Oh dear, oh dear. What have I gone and done? Only put (probably) a very big nail in the C team's coffin and set them on the road to relegation.
Our story begins over a week ago, when the B and C teams faced off in the third and final leg of the intra-Kenilworth mini-tournament that we are compelled to play due to having three teams in Division 1. It was obviously a more important match for the C team than the B team, but as usual Ben's team selection was compromised by non-availability and it was not at full strength. However, to counter-balance this, neither was the B team and the outcome was by no means a foregone conclusion.
I had played Ben in the Kenilworth A v Kenilworth B match one week earlier, but we found ourselves in opposition once again, this time on Board 1 in the B v C encounter. The game was fairly balanced until Ben gave me the two bishops to win a pawn. But he couldn't actually keep the pawn, and my unopposed dark squared bishop started to cause a few problems. Never mind, though, as I went wrong and gave away all my advantage. But Ben was getting into big time trouble and missed a chance to swap most of the pieces off to get a totally drawn position. I managed to get a rook into the kingside and take all Ben's pawns and he was then powerless to stop me queening.
By contrast, Mike seemed to have a very smooth win over Paul B on Board 2, but Phil's encounter with Dan on Board 3 looked like total chaos from beginning to end. Phil's king was wandering around in the centre but he had an extra pawn for his troubles, and when I next saw the game they were in a knight ending where Phil had about 3 extra pawns. He avoided any embarrassing forks and duly queened one of his pawns in a time scramble, but then bemused the watching crowd by failing to deliver an obvious mate in 1 by playing a random knight move - which was nevertheless good enough to compel resignation. This gave the B team a 3-0 lead, but some honour was restored when Dylan managed to win a totally drawn knight ending against Patrick. It came down to N+h pawn v N+ g and h pawns. Tragically for Patrick he rushed his attempt to liquidate all the pawns and gave his knight up too early. Dylan kept one pawn and with the aid of an extra knight this was sufficient to win the game. Very hard luck for Patrick after 3 hours of good play, but credit to Dylan for pressing for most of the night and still being alert enough to seize the opportunity that came his way.
So, 3-1 to the B team and no points for the C team.
Fast forward 7 days and it was now Kenilworth B v Leamington A. A crucial match for our C team, who led Leamington by 1 point at the foot of the table and were relying on the B team to do the decent thing and beat Leamington. Alas, we didn't. And in fact it was worse than that as we actually lost. And even worse than that was the fact that it was me who lost the match. Oh no!! Oh yes!!
I went down on top board against Tom Darling after seeing, but rejecting a very strong move (+3 to black) and instead choosing a losing variation where I had only considered a White knight jumping to d5 - when I would still have been better - and blanked the idea of it going to e4. Which won my queen. Oops.
And despite big rating advantages on every board we couldn't find even a single win to level the match. Andy B seemed to be powering to victory on the kingside against Joshua Simpson but the Black counter attack came just in time to force Andy to settle for perpetual check. On Board 3 Joshua played one of his pet/dubious openings as Black against Ben Egid and was doubtless rather relieved when a draw was offered, as his position looked pretty horrendous to me. I saw very little of Mike's game on Board 4 against Chris Ward, but Black never seemed to be in much trouble and another draw resulted.
A dagger to the heart of the C team, who now find themselves overtaken by Leamington A - trailing by a point and having played one match more. Its fair to say that the Leamington A v Kenilworth C match on March 3rd has become a must win fixture for us. Hmm - what's that saying? Oh yes - "now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party!"
In amongst all this angst and drama, its also appropriate to record here that the wheels have well and truly come off our quest for a second Coventry League title, following consecutive heavy defeats at the hands of Nuneaton A and Warwick University A. One person - no names, no pack drill - disgraced themselves by getting the match date confused and failing to turn up, which didn't help proceedings, while those who did were not able to score too many points. Admittedly against two rather strong teams. Keatan seemed especially unlucky against Warwick Uni's strong board 1 Edward Jackson (already a conqueror of Jude in the Leamington League this season) as he managed to drive the White king to g4, but unfortunately there was no mate. At least not for Keatan!! In the same match I was a pawn up but missed a beautiful win against Magnus Borissow and ended up allowing perpetual check. Our championship charge has been well and truly derailed.
But on to happier things. Its music time. This week I've worked with a B/C theme. (Well, when you get an idea you've got to keep running with it.) I drew the line at Bobby Crush, but I couldn't decide between two other options. So prepare for a double blast of BC music - from two very different artists. Well, music really is a very broad church!
