We returned to Bath, the site of our cup triumph in the autumn, to find that they had managed to assemble a stronger more representative side than in some of their recent matches, so a tough battle was in prospect.
On Board 1 Steve soon established a space advantage but it was hard to see how it could be exploited as Roy had good piece development. On Board 2 Adam had caught Nigel in an unusual line of the French defence which contained more than a drop of poison, and Nigel soon found himself passively placed in an endgame where Adam's rook and knight dominated. Board 3 had seen Aron obtain a free position from the opening and the opposite side castling hinted at some attacks to come.
Board 4 saw an unbalanced pawn structure, in which Aldrin's central majority looked more promising for the middlegame than Patrick's queenside advantage, especially after Patrick had failed to take advantage of 13 ... Be6 when 14 Bc5 seems to win the exchange. Board 5 saw Mark with a position with potential, whilst on Board 6 Ian had reached a standard looking Sicillian position in which the hope was that his queenside play would compensate for Clive's kingside advances and control of d5.
My position on Board 2 continued to be grim, although Adam gave me a chance to burst out with g5 at gain some activity, only to err by omitting gf, which could have given some play in the endgame. White's c4 soon finished the game off, nicely played by Adam. The match continued to go downhill for us as Roy attempted to countered Steve's space advantage with Bb4. Steve missed the hard to find 17 Qc1 to prepare Bxc4 and went for an immediate Bxc4. This soon produced an ending in which black's iffy pawn structure was fully compensated by his active rook, and in exchanging it off Steve ended up in a pawn ending where the outside a pawn was to prove decisive. Mark had given up a pawn for nebulous compensation, whilst Aldrin's central majority had been undermined with c4 when Aldrin could have tried more dynamic moves such as a5 or f5 rather than his Qc6,Qe6 manoeuvres. I didn't see much of Board 6, bur Ian appeared to be heading for an endgame/late middlegame where his black squared bishop was going to be more passive than his opponent's prelate; still they say 'bad bishops defend good pawns', in this case the one on d6. The bright spot was Board 3 where Aron's play against Rob's king looked the more dangerous, with the h pawn rolling forward.
Board 3 duly saw Aron crash through, though b3 may not have been necessary, just Rh1 seems to work. Rob may have survived with the ugly looking g6 when the white queen can infiltrate to f6 and h8 but the black king can run to f8 and e7 and the his attack on the white king gets a chance. Instead ...Nc4 loses material and the game, to take Aron's score this season to 9.5/10, our star player! Board 4 slipped away as further simplification produced a queen ending in which white's extra queenside pawn got home as time pressure told. On 5 Mark continued to resist with some active play and got down to 3v4 on the kingside. His rook got round the back to h8, provoking ...h5 when the en passant capture would have produced a dangerous h pawn. Black may hold this, but he lost on time. This left Ian striving for the honour of the team but as time ran short so too did his chances of holding the opposite bishops ending, so Bath deservedly won the match 4-2; a heavy blow for our title chances.