The World Chess Championship is said to dictate chess opening fashions and since Caruana even produced a Sicilian Wing Gambit in the last week it seemed likely that there'd be some interesting games to be had in our match. It was therefore a little disappointing at first to see four Closed Sicilians creep their way across their halves of the boards. Unlike the World Chess Championship, however, almost all of the games were exciting. We should to start charging a spectator's fee.

Richard, whose season has been difficult to say the least, was the only player to get their expected opponent. Fortunately, he'd done no prep. In his trademark style, he wasted no time in wasting time on the clock and the game was a slow starter. Jon, who steadfastly refuses to take the white pieces against me, tried another new opening against Nigel Hosken and the two found themselves in unfamiliar territory by move 4 or 5, in a theoretically sharp and counter-intuitive position. Mike, who was filling in for our malingerer Andrew (who was playing for Trowbridge, though I suspect he could've finished his game and made it to Horfield by half 8), expanded quickly against Nigel Pollett, taking a leaf out of Chirag's book from earlier in the season, and launched into an attack that looking to be landing even sooner.

I attempted a provocative move order in a line I'm sure I've learnt from somewhere, but no one else agrees could be theory. That argument gained a lot more weight when Prakash opened the position very early and left me tangled, defending embarrassing mate threats on d7 and d8, and with knights on h5 and a6. Worse still, I was lucky to escape unscathed when I allowed the possibility of a winning double piece sacrifice, not just once but twice even after I'd seen the first! Dominique appeared to be making progress and gaining space across the board. Ian and Howard looked to be playing accurate and calm chess, with classic expansions on opposite sides but without too much tension.

After the position opened but neither side appeared to have an immediate win, Ian and Howard decided to split the point and enjoy the fireworks on the other boards (not to mention Horfield A vs Clifton A in the other room). Mike delivered immediately after ignoring an en-prise bishop for a few moves to set up unstoppable mating threats. After suffering for most of the game, I snatched a-pawn to make it worth my troubles and set about swapping everything off in a position that was a bit of a sharp mess for both sides. Dominique started swapping bits off in his game, which seemed to take some of the initiative from his attack. Tom was also causing some mischief with his rook and a passed-pawn of his own. Nigel was reaching the sort of endgame that has served him very well this season though Jon was invading threateningly with his queen and looked to be brewing at least a perpetual. Richard and Patryk were picking up the pace out of necessity but for the first time were also reaching some proper tactics. I survived the onslaught and when it was finally over, missed the win of a rook and took an exchange instead. The rest was relatively straightforward.

Dominique swapped the passers and offered a draw which seemed to please both players and secured us at least 1 match point. With Jon's queen looking for trouble on h8, Nigel played a spectacular king march to g2 and with white's last knight dropping off, won the game. Though the match was ours, Richard decided to add some fireworks of his own by uncorking a great piece-winning tactic. Though Patryk played on to test Richard's increment play, the game was never in doubt and pieces dropped off until the 5th point was won.

Other than my own play, everyone performed extremely well and it's nice to be able to say we've taken 6 points from our last 4 matches (against Bath, Clifton, and Horfield, no less). The A-team rounds out this half of the season against the unpredictable University A-team in two weeks and then we can worry about what sort of knockout team Horfield can muster!