The key to the University's unpredictability is that they themselves only decide their board order once they see who's turned up. Like Martin last time, Ian drew the short straw as the highest-graded player was on the bottom board. Andrew had pulled out of the match, but rising club star Oli fancied a warm-up before facing this season's juggernaut Bath the day after (I assume, if he doesn't play that I expect to hear some stern words from Mike!). Like the selfless captain I am, I took the black pieces and said nothing when Oli used the white bits to play a London.

Richard started with good developing principles as black: Move the only piece you've developed several times to exchange it off, while-pawn moves can fill in the blanks. Not too surprisingly white tried to gain some pressure against black's uncastled king with a gambit but it never quite had enough punch and Richard began to untangle. Nigel and Marc-Antoine seemed to be marching down a well-trodden theoretical path (though all d4 openings look like that to me) and the position looked level. I was winging it after some nebulous comments from Alice about preparing for me and I tried to attack a backward b-pawn at the cost of allowing a kingside expansion and an isolated a-pawn. As it turns out we were in theory for at least 16 moves.

Oli was shattering his own kingside structure to wind up an attack on the kingside while his own king hid on a semi-locked queenside. Dominique and Daoyi were earning their "ugliest pawns of the night" badges with a smattering of doubled and isolated islands across the board. Though Dominique was able to win an exchange, white retained a bishop pair and there was the temporary matter of awkward diagonals that meant taking control of the (now beautiful) open files would have to wait. Despite the slow and positional opening, Ian was attempting valiantly to set up a knight and-pawn smothered mate for black. It's just a shame he had white. In order to prevent the onslaught of mating threats, Ian gave his queen for a rook and knight, but both sides would take a while to set up another attack.

As I was filling for Andrew, a draw offer 5 moves out of book seemed appropriate and Alice agreed. I didn't realise I was going to be our only player with black to not win. Nigel snatched a central pawn and somehow the position quickly fell apart as black conjured connected passed-pawns that looked pretty unstoppable, mostly because they were and the point was conceded eight moves later. Oli's positional edge seemed to be slipping, though you couldn't help but believe he was still likely to push through. Ian, not content with the material imbalance, gave a rook for knight and bishop (so for those keeping track it was queen and rook vs rook, two knights and a bishop. Better yet, there were mating threats appearing for white, as well as the ever-persistent ones from black.

Once Dominique had neutralised the bishops and coordinated, it seemed like his rooks were controlling at least 4 files. This made it all the easier to push a passed-pawn and a fancy temporary exchange sacrifice ended that game in style. Richard gained a second pawn through exchanges and was pushing a passer down the middle, though with very little time. Defending the leading-pawn with mating tactics, white managed to blockade but became too passive. Giving one-pawn back Richard converted to a king and-pawn ending that finished with a zugzwang. 2.5-1.5.

Ian, who was now very low on time, had the position opened and won a rook for a knight, but there was an ominious black queen lurking near the king and some more passed-pawns looking likely to promote. Oli was circling against a passive black who appeared to be just about holding the position together at the cost of a-pawn. If Oli could just win his targeted second pawn he'd win for sure. Ian pressed valiantly but there was too little time to find the spectacular win that appears to hang everything, instead hanging one piece before the clock finally gave up. With the score level, Oli clearly felt the pressure to convert because he decided that exchanging off to win the-pawn was too much effort and simply mated black (though the room didn't seem to acknowledge this for some time).

It was a close match, and if any of the positional edges hadn't been carried through it could easily have gone the other way. Considering the grade disparity, it was a much closer match than we were hoping!

So that's the A-team finished for the year. 9 fixtures played, 9 match points earnt, and 27 board points won; exactly what you'd expect from a team with so many early draw punters. There's an extra credit assignment next week in the form of a knockout match.