This season our various teams have to play against Warwick University a total of 10 times - 6 in the Leamington League and 4 in the Coventry League. Talk about over-kill! Of course, you never know who's going to turn out for them, as they have such a large group of players, so actually there is probably less chance of playing the same opponent over and over than there is with teams that we meet less often, but who have a settled team.
And so last night they descended on Kenilworth to play the third of our 10 encounters - but with just 1 of the team that drew with our A team a few weeks back, and only 2 of the team that beat our C team a week ago. Not one single player has appeared for them in all 3 matches. Their latest team was, by rating, the weakest they have fielded against us so far, and thankfully our B team just about took advantage with a hard earned 2.5-1.5 victory that lifted us up to 4th place in the table.
Though things looked far from promising to begin with, as Joshua fell for a very simple tactic against David Cebolla that cost him a piece and the game in rather quick order. I guess he had a train back to Manchester to catch. But this was eventually balanced by a hard fought win for Bruce on Board 2. He sacked an exchange for a pawn (or maybe two?) and a dangerous initiative on the kingside, and in time trouble and a difficult position his opponent, Piotr Arp, blundered a piece away.
Meanwhile, on Board 1, Ben Fearnhead had sacked a whole piece against me almost straight out of the opening, and seemed to have plenty of compensation as my pieces were dreadfully short of squares. But the computer tells me I was simply winning all the way until the end, when I spoilt a rather well played defence by walking into a series of dreadful pins. By this stage I was a whole rook up, but I simply couldn't move most of my remaining pieces - a queen on h8, king on h7, rook on g8 and bishop on g7 - due to a pin along the seventh rank and a double attack on g7 by a queen and bishop on the a1-h8 diagonal. All I could do was repeat the position by moving my extra rook to attack the White queen. Most frustrating to be a whole rook up, with half an army of pieces left on the board, and yet be in virtual zugzwang! Anyway, a very interesting and enterprising slugfest in which honours were shared.
Which left Mike to win the match for us on Board 4 against Bence Szakmanyi. After the game, Mike's opponent told him that his opening idea (an unexpected a5-a4 push with Black on moves 6 and 7) of a standard well known line, was part of an on-line course he had just completed, and that it had been played several times by Carlsen and many other top players - to Mike's complete ignorance. Despite this, it was Black that got into severe time trouble and with less than 1 minute left he accepted a piece sacrifice that allowed a forced mate - with the exact same combination Mike had played at least 35 years before his opponent was born!
A good, but hard fought win for the B team, who at full/near-full strength are a match for all but a couple of teams in Division 1.
This week's song seems very apposite given the frequency with which these two clubs will face each other this season. I think most of us can sing along to it, too!
Remarkably, I once saw the Three Degrees live, sometime in the 1970s! Not singing, of course, as its most definitely not my kind of music. They were appearing locally in cabaret (those were the days) and came on the pitch at Filbert Street (long gone!) to kick some giant inflatable balls around at half time in a Leicester v Coventry match! Don't ask me the score/result as that memory is long gone, but I do recall they were all wearing fur coats!! Well, it was a bit chilly.
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