These four board matches don't leave much of a margin for error, so we travelled hopefully to South Bristol, very confident that the superstars among us would set up a great result.

After the usual friendly welcome, we were set fair for a successful evening and it started off as well as you could possibly imagine. Both Peter and Dave cashed in on having White by building devastatingly powerful positions.

Peter's was so good it reminded you of Jos Buttler - he didn't know whether to hit Richard (the erstwhile D&F star, by the way) for six or for four. It's just move 16 and White to play. Should he sacrifice a bishop for a crushing attack or simply invade with a rook with the collapse of the Black position to follow?

Meanwhile Dave reached the killer pawn advance against Gareth on only move 13. A lovely move that led straight to the win of a piece. What delights! What a great start. It just needs Grant and me to get one draw between us and that would be the match in the bag.

So it's impossible to blame Grant, who struggled stoically with Black against their Dave and reached a level heavy piece ending with seven pawns each by move 30. Unfortunately one errant King move handed possibilities to White, which he duly converted.

That would make the score 2-1 to us. Ah, minor detail. Neither Peter nor Dave had played their killer moves and had already drawn.

So I needed to beat Tony to level things up and I had won the exchange for a pawn. With best play the engine says it was a clear win. God bless the engine! Clearly, no blame can attach to me for playing on for a win. In the end Tony was very charitable in agreeing a draw to clinch the match as he could easily have gone one better as my game went down the drain.

So, calamity, we lost the match. Now, I am not one for pointing the finger to blame anyone so I shall merely thank Peter and Dave for the excellent analysis that they gave us to enable us to enjoy the brilliancy of their attacking play.

After all, it's only a game.