High excitement, on and off the board - all of the wrong kind - at our Coventry League season opener away at Nuneaton. As far as the match was concerned, we went down to a 2.5-1.5 defeat. Ben was our sole winner, despatching Thomas Glenn with the Black pieces after a tough fight. If I can get the new game reader to work, then his win should appear ......... here!
Mike and Tony Green opted not to play their game out and agreed to a draw. with lots of pieces on the board and a very unclear position. This means, by process of elimination, that the guilty parties for KCC were myself and Jude, who found ourselves sharing joint membership of The Losers Club. Jude went down with Black to Paul Davies after getting in quite a bind out of the opening and dropping an exchange. But undaunted, he soon got it back and reached a rook and bishop ending with equal pawns, where White had a dangerous pair of queenside pawns. Jude queened a pawn of his own to win White's Rook, but he was then unable to prevent Paul's last pawn from queening (though I think Paul pointed out a way he could have held the draw) and then succumbed rather quickly in a queen v rook ending which I know from experience is far from trivial to win. I managed to lose with the White pieces to Phil Briggs, who I have to say played an excellent game, with a couple of really good moves that I failed to see coming. rather luckily I survived his middle game onslaught (though I definitely shouldn't) but then failed to hold a difficult rook ending a pawn down.
But the excitement was not over, as the following morning came the news that one of the Nuneaton players had tested positive for covid (quick work, I must say). Now we - and the rest of the Nuneaton team - have to wait to see if any of us produce a similar reading on our lateral flow tests. Not the start to our campaign I would have chosen! Just as well we have some music to cheer us up, don't you think? And, you lucky people, this week you get an absolute epic. Live music really can't get much better than this.
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