Both Bath and the B team were missing a top player so the two sides were fairly evenly balanced. I arrived too late to see Graham's demolition of Patrick but was gratified to find us one point ahead before 9pm. The other games could be divided into two distinct categories: cautious probing and careful defence on the top two boards; and much more exciting happenings on the bottom ones.

Mark soon had a great advantage against Steven and a sequence of poor moves by Black led to the win of a piece for nothing. There were so many possible winning continuations that Mark started using much more time to evaluate them all. It was almost Tipperesque! Suffice it to say that Steven took his chances and forced a perpetual check when a whole rook down. A critical position had arisen which has already been the subject of much discussion on WhatsApp and some unkind contributor suggested we should have an special award this season for the highest plus engine rating not converted into a win. Fortunately, Mark has a sense of humour!

That draw coincided with Oli shaking hands with David. Stockfish suggests that neither party had even a sniff of a telling advantage throughout the 27 moves. Oli could be well pleased with neutralizing the player with by some distance the highest rating on parade. So 2-1, and everything was still possible on the other three boards.

Next to finish was Dominique. He developed a useful attack against Clive's weakened castled King. A tricky middle game saw him win the exchange and then fend off a dangerous looking counter attack. The dust soon settled and Dominique broke through with a mating attack of his own, to give us a 3-1 lead.

Reinhold matched Roy's steady development until Roy, knowing he needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat, went in for a sequence of exchanges in the hope of winning at least a pawn. It didn't quite work and the resulting position held no perils for either side so they agreed a draw which ensured a won match for us.

Stephen's game with Matthew was the last to finish by quite some distance. Stephen had opted for an ending with rook and an extra pawn against knight and bishop which required careful play on both sides. He shed the extra pawn but was able to advance his King in support of his own Queenside pawns so a race developed on both sides of the board. The key position arose where Black was able to promote the move after Stephen except that White had quite a rare coup up his sleeve. He under-promoted to a knight with check (!) and then snaffled the advanced Black pawn, leaving him with R + N against N plus a pawn. Ninety moves had been played before news came through to the crowd patiently waiting in the other room that Matthew had conceded. Phew!

So three well played wins on boards four to six accompanied the three draws higher up to conclude a highly satisfactory trip to Aquae Sulis This squad can upset any opposition when it is on song and we should not really be too surprised when they achieve a great result like this.