Without a match point this Season, although admittedly having had several near misses, and with a team that was heavily out-graded on every board, Hanham B arrived at Downend this week as clear underdogs. They surely had thoughts along the lines that they were young sheep about to meet a ceremonially swift end. Unusual sacrifices did offer, and whilst the end result indicates that there had indeed been a slaughter, that is only part of the story.

The evening started well for us when Robert's opponent looked to have sacrificed a-pawn for no apparent compensation. The resulting position was certainly better for us although there was plenty of work to do. Conversely, I didn't have the best of openings, allowing Barry to temporarily post his dominant knight in the middle of board. At this point all of the other boards looked equal or unclear.

The first blood to be spilled looked to be coming on Neil's board where he must have seen deep into the position to 'sacrifice' his queen for a bishop in the opening!? Onlookers appeared horrified although Neil remained determined to prove them wrong by setting some problems for Martyn. James had equalised - or maybe even obtained a small advantage in his game - but was finding it difficult to break down Doreen's defences and an early draw was agreed.

More pieces were exchanged on board one where Brian pressed forward and sacrificed a bishop in an attempt to create an unstoppable passed-pawn. Robert kept calm and easily defended against Brian's final pawn sac which attempted to divert his defensive pieces from the queening square: 1.5-0.5.

Neil had played well to recover part of his material deficit and was now only a piece down! Richard had built up a strong centre although Roger was aiming for a kingside sortie with his knights: this created many problems and made Richard's defences look slightly uneasy. John looked to have a very easy, comfortable position and a two pawn advantage and a win was in sight. In my game, I started to fall well behind on the clock and pressed for a rather desperate attack.

Richard's game was the next to finish after he had managed to repel Roger's attack whilst invading with his own knight. This lead to his opponent being forced to give up his rook for a-pawn. In the end, Richard chose the option of a slightly longer knight sac instead of what would have been a lovely rook sac.

I missed the ending on board 6 where John had somehow managed to jettison (sac?) his two extra pawns and arrive at a theoretically drawn king and 4 pawn ending ... which he then managed to win! Even better, Neil had miraculously queened one of his pawns to force Martyn's resignation: 4.5-0.5.

My game was the last to finish. Barry made an interesting decision to give up his only defensive piece in an effort to win a-pawn. I then offered a knight and then a queen, both of which he declined, only to allow a nice mating pattern next move.

After our loss to University, we are now in a tough and close promotion race with three other clubs of which two we still have to play. Even if we win most of our remaining matches, we will need to pick up plenty of game points if we are to achieve promotion. Tonight's match certainly helped us in that respect.