2nd Division champions elect

The penultimate game against Banbury proved to be a rather strange affair. Everyone had a plan.

Banbury had decided that they needed to stop Mike from winning and try as hard as possible to pick up points on the lower boards. Anything as long as Kenilworth didn't win. We had decided that we just needed a single point and so there was no need for heroics as we also had a game in hand.

Phil had a prior Easter engagement and so was unavailable. Fortunately, Bernard R was available and very kindly agreed to step in. With Phil gone and everyone moving up a board, Banbury's plan was dealt a blow as no one one was playing who they expected to be playing.

The top board game was the most interesting with Daniel Rowan set to play a complex line and muddy the water a little to try and gain an advantage against Mike. Not much seems to surprise Mike and he just shrugged off the wild play and neutralised the position and draw was agreed. I didn't see the post match analysis so I don't really know what was sound and what was not.

On his elevated 2nd board, Dave was playing Nick Martin. Refusing to play anything that was aggressive, Dave soaked up the pressure with dull play leaving Nick desperate to generate any sort of attack. He finally managed to generate some king side play, but this allowed more pieces to be exchanged and a refusal by Dave to try and win material left white in a lifeless position that was only ever going to be drawn.

On board 4, Bernard played a very solid slav defence against Mal Waddell. With black having more space, more time and an advantage, white was struggling to get anywhere. With the Banbury plan compelling him to carry on, he watched the outcome of board three with interest.

On board three, Ben was playing Arthur Hibbitt. In the middle game white had doubled pawn but had opened up the h file. Black managed to almost equalise but then refused Ben's draw offer as it wasn't part of the plan. Unfortunately, playing on from an even position, black allowed Ben to gain an advantage and further attacking attempt by black simply resulted in him losing a rook.

With the match now at least draw, the plan was busted. However, Mal still had to come down to the bar to get permission to accept a draw from his captain. With Bernard's draw, the match was won and we were promoted.

As a footnote to all this, teams plans are fine but nearly all plans have an assumption or a pre-requisite. For Banbury C, the pre-requisite was that Banbury B would win away at Olton. Unfortunately, the B team had a bad day at the office and came away on the end of a 3-1 defeat. All plans null and void!

So there we are, one game to go but we are already promoted. First division chess beckons the B team. Boom, as the young like to say.