Top of the league (temporarily)

I think the headline says it all really. It might be mainly because we’ve played more games than other teams, but the point still stands that the “Bad” Kenilworth team are currently sitting on top of the table (I’m open to suggestions for a better nickname for Kenilworth B, as I’m not sure that is the best).

It was all looking a bit ropey at many points during our match against Stratford however. The first game to finish was Andrew P, who seemed to have rather a tough time against Ben Larkin on board 1. It was some version of the silly Ng5 line in the two knight’s defence, so white wins a pawn but loses loads of time getting his pieces chased around. Unfortunately, whilst Andy was gaining time on the board, he was losing it on the clock, so whilst I still think he probably had compensation, his being 30 minutes behind was slightly concerning. Trying to make something of the compensation in time trouble proved impossible, and therefore we were 1-0 down.

The less spotted Andy Baruch soon levelled the score. The opening was so earth shatteringly dull I can’t bring myself to describe it, but against Richard McNally that can only be regarded as a success. Andy looked to be slowly outplaying him, until he found a clever tactic that involved letting Richard take a piece with check on Andy’s back rank, but with the tactic somehow resulting in Andy being a piece up. The conversion took somewhat longer than was optimal (for reasons that will make sense in two paragraphs time) but nonetheless we were level.

Mike had a comparatively smooth win, with perhaps one exception. Playing white against a stonewall Dutch, I expect Mike was delighted when his opponent played Rf6, then Rh6, then Nf6, and trapped his own rook. I’m not convinced Mike took the exchange in the cleanest way possible, but nonetheless he was the exchange up, and remined the exchange up until he converted it into a winning king and pawn endgame. Now we just needed a draw for victory – how could I mess this up.

The answer as to how was that I had already turned down a draw offer, as I hadn’t been convinced Andy was going to win his game (why I had more faith in myself than him is a mystery, given my current level of play). It was all going so well – playing as black, I won the exchange and a pawn against Sam Cotterill, and had a large lead on the clock. Then I totally messed it up into a level position, then declined a draw, then horribly blundered into a position where Sam had two pieces and an extra pawn against a solitary rook. I don’t know how easy the position below is to convert, but I feel like it should be possible. However, the pressure of trying to win for the team proved too much, and in the end Sam not only failed to do so, but blundered away both his kingside pawns, to somehow end up losing.

I therefore technically ended up winning the match for the team, but in such a way as to lower even further the already very low quality of my play for the season. Still, top of the league in such a situation – how bad must the other teams be?