The visit of Grendel augured for a significant episode in the battle for mid-table supremacy in the League, since neither team looks like challenging for the Championship. However, in the words of Cole Porter: "Just like in Coriolanus, some of the chess played was heinous."

Two evenly matched teams faced up at the Cross Hands and for 90 minutes it was hard to call, although one might have sensed we had the edge on a couple of boards.

But in fact, the first to break the ice was Dave, who treated us to one of his Grandmaster Draws. The result was never really in doubt - a little bit of pressure attacking Ben's French Defence but not so much as to be accused of anything remotely bordering on recklessness and the looming prospect of opposite coloured bishops sealed the draw.

The serious stuff started on the top board. Oscar had another of his trademark complex middle games, where, after grabbing a pawn at the risk of being a bit behind in development, he forsook castling so that his KR could burst into action if its file would be opened, while his King was safe enough in the centre. Alistair's real difficulties started when he regained the pawn because now Oscar's knight posed threats which took time to deal with. It was probably time pressure which caused Alistair to drop a whole rook rather than just the exchange and, with it, the game.

In the meantime, while Peter was building a positional advantage that one could imagine leading to a superior ending, Oli, Toby and Dominique were still in the early stages where it was too hard to call, although Toby's King looked a trifle bare behind a wrecked pawn formation. Pawns on h7 and h5 are not ideal for defence!

Peter never got to demonstrate his endgame prowess because, while probing against a somewhat weakened King position, he conjured up a threat to win the exchange. On the face of it he might have been emerging with only a rook and a second pawn at the cost of both his bishop and knight but there was a sting in the tail which saved the bishop and resulted in Patrick's resignation. There had, however, been a flaw in the sting which fortunately (depending on your point of view!) Patrick failed to spot and, as a result, we now had two and a half points in the bag. Phew!!

By now Toby had recovered from his dubious looking backward development to exchange off a fair number of pieces, while still holding on to those weak pawns. The remaining bishops were of opposite colours and, although a draw now looked possible, Toby was much worse off for time than Mark.

Oli broke the tension following a middle game where his advantage fluctuated between minimal and moderate but was probably never quite decisive. But the pressure told in the end when Richard made a huge blunder and overlooked the loss of a pawn with check and the consequent loss of a bishop and resigned on the spot.

With the match now decided, Toby fought on to try to demonstrate that the two bishops can do precisely what you hope for. He was probably still somewhat worse when they decided to call it a day but he had fought well to save the game.

Which left Dominique battling on, after a game that had been a compendium of fluctuating fortunes. He had won a pawn from the opening and later went two up but at the cost of freer piece play for Will. A middle game with R plus two minor pieces each and untidy extra pawns for Dominique became virtually unfathomable and good luck if you can spot all the best play for both sides. Eventually Dominique reached a rook ending with three versus four connected and opposing pawns. Once two pawns had gone from each side, they had very little time left in a position which the engine considers drawn but Dominique made one mistake which allowed the half point to slip away.

In view of all the missed opportunities, it's fair to say that the final score had been decided by a comedy of errors. Another day the balance of those errors could easily have gone the other way so we should really consider ourselves quite fortunate that the match finished as we like it - 4-2, forsooth.