After such a great start to the season, we knew we were going to be really up against it this weekend. We had, as expected, been given a very tough draw against the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. (Maybe there would at least be pizza.) More worrying still, it had been difficult to get a team and Steve eventually had to pick himself! After pondering over board order for some weeks (practically blitz!), a flash of inspiration! If we have to play Steve, give him white on 1! Sometimes he does ok, and worst case it uses up their best player. Drop Sam down to 3 to take white there, avoid likely prep having been board 1 every game, and practially guarantee us a point! Bump Josh up to 5 to take white and guarantee us another win after his recent tournament success. Then put our secret weapon, our danger man, Dave, on 2 to try his luck with black. Dale and Andrew as backup with the other blacks in case anything goes wrong!
Well, Josh won quite quickly, and Sam appeared confident, and Dave was all over his opponent basically putting his position through the shredder, so things were looking good! Steve was basically holding on 1. Unfortunately Andrew was suffering on 6 down material (I don’t know—sometimes he wins these somehow) and Dale was down a bunch of pawns on 4, but by this point Sam’s position was very promising, looked winning, and Dave was up a piece with complete control, rock-steady, just enjoying life. Steve was still ok but getting low on time and a tricky Rook ending was looming. Sam found a nice finish and suddenly it seemed like we might draw the match! But disaster when Dave walked into some devilish trap and was stuck giving back his piece for a fairly equal rook ending. Much head-shaking was taking place. Steve’s Rook ending had now become extremely tricky somehow and he was down to increment, but next thing I know Dave has given mate on the back rank with his 2 rooks and is busy apologising to his opponent! Where did that come from‽ Steve then held the rook ending at move 40 (later to learn there was actually a win on the final move!) and the match was WON! They’re going to have to find us harder opponents! Andrew came within 1 move of putting gloss on the victory by saving a draw with a nice trick, but he put his king on the wrong square and is probably still kicking himself. 3.5 – 2.5, again! No pizza though.
Harder opponents is exactly what they found! Worcestershire Windmills averaged almost 2000 ECF, with 2169 on board 1. Based on the averages of the ratings used, we were giving them a 990 total Elo head start! Board order was kept the same to even out colours (and because I wanted to enjoy my curry without messing with my phone), with similar logic to the previous match and an added dash of being a bit lazy and hoping for the best—we’re probably going to lose anyway, but hold the line!
Well, Dave was powering into a great position with white against his 2000+ opponent right out of the opening, and Steve had survived the opening on 1, getting a Zaitsev with a closed centre. Sam looked like he might be getting in trouble (he wasn’t), and Dale was doing fine, and in fact agreed a pretty quick draw which was fair enough in the position. Maybe he was hungry; he now had a few hours to kill one way or another. Unfortunately we then lost boards 5 and 6, so maybe I should have taken Andrew up on his offer of a double black and swapped him with Josh.
When Steve walked face-first into an obvious Bxf7 cheapo I assumed the match was done, but his opponent still had to convert and it wasn’t easy to find a plan, and after white played g4 and was still suffering some poor coordination at least black had some possible tricks in the air for his pawn. By this point Dave was definitely putting a serious squeeze on his opponent with a bit of a monster passed pawn and active pieces, and Sam had embarked on a king walk in time trouble, but was actually winning. Miracles seem to be following Steve around this season, and trying to sort out his coordination his opponent moved his knight from d2 and his position fell apart immediately. Rxc1! -+. I could see the cold shower hit him. The knight had been defending e4, as had the now overloaded rook on e1. The threat was Nxe4+ followed by Qxf2+ and KO. He opted to play on down a piece and a bunch of pawns with all heavy pieces removed, but his counterplay came to nothing and he resigned when it became obvious he wasn’t even close to getting a KNBvK either. Sam then completed a very nice win after forcing himself to find an only move involving some very nice tricks in severe time trouble, and Dave polished off his opponent for 2/2 on debut. This, to everyone’s astonishment, gave us yet another 3.5-2.5, and we had somehow managed 2 wins from 2 extremely high rated teams!
This leaves us 3rd in the table with at least some kind of genuine promotion chances going into the final weekend! (Top 4 get promoted but there’s a big chasing pack.) We already have the same match points as last season with 3 to play, although we have a rather comical 24.5/48 game points—very professional team effort to get the match victories!
