We will start with the better parts though, which were two nice wins by Bernard and Mike. Mike's game was particularly smooth. A late arrival by his opponent left open the possibility for a while that Mike could once again not be required to play a game of chess in one of his appearances (a surprisingly common occurrence these days), but even his eventual arrival at the board didn't seme to improve his opponent's chances very much. A smooth Catalan opening as white, giving his usual opening advantage, the magnitude of which can be judged by the fact that toward the end he was choosing not to win pieces as stronger moves were available.
Bernard's victory seemed somewhat less convincing, at least to everyone other than him. Playing some Dutch looking position as black, he ended up subjected to a kingside pawn storm from Chris Evans, and had to give up the exchange for a pawn to keep things somewhat under control. From both looking during the game, and seeing the post-mortem, I am convinced Bernard was in a lot of trouble most of the way through. However, Bernard seemed to have great confidence in his position and, in a sign that confidence can triumph over objective truth, ended up putting his extra pawn to good use (specifically, the use of becoming a queen) to win the game.
At this stage we were 2-0 up, and you might think the match was looking good, but unfortunately was already pretty much nailed on to be a draw. Not much more needs to be said about my game than to look at my kingside position after around 15 moves.
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For various reasons, my bishop was never going to be able to return via f1, leaving me needed to play the moves h4, g5, Bh3, Bg4, Kh2 and Kh3 to have a decent position. Very unsportingly, Nathan did not decide to allow me to play all those moves, and unceremoniously crashed through on the queenside to win the game. That makes it 1 win in my last 12 games now - sigh. Still, I did sor e6/6 to win the unrated season opening Coventry League rapid tournament, proving I can still play chess when it absolutely does not matter.
That left Andy P, also on the black side of a Dutch, and also in trouble. A decent opening had converted into a position where he was down a pawn, with another isolated pawn, less space, and unsafe king and little active prospects. He did have the bishop pair, but in such a way that his opponent's knight was able to dominate both of Andy's bishops. I'm really not sure how it went quite so downhill quite so fast, but it really was rather ugly to behold (even if not as ugly as my position above) so a 2-2 draw in the match was the result.
Not bad, not great, and ceratinly work to do for the players on boards 1 and 2.
Pity the poor reader in years to come, who searches in vain for some clue as to who our opponents in this match were! Pah - obviously a mere detail!
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