"Some people think 4NCL is all fun and games but mostly it's just games." - Michael Meadows

A mass birthday weekend this time, with Chris heading for his 26th if he managed to survive till midnight, and Charlie having reached the same milestone four days earlier. Mike too looking forward to reaching adulthood with his 30 up in a few days' time. So Friday evening was spent at Chris and Charlie's flat baking them a cake while they watched Bath struggle to a dubious win against lowly Newcastle.

On arriving at the venue we discovered the bad news - Hackney had not only brought their full team but also added another FM, so we were heavily outranked on 7 boards while Max had an ungraded junior to despatch. Not the easy walkover we were hoping for. Meanwhile our rooms were unavailable so we commandeered an analysis room which sent the other inhabitants scurrying for safer quarters after we started on a massive booting session. Greatly encouraged by the captain's motivational speech ("I'm off to my room for a sleep, you guys go and play chess") off the team went to scale the mountain.

An unlikely piece of good news came when one of the players for the ADs did not turn up. The League situation is that if either the ADs or North East England fail to win we have 4 wins and go into the promotion pool even if we lose. If they both win they also have 4 wins and we have a lower game score than either, so need at least a draw. Fortunately for the ADs they were able to field a weaker player as reserve so did not lose a penalty point as well.

Charlie settled for an early draw, and Max also finished early. His opponent was well coached in the opening but played only fairly obvious moves as the game went on. At this stage the match was looking fairly even, with everyone in the balance except Mike who was having difficulty finding compensation for a-pawn.

Shortly after this David's game became a lot clearer, when his opponent gave up the exchange but it was Black that gained the initiative. Mike's game started to look very difficult while Aitor obtained a promising bind. In a conversation it transpired that Rich's opponent had been flown over from Spain at the team's expense - great respect. The investment showed its initial value when Rich found his king caught in the centre and lost material.

Nigel held on for a draw and when David beat Eames the score was 3 all. So Aitor declined the chance to play for a win from a very promising position, as Chris had converted to a Rook ending two pawns ahead. It turned out that the ADs drew their match, but a recount showed they had been on 7 points as they had drawn a match earlier in the season. Nevertheless Chris showed a safe pair of hands and we duly won the match 4½ - 3½.

This put us in second place in Group B though due to the strangeness of the scoring system we start bottom of the promotion pool, as four of our wins were against teams in the relegation pool and are now scrapped.