This was F-team's first game of the new season and we welcome Maëlys Manouvel to board 4.

Peter Strong vs Geoff Gammon

**Written by Geoff:**Peter outplayed me steadily and a move of mine that was not the best led to the loss of the exchange. To avoid just being ground down I attempted to activate things by giving Peter opportunities to play the wrong move, but he didn't rush and saw through everything. I see this game as an improvement on last year when Peter just walked all over me. If I keep improving, maybe I'll live long enough to get a draw!

Rowan Barua vs Geoff Dring

Rowan played the Bogoljubov Defence in response to the Rubinstein Opening (a variant of the Queen's Pawn Game).

This was a game that felt very tight from start to finish with neither player gaining a material advantage at any point. Rowan has analysed the game using the Stockfish engine, it was evaluated that he made a blunder in the middle-game that gave Geoff a 2.5 lead that he blundered himself by failing to capitalise.

The game remained tight thereafter, but felt very intense. Rowan's clock went below 7 minutes whilst Geoff had a daunting 25 minutes remaining. It felt like a "back-to-the-wall" job to avoid a loss on time without making a mistake and the aim of nullifying the game into a draw.

A pivotal moment was when Rowan forced an exchange of a knight for Geoff's bishop, which seemed prudent in an open board. Each player had a rook, queen and 6 pawns remaining. Rowan made a smart pawn-exchange that opened up a file for his rook for what appeared to be a forced perpetual check opportunity. To my relief, with just 40 seconds on my clock remaining, Geoff offered a draw, which Rowan gladly took.

Doug May vs Robert Haydon

My game against Doug went fairly swiftly and as the centre of the board started to close up I made a decision to swap out some minor pieces. I decided to swap my stronger of the two bishops for his knight as I felt with a closed centre I would be in a stronger position. I was wrong. Doug did well to crack open the centre of the board and slowly my knights lost their outposts and his bishops become more and more dominant. Doug was winning.

I was three pawns down, my position had collapsed and I was thinking about commiserating with a beer! However on move 39 Doug made a blunder costing him a rook and then I started to swap off at every opportunity eventually leaving me with a Q + 2R versus his Q + R.

My opponent resigned, thanked me for the game, scribbled up his game sheet and swiftly left the table. I was very lucky to get the win and took no pleasure winning in this way, but a win is a win and the beer tasted even better.

Maëlys Manouvel vs David Wilson

For those of you that don't know Christi and his daughter Maëlys that have both joined our club, Christi played for Clevedon last season, so what a fitting night it was for his daughter's first ever Bristol league game to be against her father's old team. At 6 years old (and I believe our youngest player) she defended well and even tried to set a couple of traps. It's obvious that Maëlys is going to be another great junior to watch out for.

All in all, I'm happy with last night's result.