Both Bath and the B team were below full strength, so an evenly balanced match was promised.

In fact we got off to the best of starts when Steve, guesting on board six, soon overwhelmed his opponent with a royal fork on move 12. Dominique was not long following his success when his easy development led to a counter attack which netted an exchange. The resulting endgame had Dominique with two linked passed Queen-side pawns and their advance soon forced resignation.

Graham then pulled off a neat coup which won a piece and, after a judicious amount of swapping off, he soon reached a position where his opponent had little option but to concede. It had been a very smooth conversion of his advantage. A comfortable 3-0 lead at half time augured well but, as we know from many tussles with Bath, you should never take anything for granted until the final whistle!

Hugo had won a pawn for no real compensation except that he was down to less than a minute on the clock. He played a dozen or more moves on the increment and was able to advance his QR pawn to the seventh but unfortunately his King was in front of it and when Black, who had just Queened himself, had a moment's respite, he was able to intervene with checkmate! It was unfortunate that Hugo didn't have enough time to make his advantage tell.

Mark had been thrown in at the deep end with Black on board one. He went in for a piece sacrifice against the somewhat denuded enemy King with two pawns in compensation. There were also holes in Mark's dark squares which were initially defended by his bishop. But after that was exchanged off White's rook was able to come into play and combine with the Queen and knight with irresistible effect. After such an enterprising effort it was a pity that the attack didn't quite work out.

Martin's game seemed relatively quiet until his opponent burst through against his castled King. He checked on h2 and regained a piece that had just been given up as part of the combination and looked as though he was coming out of the complications three pawns ahead. Martin muddied the waters sufficiently that his opponent missed a better continuation and settled for perpetual check. Perhaps they were both short of time by then.

So in the end we were pleasantly relieved to have hung on to both match points and cemented the B team's position of fourth in the table. As a matter of fact, with one game to go, we cannot now be dislodged from that position, thoroughly justifying the decision to play two teams in the top division. All we have to do now is see if we can finish off the season in grand style. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink!