Many of the team were tired after staying up late last night, mainly playing a strangely compulsive card game called Halloumi (edit: Hanabi), then examining Monster Chess in which White starts with King and four pawns versus the entire Black army, but has two moves each time for one of Black and can move through check. It is very difficult for Black.

Our opponents were slightly stronger on paper, though in reality the Division Two teams seem fairly matched throughout. David took a draw in 12 moves with the black pieces, while Dan played a more enterprising piece sacrifice and obtained a good position. Mike had a sharp game which petered out into a draw early on.

This photo was taken 5 minutes after the match started and 5 minutes before David halved out.

The match started looking good after Chris and Max each won a-pawn. Rich settled for a draw and Aitor's game was very unclear. But late in the session things took a turn for the worse. Chris was unable to convert but fortunately managed to keep the draw. Max allowed too much counter-play and was very disappointed to lose. Later in the session Aitor's opponent lost the initiative and Aitor played strongly to seal a win.

With the score at 4-3 it was all down to whether Charlie could hold a draw, with a very backward position where his opponent could try many ideas. After about 6 hours' play it proved that swapping off to a R+N ending was very powerful for White, and we duly went down when the White king marched powerfully up the board.

So 4 all from our first promotion pool game was a good result on paper but really our opponents should consider themselves lucky to save the match on this occasion.