Since this website has been live the A vs B-team matches score 3-1 to the underdogs. Although the B-team knew they would be missing two players they were able to draft in Lewis and Dominique as their superstar substitutes. This meant that when a few days before the match Charlie and Chris (who are entirely to blame for the result) became unavailable the A-team was struggling for replacements; the C-team was playing the next day and the D-team was playing that night! Answering the calls were Will Lowry and the South Somerset U12 Champion, Jack Tye.
The match started quietly enough with relatively quiet openings. Henry, as white, was unable to play the disdainful opening he's been showcasing of late. Even with Javier's recent draw with a grandmaster, he was likely to have a tough time against the A-team board 1. Richard played slowly and carefully against a slightly quicker Lewis. Jerry and Mike played an opening that to me, suggested a peaceable splitting of the point. Martin and I began with a sideline in the Italian that theory suggests favours white. Having allowed Martin more control over the centre I attempted to gain strength on the kingside and failed dismally. Boards 5 and 6 had deviated early but were looking like potentially the most interesting games of the match.
Most of the games progressed slowly, though on the top boards that was mostly due to Javier and Richard, both of whom managed to become around 45 minutes down on the clock. Despite plenty of exchanges in the game between Jerry and Mike, the innocuous looking position still contained some tricks and both players had to manoeuvre carefully (or so they say). Having failed to gain anything on the kingside, I attempted to attack in the centre, where again I was rebuffed. Will had allowed Dominique to invade with a problematic knight on d4 but black was finding it difficult to bring his other pieces to bear on the position. Ian had found a strong attack against Jack's centralised king and won an exchange. Jack kept fighting with some interesting trap ideas, but Ian kept his cool and smoothly converted to put the B-team 1-0 up.
Not long after, Will having posed some problems for the black king to solve as compensation for the difficult knight offered a draw and Dominique agreed to cease hostilities. 1.5-0.5. I pushed back on the kingside, with a few potentially dubious tactics which allowed me to snatch a central pawn and begin an attack against Martin's king in the centre. With Jerry and Mike's game now heading for a surprise draw, and Javier and Richard both under very significant time-trouble, I thought if I could hang on the match may yet end in a draw.
When the difficulties in the centre resulted in the loss of a piece, Martin resigned and the match was again level at 1.5 each. During our analysis, Henry and Javier finished, presumably with some excellent time-trouble play from Javier (though let's not rule out Henry having played atrociously) which swung the match to the B-team's favour, 2.5-1.5, with no significant trouble expected on the remaining boards.
Unable to make progress Jerry and Mike split the point, which left Richard needing the win in order to save the match for the A-team. Unfortunately, Lewis had significant pressure in his attack and Richard had far too little time on his clock to mount an accurate defence (or knowing Richard, attack).
While this is surely the final nail in the coffin for the A-team's title defence, congratulations are owed to the B-team for their first win of the season!