The A team’s match against Clifton B was a crucial one because, although we were top of division one on “goal average” we wanted to reach the halfway stage of the season a couple of points ahead of the chasing pack. We were not helped by the fact that Nigel had a fixture clash up North but so did two of Clifton B’s regulars. Also, Haroon was indisposed just before the match so it was a good thing that Aron was home for the holidays and we were especially grateful to Elmira for filling in the other vacancy.

Early indications were promising. Chris had gambitted a pawn against Aron which he was determined to hang onto. El won a pawn against Kandara; and James had a comfortable opening against Graham. Oli, Reinhold and Mark were pretty much even at this stage.

James’s game was level until move ten, when Graham eschewed castling and his position started to drift. James put together a series of moves where he pushed the Black pieces around with pawn and minor piece threats and wound up with his Queen and rooks raking the board while the Black ones looked on from a distance. Graham resigned on move 24 when faced with the prospect of a losing endgame if he could avoid anything more drastic.

Meanwhile, Chris’s gambit line was presumably well known to both of them; he had safely castled while Aron still had an undeveloped King-side. It became critical on move 12 when Chris opted to regain the pawn and was met with the threat of losing a knight. Here he spent nearly half an hour analyzing his options before going in for a line where he gave up the knight but with various threats and pins and the ability to bring his rook into the attack immediately. With the benefit of hindsight, he might have been better off exchanging a pair of knights first, which could well have led to a draw. But Aron was now able to wriggle his King clear of trouble and, eventually, kill off the game with a combination which forced the Queens off and would have left him a piece and two pawns up.

So this eventually gave us a 2-0 lead and in the other games El was playing well and hanging on to her extra pawn; and Mark was having a roller coaster of a game where he was level on move 24, at minus nine by move 30 and somehow back to all square two moves later!

Reinhold, meanwhile, had reached a position with Queen, two rooks, opposite coloured bishops and seven pawns each. With neither side having chances to make any progress, Selikhem offered an exchange of Queens and with it a draw and they shook hands.

The clock played a hugely significant part on boards five and six. The engine shows a pretty much forced drawing line on move 32 when Mark and John each had Queen, rook and two bishops. But Mark, short of time, went for something a bit more aggressive which overlooked a tactic that won a couple of pawns and, faced with dire choices, ran out of time. Sadly, it was the same for El, who was still a comfortable pawn up after 28 moves. Also short of time, she made a defensive King move when it would have been better to contest the central squares. Kandara pounced and was able to end up the exchange ahead when El, trying to muster a defensive strategy, also lost on time. This was a great shame after she had outplayed Kandara for so much of the game.

Oli’s game was hard to fathom and went to over 70 moves so it was easily the last to finish. He had grabbed a pawn on move 16 but it turned out to be a very short term gain since Colin was able to win it back with a better position and a plus of around one on the engine. He seemed to miss the best continuation and it transposed into a game of attrition with Oli gradually whittling away at his disadvantage to reach equality. They came down to four or five minutes around move 42 when both had two rooks and somewhat disjointed pawns. Colin, critically, used up more time in this difficult position. Oli checked the match score and knew he needed to win to secure the match points and then Colin’s luck ran out when he allowed Oli to force off a pair of rooks and reach a clearly winning ending with just his rook and g pawn while Colin’s King was offside. Phew!

So we ran out winners by the narrowest of margins. Several of the games could have finished differently but we probably deserved to win on balance, if only because James played so well! The big question is, can we hold on to this lead after Christmas.