Exchange Rate Crisis

On a night when there were more Sicilians in a single room than at any time since the making of the Godfather films, Kenilworth somehow only managed a 2-2 Cov League draw against bottom placed Coventry A. This was all due to the fact that it is clearly not only the pound which has collapsed since the Brexit vote - an exchange is also now not worth what it once was.

But I am ahead of myself, because firstly, congratulations have to go to Dave, who scored an excellent win on Board 4 with the Black pieces, playing a model Sicilian in which White pushed and pushed until the point where Black jumped out and took over all the good squares and files freed up by White's pawn advances. So a second consecutive win for Dave, who takes over as our top performer for the season.

Regrettably this was due to the fact that I lost for the second game in a row, with White, to a lower graded player. How I pine for those early season matches, when I was unbeaten and the team were getting soundly thrashed. Or does that sound too egocentric? Dave Ireland administered my latest beating, navigating through a sea of complications to exploit an extra pawn.

And now we return to the exchange rate crisis. Ben was an exchange up against our very own Bernard C on Board 2, and seemed to be winning, while Mike was an exchange up against Ed Goodwin on Board 3 and had a massive passed (and extra) c pawn to boot. Looked like 2-0 to us on those boards and a comfortable match victory. But incredibly the Coventry players hung in there and took their chances when they came along to emerge with 2 draws. So not only did we have to settle for a draw, but I had the added guilt of being responsible for us not winning. I guess this is what is known as a double whammy.

Anyway, that's it for League action for a few weeks, but we go into the mid-season break in sixth position with just 3 points. Thankfully that is two more than Coventry have. My New Year's resolution is to try and lose less often. This may be easier said than done.