After a fantastic season, with many wonderful hard-fought wins under our belt, we finally approach the finishing line just needing a positive result against the Smurfs. With a few players unavailable, Leon very kindly stepped in to help us field a full team.
Unbeknown to me, South Bristol A had come away from the previous night's match with a full 4 points after Cabot defaulted the game. This left us definitely having to score at least a drawn game, or a win to put it beyond doubt.
I managed to get myself into a fairly restricted position coming out of the opening in the English, and wasted a lot of time trying to work out how to get some activity.
Leon was doing well until a pawn grab in the middle game led to a sharp position where Black had to tread very carefully, and unfortunately a couple of inaccuracies put Leon on the back foot.
My game came to a sudden halt when the clock stopped working. I didn't fancy the offered solution of switching to an analogue clock, as I was about 35 minutes down. Thankfully we found another digital clock.
In Leon's game, White held on to their advantage and slowly turned the screws until a significant material advantage became too much to overcome.
Steve was having a marathon game against Gareth in which, not for the first time, he was down to seconds on the clock determined to keep the excitement levels high. The balance of power had swayed from side to side a little over the game but Steve managed to squeeze the most out of his position and deliver the final blow as his clock danced around zero.
Having survived the middle game, I managed to get myself on the back foot again, and spent about 12 minutes on move 34, just trying to find a non-losing move. Fortunately, I found it, and my opponent gave me a helping hand by making a comital move to promote his advanced pawn, which didn't work. Having a couple of minutes on the clock, compared to my opponent's hour, I just needed to avoid blunders to win, and thankfully I did.
These two wins meant we had at least drawn the match, and won the Division Two championship. We could now relax and watch Tom. Having been in control of the game for a while and ahead in time the result seemed inevitable as Tom piled on the pressure with doubled rooks on the D file, the queen on the seventh rank, and a knight about to join in the attack. Shortly after, Black was forced to give up material and resigned.
We win the match 3 - 1 in the end, to cap off a tremendous division winning season, thanks to the whole team. A superb effort