We headed for Clevedon on a sunny early autumn evening without Oli, but strengthened by Alex Carey on debut.

James had his first chance on Board 1 and he delivered a short but solid draw against Rob Thompson, a strong player.

Things went much worse for me on Board 6, a weak 13th move, often one of my many Achilles’ Heels, gave Dave Peters a chance to weaken my Kingside and, after I failed to take steps to keep his knight out of f5, he concluded a mating attack very efficiently.

It was not long afterwards that Peter equalised the match in fine style. A typically obscure opening line produced a position where Peter could go for David’s King. An unusual Queen sacrifice by Peter won material and then the Queen could be recovered with a discovered check. Both players had lots of pieces en prise but Peter had calculated accurately and a cascade of exchanges left him two pawns up and resignation followed soon afterwards.

The remaining games went down to the wire. Reinhold had stood well for some time and reached an ending with an extra d pawn. He was slow to advance it and further simplification, as both players ran short of time, led to a draw agreement which both players were happy with.

Steve’s game on Board 2 was hard to assess; for some time it was roughly level with Steve’s knight stuck on a5 to balance his better pawn structure. Oleksii played aggressively to weaken Steve’s Kingside after which his Queen and knight generated mating threats. The position was quirky, with assorted unusual tactical ideas found by the computer and some by the players, as the advantage swung both ways. Ultimately Steve was able to reach a very tricky knight ending (aren’t they always) with level pawns. Best play would have drawn it but Oleksii went the wrong way with his King and Steve was able to convert his Queenside 2-1 majority into a Queen and win the game. We were now 3-2 up, what a relief!

Alex had played an interesting game. He sacrificed a piece to catch Kevin’s King in the centre, but Kevin was able to return some material to reach an ending in which Alex had rook and pawn for bishop and knight. He had a 3-1 Queenside majority which he could utilise to force the win of a piece for a pawn and end up with an ending of rook and two pawns v bishop and three pawns, including a dangerous passed e pawn supported by the bishop. Alex made some efforts to win, and indeed our silicon friend may have found a way, but time ran short and the evening got late so a draw to clinch us the match 3½-2½ suited us well enough.

Clevedon are never easy.