When it's a Leamington League Cup match, of course. As then we need a tie break to see who has actually won. And, as I'm sure you are familiar with, Rule 22 says "In Team Knock-Out Cups, if the matches are drawn the result shall be decided by board elimination." For which we have very good reason to be thankful, as it enabled us to scrape over the line against Olton in our first round Open KO Cup match this week. It really shouldn't have been necessary, since we had a clear rating advantage on every board, and at various stages of the evening it looked like it was going to finish about 4-1 to us. But there's many a slip twixt cup and lip!
We had a very strong team out, but the expected flow of points just didn't happen. Javi was the first to finish, on Board 2 against Mark Cundy, but after a lot of opening theory had been put on the board, it turned out White had precisely no advantage, and when it came down to opposite bishops and hardly any pawns on the board, a draw was inevitable. Quite a bit later Jude followed suit, but after a very much more exciting game against Alan Lloyd on top board. Jude won (or Alan sacked) a pawn and sometime later Alan sacked a piece. I gave up looking at the position as it was too difficult for my brain, but - possibly the least likely outcome after all these complications - it ended as a draw. So Olton had done a good job of neutralising us on the top two boards, but there was nothing to worry about, as we had a 2-300 point rating edge on the other three, so the match was surely a foregone conclusion, right? Wrong!
But it all happened in a bit of a haze as far as I was concerned, since I was far too occupied with my own game against Richard Reynolds on Board 3 to see what happened on the other two boards. All of a sudden, though, I looked around the room and discovered mine was the only game still in progress. What had happened? Well, first Joshua had contrived to lose on Board 5 against Richard Liszewski, having seemingly been virtually winning from a very early stage of the game. Super-spectator Paul Lam subsequently rattled off a few lines which would have been a big improvement on Joshua's play - and I have such confidence in Paul's analysis that I christened him LamFish - KCC's human answer to StockFish! This could have been a total disaster, but for the fact that Bruce rose to the occasion and struck back with a win against Rob Reynolds on Board 4. I last noticed this game sometime after 22.00, when it had been in progress for over two and a half hours - and just a single pawn exchange had occurred. I thought Bruce might be better, but with30 pieces/pawns on the board who can tell what's going to happen? Thankfully what happened was that Bruce sacked a piece for two pawns and a massive pawn roller supported by a strong bishop pair. He was winning, but then he messed it up, only for Rob to return the favour and Bruce was able to bring home the full point which we - ultimately - seriously needed.
So now I knew that I only needed a draw to win the match for us on tie break. I had been better for the whole game and as we descended into mutual time trouble my advantage got bigger and bigger. But I missed an elementary winning line and both players were floundering around in a bit of a daze when news of the other games was finally conveyed to me. I immediately set about swapping off as many pieces as possible to avoid any major accidents, and eventually we came down to a rook and pawn ending - and Richard immediately blundered a pawn away to give me another winning position. But - quite in character - I eschewed this latest opportunity and simplified further, when a little thought would have enabled me to win a second pawn, as Javi pointed out to me as soon as I had agreed the draw (still a pawn up and still with a possible winning plan that I could have tried, risk-free). But I had had enough! Another massive disappointment for me, though, having failed to win from a queen for 2 minor pieces advantage against Richard just a couple of months ago in the Phil Holt Memorial Team Tournament. I dare not look to see how many rating points those two games have cost me!
Well, a happy ending, of sorts, but without Bruce's win on Board 4 we would have been sunk. All credit to Olton for a massive team effort, which just came up short. And all credit to the Leamington League for their inspired adoption of Rule 22. Jimi Hendrix once sang that "If 6 turned out to be 9, I don't mind", but you'll notice Jimi very pointedly did not say anything about numbers 4 and 5. As it transpired in this match, I would definitely have minded if 4 had turned out to be 5!
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