksii failed to challenge this effectively and Reinhold was able to advance it, opening lines to the King, which was scantily defended. No errors were made in pursuing the attack which Reinhold finished off neatly. 4-1.

Finally James and Oscar had a complicated game with opposite side castling (the third such game of the night). Time ran short for both players, Oscar had doubled rooks on the d file, James had a threatening pawn on a3 with a bishop on g7 also pointing at the b2 square, James tried to get his Queen into the attack but Oscar could keep it out with his rooks so a draw was agreed and we won the match 4½ -1½.

Thus we completed our run of three matches in quick succession with two wins and, as Meatloaf fans will be aware, 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.