After securing promotion with a win over South Bristol we arrived at the Townhouse for our first of two opportunities to win the league. It was a bit of a squash with Clifton A also playing but we all got settled in, well 5 of us did James got caught up in the road works at the end of the M32 and was a few minutes late, but got there in time.

Everyone got off to solid starts with no 'donations' or mistakes. John went for an exchange of pieces looking to leave his opponent with an isolated centre-pawn. However, David found a nice combination with his queen to avoid this and gain control of the centre of the board. In my own game, after early exchanges I had a strong knight on d5 and John's king still a long way from castling. After some more manoeuvring my Queen was controlling the centre of the board and along with my bishop was preventing John from developing his Bishop to allow his king to escape to safety. On board 4 Richard soaked up some early aggression from Alan, and both reached the middle game fairly even.

I have not seen James's game so I cannot comment there. On board 2 Andrew's game suddenly became very open after an exchange of-pawns allowed Tim to chase Andrew's Queen around the board. This led to an exchange of Queens and both players having weakened-pawn structures. Andrew started to gain control of the game building attacks on Tim's King and gaining tempo. By contrast, on board 1 Dominique's game was much less active with few pieces being exchanged. Tim Built an attack on Dominique's b-pawn, but this was easily defended, and soon turned into a trap allowing Dominique to win a Knight. With a piece advantage Dominique started to open Tim up.

Back on board 6 John, although 2 pawns up was in time-trouble. On wrong decision, and David was back in the match equalising the-pawns following an exchange of rooks. With more advanced-pawns David was able to build the pressure until a mistake by John allowed David to pin his King winning John's rook and the game. We were 1 down, but fairly quickly after Jon's defeat James tied the match. On 5 John was forced to open up his king's side just to try and get some development for his bishop, but this led to me gaining a passed centre-pawn after and exchange of Queens. From this point on John found it difficult to defend the position as further exchanges just strengthened my position. In a desperate attempt to advance his own h-pawn John took a poisoned-pawn allowing me to queen my advanced c-pawn and win the game. We were 2-1 up and Richard's game on 4 looked even and a probable draw when bizarrely Alan resigned. 3-1 and we had at least a draw. After some shuffling of pieces Dominique appeared to have taken a poisoned-pawn allowing his queen to be forked. However, he found the antidote, pinning Tim's own Queen two moves later and winning the match. On board 2 Andrew was building attacks on Tim's King, but missed a combination that could have won the game. Instead Tim was able to equalise the game and a draw was agreed.

The win makes us division 3 champions with one game to go, let's hope we don't let the record slip and finish on a win at Hanham. Well done to all who have contributed to our success.