On paper this was expected to be a comfortable win but with Andrew unavailable we were not at full strength, and it is only too easy to slip up, especially at Yate. It was to Neil's great relief that when we turned up Jeremy Gardner was nowhere to be seen as he has thwarted Neil on many an occasion.
Everyone got off to comfortable starts and as the games progressed we definitely had the edge on most boards. On Board 4 Ben lost his way a little with a flurry of knight moves, eventually allowing Richard to win a rook for a bishop and-pawn. After some manoeuvring Richard managed to swap off the queens and knights giving him rook against bishop and a passed-pawn which Ben could not stop. Resignation followed and we had our first point.
My opponent looked to be trying to lock up the position aiming for a draw, but with his king still in the middle of the board I tried to get an attack going. He finally castled and I tried to sack a piece trying to win 3 possibly 4 pawns. Dave distracted me with a-pawn attack which I fell for, and I only came away with a-pawn and weakening of his king's side defence. Qxg6 was so much stronger for me, I don't know why I didn't see it.
In the meantime Neil out-manoeuvred Graham to get our second point, initially keeping him pinned down in his own half. He then pried open the king's defence and chased it to the queen's side of the board, before swapping off queens and forcing home a-pawn advantage on the now empty king's side.
Close behind came James with a comfortable win against Lloyd's French defence ending with a nice finish. With the match won John agreed a draw on board 6 in what initially looked like a fairly even position but turned out to be winning for Black. However it secured the win.
I tried for a mate in the middle of the board but played my rook too early allowing the king to escape. However, my Bishop advantage proved to be too much in the end and with his time running out Dave resigned. 0.5-4.5.
All attention turned to the top board, where Peter was now playing for pride. I have not seen the full game but when I joined, it seemed even with both players manoeuvring to try and get an advantage. Time was running out and it turned into a scramble, Peter was the first to make a mistake allowing Robert to quickly capture a couple of pieces and Peter sportingly resigned with under a minute on his clock and less than 2 minutes on Robert's.
0.5-5.5 a good win and we remain unbeaten.
Cabot next and a chance to avenge the 5-1 dubbing they just gave the D-team, we will need to be at full strength for that one.