A third Leamington League Division 1 match for the A team, and a third convincing vicdtory, as we followed up our earlier KO Cup win over Shirley with a 3-1 league win. For once, I stuck to the adage of "never change a winning team" by keeping the same 4 players that had won at Banbury in the previous match.
Inevitably, Joshua finished first, beating Dave Thomas with Black on Board 3 from what looked a very dubious position to me, right out of the opening. This, though, is par for the course, as no normal spectator (and I count myself as one of them!) has any chance of ever knowing what is going on in Joshua's games. So doubtless it was all good stuff really - at least in the parallel universe that is Joshworld!
The second game to finish was Andrew's very exciting encounter with Iain Galloway on Board 2. Our man took his season's record to 4/4 with another terrific game. Iain threw the kitchen sink at Andrew's king, though in the process his own monarch looked similarly compromised. At one point I thought Black had a perpetual, but apparently he never did, and when the smoke cleared Andrew had another win. Maybe I should take a year off playing chess if this is what it does to your results!
The last two games went the full distance and finished almost simultaneously. On Board 1, I eventually found a way to make my extra pawn count against Phil Purcell in a rook and opposite bishop ending, though for many moves it was very hard going. Unfortunately, Jude couldn't complete the clean sweep on Board 4 and rather unexpectedly went down against Gordon Christie, who understandably looked like Christmas had come early at the end of the game. I would have felt the same! I think Jude may have been feeling the after effects of a terrific effort at the Birmingham Rapidplay the day before, when he had 7 very tough pairings, but notched up some terrific results in the process.
This latest victory leaves us in splendid isolation at the top of the table, and remarkably we are the only team with a positive board difference! It's clearly going well. Too well. Something's bound to go wrong!
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