B Minus

A 2-2 draw for the B team against Stratford A could often be considered a point gained, rather than a point lost, but last night was not really one of those occasions. Continuing a pattern which has become worryingly prevalent over the last couple of weeks, we failed to make the most of our substantial grading advantage on every board (averaging over 150 points) and had to rely on me - yes, it was that desperate! - to save the draw in the ast game to finish.

Mike's game against Richard Dobedoe on Board 3 never seemed to get going. Maybe I looked away at the exciting moments, but its also possible there weren't any! So a fairly uneventful draw. It was much more exciting on Board 4, where Michal and his opponent Paul Budd were soon in a very unbalanced position, with Michal having a rook and 2 pawns for a bishop and knight. I was vaguely hopeful Michal might be better, but the next time I looked, the imbalance had become rook and 2 pawns for two bishops and Black looked to be doing fine. As must have been the case, since a draw was agreed soon after.

I was initially slightly worried about Josh's game against Carl Hibberd on Board 2, as Black appeared to have emerged better from the opening (some sort of Sveshnikov/Kalashnikov Sicilian) but on my next viewing I thought Josh's position had greatly improved and he seemed to be threatening quite a lot of Black pawns. However, I was either way off with my assessment, or something went wrong (both possibilities highly likely!) because further viewing revealed that Josh was a pawn down and looking likely to lose another one. I missed the climax to the game, but it didn't end well.

And it could easily have been curtains for us, as I was very nearly lost straight out of the opening against Richard McNally (just our 12th encounter!) when I found myself with almost no squares to put any of my pieces on. Thankfully, though, a couple of inaccuracies allowed me some breathing space, albeit at the cost of a pawn - but as White had tripled b pawns I wasn't too worried about the slight material deficit. But then Richard overlooked a knight fork from my only active piece and I won an exchange and messed up his pawns in the process. It should have been fairly straightforward, but of course it wasn't. We repeatedly traded inaccuracies, but eventually time trouble proved the deciding factor and Richard's king came under heavy fire in the middle of the board. Facing total disaster he lost on time and we'd saved the match.

The point gained put the B team onto the same points as Warwick University and Banbury A, but with a game in hand, so the push to secure another 1-2 finish for Kenilworth is still possible. Though with an away match at Banbury still to come, the bookies would not have us down as favourites, I suspect!

Music time and in keeping with my theme it has to be another B artist. (But not a B-lister, lets be clear about that!) I don't know how The Band have only managed 2 appearances on this website so far, but its high time we increased that number to 3. I love this song and I really love this liver version from the film The Last Waltz. Hope you do, too.