The final weekend of the 4ncl was in Coventry, and with 3 rounds across the bank holiday weekend, there was everything to play for, except promotion, which was just out of reach, and relegation, which didn’t exist. But with 3 matches, 18 games, and 6 match points to play for, everyone was eager to finish with a bang.
First up was War and Piece B. Yes, a chess pun, but I only realised halfway through my game as I was sulking about another French Defence, that they were all armed forces! [Idiot!] Well, maybe they still like books. We held a very slight rating advantage, and it was enough for a very slight victory. Dale had an insane game that was much more interesting than mine. He appeared to be always one move from getting mated but critically, never less than that. He assures me he had it all in hand, and I believe him, but it looked scary. Josh drew, Glyn and Andrew were sort of holding on, and Steve was stuck and decided taking a draw was most practical—after all, Sam had played …g5, signalling that he was playing to win. Unfortunately, Glyn soon lost, but Andrew’s opponent, up an exchange, got scared about the clock and offered a draw. Sam then won to make it 3.5-1.5 to us. Solid start to the weekend, rewarded by an excellent curry and some beer! That’s what the suffering is for!
Sunday, a nice late start thanks to the 3-day weekend, was the turn of CSC/Kingston 3. A tough match by grade, but not impossible. Unfortunately only the in-form Sam Jukes managed a win. Dale and Andrew fell to relatively quick defeats. Steve’s game got tactical and it was excusable for both players to miss a tactical shot, but there was no excuse for his 2000 rated opponent leaving his queen en prise, and despite the time trouble, it was extremely embarrassing that Steve didn’t notice! Glyn noticed! You just don’t expect it, and there were mitigating factors on the board! “Damn my feeble brain!” :/ It’s fortunate that Andrew failed to hold his position, so it didn’t affect the match score as we lost 4-2. Not great. Perhaps for this reason we were punished by a bit of a disastrous meal, where we weren’t even sure if they had forgotten about us, and they had definitely forgotten what we had ordered, but they didn’t have any food anyway! Probably won’t go there again.
Final round and we were favourites to win our game, but it’s never so easy! Sam spent a long time early in his game trying to figure things out. Steve said ‘hold my beer’ and burned most of his time by move 5 or so. Andrew unfortunately finished off a poor weekend with another loss, after his stellar results in the previous rounds. Josh completed an undefeated weekend with a win. Steve dug himself out of a mental hole but in bad time trouble opted for a safe grind instead of playing what he thought (correctly) was a winning move but without time to evaluate. Dale polished off his opponent after a nice game, eventually forcing resignation in a hopeless endgame. Sam was having a fantastic weekend and made it 3/3 without too many problems in the end. Steve, not enjoying the shortened time control this season was not accurate enough to claim the full point in the end and had to settle for a draw. Glyn had been suffering on bottom board and, although his opponent seemed keen to make life difficult for himself, eventually went down, making it 0/3 for his final weekend. It’s a tough competition! The match was nevertheless won 3.5-2.5, and as things worked out, this was enough for a fantastic 8th/32 finish—well above our middling rank! Well done everyone! A tough ask to beat that next season, but we will try!
Half our team, and apparently half the playing hall, then spent the next week in bed with the flu, which I shall blame for this late report!
