Explain this if you can - on Tuesday night Kenilworth loses 1-3 to Warwick Uni B in the Coventry League. On Wednesday night Warwick Uni loses 1.5-2.5 to Kenilworth B in the Leamington League. Thankfully, I had nothing to do with the match on Tuesday, so there will not be a report on that particular encounter. Instead, I'll focus on the much happier event of the B team victory, which went down to the wire and was one of the most thrilling matches I've been involved in recently.
Mike (Bd 4) and I (Bd 2) were first to finish, almost simultaneously, and so in the wink of an eye the score went from 0-0 to 1.5-0.5 in our favour. Against Piotr Arp, Mike had to face a massive pawn storm heading for his king, but got counterplay on the queenside at the cost of an exchange. It was all pretty hair-raising stuff, as White then managed to set up a very nasty pin on the 8th rank, but thankfully Mike's queen jumped in to give perpetual check. I faced Ben Fearnhead for the third time this season - all with Black. In the previous two games he had sacked, first, a piece and a rook, and more recently three pieces against me. I, of course, had sacrificed nothing in return and had somehow (and most undeservedly) acquired 1.5 points from the two encounters. So I shouldn't really have been surprised when - out of nowhere - he sacked a knight for three pawns. I should have refuted the sac on the spot, but despite seeing the right move, I miscalculated the consequences and instead we ended up in a position where I had two bishops for a rook and pawn, plus one more rook each and a collection of pawns. But on the open board my bishops then caused instant mayhem. The White pawns started to fall off, and a final desperate move walked into the loss of an exchange and more pawns, forcing resignation.
But the match was anything but over, despite our healthy lead. Dave and Bruce were both having mega-fights which might have gone either way. Playing against correspondence chess Senior IM, Vitalii Mikhalchuk, Dave eventually won a pawn on Board 3 and it came down to rook and three v rook and two. The Black king got very active and things looked highly unclear, but a couple of crucial checks got Dave's king over to stop the last remaining Black pawn, and there was nothing to stop one of his own pawns from queening. Tremendous stuff, and some swift consolation for his agonising near-miss against IM James Jackson in a C team match on Monday.
Unfortunately, we didn't end on a high as Bruce went down on top board against Damirali Magzumov, despite being much better for most of the game. But the absence of any increment assumed massive significance, and after he'd missed the right set up against another somewhat dubious kingside pawn-storm he couldn't find a way to defend his pawns and his king as his clock ticked down. And to top it all, he managed to get lost both on the way to the match, and on the way home afterwards! Doesn't bode well for this weekend when he's playing in the Warwick Uni Open.
The B team stays in third place after this latest success, but now sits only one point behind Banbury A with a game in hand. However, both Stratford A and Warwick Uni are also in the fight for second place - and maybe first if our A team falter, though we have a reasonably healthy lead at the moment.
There's so much good music out there that its a struggle to make my regular selections. But since I just noticed that we've never had a song from Steely Dan, I think its time I remedied that omission.
Strange fact number 1 - the amazing lead guitarist is Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, who in later years became a major authority on missile defence systems!! Don't judge a book by its cover!
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