Horfield A deservedly won the League title last season, but having lost a few players and now having three teams in Division 1 I think their resources are somewhat stretched. They were missing two regulars against us and replaced them with the experienced Peter Kirby and the very young Johnny Zheng. With Chirag having made a request to play at the junior time limit, it was not really surprising that Horfield paired him with Johnny. An interesting clash!

Johnny was aggressive from the start but Chirag caught him in a nice trap winning a piece but at the price of leaving his king in the middle, against which Johnny launched a ferocious attack. I think Chirag was a bit surprised and was soon forced to give up his queen for rook and knight. He was still better but it wasn't easy.

While this was happening Stephen had been playing against Derek's Nc6 French and they had agreed to share the point after 17 moves in an odd position with several pieces from both sides on improbable squares. I had a very correct and well mannered QGD against Steve, with traditional manoeuvres used over many decades being used again to reach a level position which we agreed drawn. Meanwhile Chirag had caught Johnny in another trap winning the queen and reaching an easily won ending. Andrew was unlucky in that he played a good opening as black to equalise, only to get his queen trapped in a very unusual way on c7. Game over.

Two games left with the score at 2-2. Martin had a major piece ending with many pawns still on the board. He had a dangerous supported passed-pawn on c6 which Mike was blockading. It looked good but after much manoeuvring and an exchange of queens Martin was still unable to break through and the point was shared.

The final game was a rook and minor piece ending with equal but unbalanced-pawns. What was not equal was the time, as Oli had 4 mins whilst Peter had more than 30 mins. In spite of that Oli launched a sequence of moves exchanging the minor pieces which produced for him passed-pawns on c7 and g5 whilst Peter had central pawns with a passer on d4. It looked dangerous but Peter played carefully and a level position was reached. Pawns were exchanged leaving R+P each. Oli declined the chance to exchange rooks into a drawn king and-pawn ending and after 30 moves playing on the increment he made an inaccuracy which could have lost. However the engine shows that a few moves later Peter missed his chance and the game was equal again. Oli gave up his rook for the black pawn and then played accurately in accompanying his pawn forward. Peter tried everything but soon had to give back the rook for the last pawn and peace reined. The players were deservedly applauded by the spectators.

An enjoyable match and a fair result.