Clifton A produced their full team against us and they have been very successful and consistent in doing that all season. So we were again the underdogs, being out-graded on five of the six boards.

My game with Gareth was the first to finish and I fear I may be getting an unwelcome reputation for being drawish. It was a tricky skirmish with quite a lot of tactics, some of which remained unseen according to the computer! Before it simplified into a dead drawn ending, I did miss a subtle but very advantageous tactic, but then so did everyone else in post match analysis. Chirag was next to finish. John was the one who volunteered to play against him using the junior time limit, and he did get quite a lot of pressure from the opening. However Chirag managed to simplify into a knight against bad bishop ending, which he then converted showing great maturity and good technique. He is having a wonderful first season in Div 1.

Stephen is another who is having a great season, but black against James Cobb was a tough assignment. James played a line against the King's Indian which the well prepared Stephen was not familiar with. Nevertheless he found his way down a main line which involves a black knight being exchanged on d4, producing black pawns on c5, d4 and d6 a formation that James was able to undermine by b4 winning first one-pawn and then, after stabilising, another pawn. The rest was easy.

Oli played very solidly against Dave and achieved a position which, whilst a bit cramped, was solid with no weaknesses. Dave tried to break through on the queenside which after several exchanges led to a double minor piece ending with white having some-pawn weaknesses. Oli was slightly better but missed a momentary chance to drive the white bishop to an inferior square and any advantage vanished. A draw was fair. So, just like last week we were 2-2 with two games remaining.

I didn't see much of the early play in Martin's game, but later on Martin was a-pawn up through two extra-pawns on the kingside whereas the only pawn left on the queenside was Duncan's passed a-pawn. Ominously Duncan's queen, rook and bishop were all slightly more active than Martin's equivalent pieces and the control of the open board enabled Duncan to push through his pawn to victory. Andrew had played his favourite closed Sicilian and with each having less than 15 mins left there was an equal but unbalanced and open position. Just the sort of thing that Andrew likes and with his recent success in the blitz tournament it looked promising. He gave up bishop for knight to weaken Igor's pawns and duly won one of them. Then, very short of time, Igor missed a pin, Andrew pounced and the game was over.

So another drawn match against a higher graded team and two youngsters improving all the time. Downend B is a happy team.