Mike finished first, drawing with Black against Ed Goodwin on Board 4 - a result the smart money would have been on at the outset. I saw virtually nothing of the game, but I gather Mike equalised and held a slight edge, but Ed just played very solidly and shut the game down to a draw.
I finished next, being the first victim of a sudden swarm of Coventry Killer Queens which attacked the Kenilworth team. I was much better out of the opening against Jonathan Fowler; missed an absolutely crushing, but very complex, piece sac; then missed a more prosaic way to establish a won position; before falling to equality around move 30. By move 33 I was completely lost, as I had a total mental blank and failed to notice that an obvious move of Jonathan's was check. Even after he'd played it I tried to make an illegal move. However, the fact it was check made rather a big difference, and I was virtually forced to give up my queen (and a pawn) for a rook and knight. But my king was unsafe and I couldn't find anything better than to force him to sac an exchange to secure two monstrous central passed pawns which - shepherded forwards by a killer queen - overwhelmed by two rooks and won the game.
But we could still win the match on board count if we could muster 1.5/2 on the top two boards. One point was in the bag, as Javier had simply taken a gambit pawn in the opening and held on to it without any semblance of counterplay for Black. By the time I could take a look at the game again, he had won a second pawn, and when he added a third - in what was now a single rook ending - Francis Sagyaman decided enough was enough.
But it didn't save us, as tragically Bruce had succumbed to another Coventry killer queen, this time in the hands of a certain Joshua Pink. Joshua started the inevitable madness early in the game, and Bruce made a fatal mistake in going along with him on his crazy adventures in Pinkland. This time round the Kenilworth player got a rook and two pieces for the queen, but that was hardly important - what really mattered was that Joshua was in his element and subjective assessments were pretty irrelevant given the massive material imbalance. When the White queen rook and knight all advanced to the 7th and 8th ranks, the large but hopelessly uncoordinated collection of Black pieces couldn't hold the balance, and Bruce lost on time when unable to find a defence to the White invasion. Score 2-0 to the Coventry Killer Queens!
This was all very disappointing (we did have a rating advantage on all 4 boards - particularly pronounced on my board!), but other than mea culpa, there's not a lot more I can say. The only thing we can do now is to make sure we win the Leamington League Open KO Cup, where we are due to play Stratford in the Final on May 8th (at Solihull).
I think you all know what song's coming up. Though don't make the mistake of thinking that I like it. Far too popular for my tastes! Still, at least its blissfully short.
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