Well, maybe not anything. Like winning the League. But when it comes to beating Olton A, then its definitely the B team that takes the biscuit! Because after the A team's rather unfortunate accident away at Olton a couple of weeks back, the B team hardly broke sweat in chalking up a 3-1 win against exactly the same Olton A team last Tuesday.
Bruce "Bruiser" Baer was particularly brutal, winning a whole piece in broad daylight with Black against Mark Cundy, and forcing resignation shortly afterwards. I imagine he was back home in plenty of time to watch the 9 o'clock news. Especially as its not on till 10 o'clock these days. Andy had been the chief culprit in the A team's loss, frittering away a totally won position against Mike Hollier, but he made no mistake when offered the chance of revenge. Once again he got a won position surprisingly quickly (two pieces for a rook) and this time he made the advantage count. Although Mike managed to check Andy's king around the board for a few moves, by this stage he was a whole 2 pieces down and as soon as the checks stopped it was game over.
I then made it 3-0 on the night in rather strange circumstances. Believe it or not, I actually played a rather good game against Alan Lloyd on top board, after Alan had blundered a pawn in the opening. In order to break a mini-blockade, I correctly sacrificed the exchange, but gained a second pawn in the process. And one of them was a monster passed pawn on b6 that was straining at the leash to get to b7 and b8. Alan defended as well as he could, but he was completely lost ....... when I allowed him the chance to return the exchange and enter a king and pawn ending a pawn down which, as far as I can tell, would have been a draw. But - just like me! - he didn't notice this possibility and instead resigned. Ultimately a lucky point for me, but I felt I deserved it. And as I'm writing the match report, that's the opinion that counts! Unfortunately, we couldn't make it 4-0, as Mike went horribly wrong against Richard Liszewski in what looked like a favourable position and managed to lose his queen for a rook. Quite a few fairly pointless moves later the inevitable happened and Mike was forced to resign.
With Banbury A winning on the same night, its still all to play for in the fight for second place in Division 1, and next week's direct encounter between the two teams may well decide the final outcome - though the B team does have one more match after that, away at Stratford.
This week's song was somewhat telegraphed by the title, so no prizes for guessing we're taking a trip to the golden age of the Hollywood musical. Not our normal cup of tea, but I like to cater for all tastes!
