When you play at University you never know what to expect. I arrived early at the front entrance to find hordes of people trying to get in and I was told I had to use a side entrance. It seems there was an important gig which was over subscribed. The side entrance appeared to be through a busy restaurant and eventually I found my way to the inside of the front hall. Nobody there seemed to know anything about a chess match until a tall young lady was able to give me directions to the fourth floor. I eventually found the chess room feeling as if I had passed an initiative test. Four of us arrived and as 7.30 approached Andrew volunteered to go and look for the others. He soon returned with Dave but still no Oli when play started. Andrew then volunteered to go on a search mission again and this time returned triumphant with Oli. Many thanks Andrew!
After starting late, Oli proceeded to play fast and with energy. A pin down the e file won him a-pawn and soon another. This was followed by a mass advance of-pawns against Alex's queenside castled position. A piece was won, the king exposed, and the win of further material finished the game. On board 4, Martin was black against Siyuan Huang who was playing his first game for University. Indeed captain Alex appeared not to even be sure of his name as he asked Siyuan to write his own name on the score sheet. Martin was meeting a closed Sicilian and, under attack, played f6 which turned out to be too weakening and the attack was soon successful. We learned afterwards that Huang was graded 190, so poor Martin was black against their best player. Did Alex know this? We must give him the benefit of the doubt.
The score remained at 1-1 for some time but boards 5 and 6 were looking promising whilst board 1 looked unclear. My game with Marc-Antoine was very tense. A French led to a very open position (it can you know) with lots of tactical possibilities for both sides, causing us both to move slowly. We both held small advantages at different times but when all rooks were exchanged, the position level and both players running short of time, a draw was agreed.
Andrew was white against a Two Knights defence and played the quiet d3 before gaining space on the kingside with f4 and f5. He then seemed to spend the whole evening with a slow build up against the castled king involving queen, both rooks and a wonderful N on d5 which ended on f6. The pressure was too great and a nice queen sacrifice led to mate. Meanwhile Dave had had to fight off an early attack by George, but having done so emerged with a superior pawn formation and better placed pieces. One slip then allowed Dave to finish with a lovely flourish of forced tactics winning a-pawn, then a Knight and then the exchange. Dave had continued his excellent unbeaten run and the match was won.
Only the top board remained. Stephen, had his excellent season dented by a loss to Beaumont the previous week and with white was determined to get back to winning ways. The game was a Caro Kan and became quite complex and unbalanced. Eventually Philipp made a small mistake which allowed Stephen to win a-pawn and exchange many pieces. A sequence then resulted in a position with a queen and two minor pieces each and both kings exposed. Some 30 moves followed with both players short of time. Stephen used a little tactic to exchange queens leaving a knight each but Stephen had passed f and g-pawns. There was crowd watching as Philipp was able to win an a-pawn to create a majority on the other wing. Moves were rattled out and although it was clear that white had an advantage it was not clear that it should be winning. Probably that was changing. Eventually it did become clear that the sole remaining white-pawn would queen and Philipp lost on time.
We are now top of the League! Amazing!