Banbury made their third visit of the season to Kenilworth on Monday night to play our B team, and just like the other two occasions (KO Cup and A team matches) they once again "wound up on the wrong end of a gun", to quote the Allman Brothers. However, its a very brave man who would expect the same to happen when they make their fourth visit to play the C team in the New Year!
Banbury's league title aspirations have taken a bit of a hit lately, with consecutive losses to our A team, Stratford and Warwick University and their losing run extended to four as the B team rediscovered its winning mojo which had been rudely derailed at Solihull last time out. The evening got off to a rather predictable start, though, when David was unable to overcome a 300 point rating disadvantage against Banbury's formidable IM, James Jackson, but only went down after a spirited effort to mix things up with the Black pieces. At a crucial stage David offered the exchange for a pawn, but James simply declined the offer and played on David's weak pawns, eventually prevailing in a double rook ending.
Things then improved, as Joshua played an uncharacteristically normal/sound game with the White pieces against Paul Rowan, eventually swapping off into a level material but winning king and pawn ending, where his king couldn't be stopped from invading. Not too long later we took the lead, as Bruce played the game of the evening to beat Gary Jackson with powerful pawn and piece play on Board 3. A passed White pawn got to c6 and the Black king was also under a major attack on the dark squares. As Bruce has delightedly pointed out to me, he is currently the club's 4th highest rated player and he certainly played like it in this game.
Which left me in play against Danut Joian. The game had been pretty boring and heading towards an inevitable draw until the position burst into life as we both came under time pressure. I was the first to crack, though, blundering a pawn due to a simple oversight, but Danut then mistakenly gave up his bishop for my knight to enter a rook and pawn ending where he had f and g pawns on their starting squares and I had a pawn on f5. A long period of manoeuvring occurred as the White king tried to get in to attack my sole pawn, but this proved impossible and eventually we ended up with a rook each and a lone f pawn for White. I've somehow managed to lose this ending twice, despite having my king blockading the last opposition pawn, but I like to think I've learned my lesson and comfortably held it on this occasion (for the second time in a few weeks, in fact). And so, after what I imagine was the best part of 80 moves, the match was eventually ours.
The win was not enough to lift us back into second place, as Warwick Uni have a much better game points score, but it was a very powerful team effort against such strong opposition. Don't give up on the B team just yet - in fact, keep on B-lieving.
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