And the intense atmosphere clearly did our teams no harm, as we came away with two clear cut victories. As I was present in a non-playing capacity, I had rather a good view of proceedings - at least for the last hour, as before then I had adopted a hands-off approach and retreated to the bar for a chat with Nash and Richard.
My return to the action was not in time to see any of Josh's game, though, as he had won in double quick time for the A team on Board 4 and already departed the scene. Good to see the legendary Pink Points Machine back in full working order! Javier, making his first appearance at the Holiday Inn (which might - just - excuse him for going to the Abbey Club first. No, on reflection it doesn't!) performed a massive hatchet job on Richard McNally's usually very potent Morra Gambit and didn't take long to make an extra piece tell, for a very convincing win. But things weren't necessarily going to plan on the other two boards, so the match win wasn't totally assured. However, I needn't have worried as things turned decisively in our favour as the clocks ticked down. First, Andrew found a very nice way to force a repetition on Board 3 and escape from a pawn down ending with a draw, and then Keatan went one better by producing a monster knight fork to win Carl Hibbard's rook after a very tense struggle where the momentum seemed to be going to and fro at varying moments. Which meant a 3.5-0.5 victory and a 10 point lead at the top of Division 1. And a massive game points score of +36 - just the 23 more than the next best score!
But with the league title already secured, the bigger match last night was the cup semi-final. Ben's team was already missing a couple of players and then had to cope with a late withdrawal as well, but thankfully the assembled team rose to the occasion and produced a really splendid effort. It was far from plain sailing, of course, and for much of the evening it looked possible that we would be going out. Even very close to the finishing line we could still have been eliminated on tie break, but thankfully it didn't come to that.
Our only loss on the night came on board 3, where Phil succumbed to a massive attack targeted at his king. White lined up queen and bishop on the a1-h7 diagonal and two rooks on an open g file - and with everything pointing at the g7 square there was no defence. Thankfully we bounced back when Patrick secured an excellent win on Board 5 with Black. I missed the end, but earlier he had won an exchange and looked set to start picking off pawns and exposing the White king in last viewing. And then we were in the lead when Ben played an excellent game against Joshua Simpson on Board 2, winning a piece and setting up a mating attack. Though disappointingly he didn't deliver mate and won on material instead!
But despite it being advantage Kenilworth, it was still all to play for. Dylan looked to have walked into a vicious pin and attack on Board 4, but he kept his cool and found a way to stave off immediate disaster at the cost of a pawn, and then sacrificed an exchange which soon led to a draw by perpetual. I wasn't sure if it should have, but I wouldn't trust my analysis too much! Anyway, it was all irrelevant as this was a crucial half point saved. We now led by 2.5-1.5, with just Rhys' game against Ben Egid on Board 1 left in play. A Leamington win and they would go through on tie break. White seemed to be pressing with doubled rooks on the open d file, but Rhys had challenged these and also covered possible entry squares. Much more significant, though, was White's dreadful light squared bishop and a rapidly evaporating time allowance. Rhys jumped in on the dark squares tro win a pawn, and then refrained from winning a second in favour of keeping the queens on, so that White had to worry about a possible mating attack. The defensive task proved too much and the clock took over to finish the game in our favour. A tremendous win for Rhys - with Black - against Leamington A's regular board 1.
So many congratulations to both teams on a double triumph, but no doubt that the major honours go to the U8750 cup team for securing our first cup final appearance of the season. The Open KO team is still hoping to join them, though we have a few weeks to go yet before a semi-final against Solihull.
Onto the music - and after being in such a crowded room last night, the selection of our group seemed pretty obvious to me!
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