Well this season is just getting silly! We find ourselves in the final weekend with genuine promotion chances despite taking the hard route on the top boards! Everyone except Andrew is surprised! Despite having played basically all the best teams and massively overperforming, though, it still seems we are outsiders. I can’t believe how hard this division is! We probably need to win at least 1, and likely 2 out of our 3 final games, with 3 points probably just about leaving us favourites to go up, but the most important match is certainly the first one against a challenger 3MP behind us, to knock them out the race. I’m not sure how we can possibly need this still after already overperforming so much but apparently division 4 is really stacked with good teams these days! We keep beating them, and they keep finding more!!
Saturday: Castell Nedd – CSC/Kingston 3
I had wanted to boost Dale to board 2 and use the super-white-combo of Steve/Sam/Josh on 1-3-5 to try to get something from this match because I felt it was the most important of the weekend, and almost must-not-lose. Unfortunately Sam is just too good, so he had to go on 2. Still, Josh is ace with white and I’m sure he’s booked up to the eyeballs, and Steve can give a game to most players with white also. Dale, Hywel and Andrew are sound players with black, so in my team, I trust! Well, Josh won double-quick sharp; BOSH! First blood. Everyone can relax! Steve was +/- probably out of the opening which appeared to leave theory, in his favour, on about move 6. Sam had a game on 2, and everyone else had their heads down also. Some time later, Hywel and Andrew won their games on 4&6, I assumed cleanly, but apparently Hywel dodged a massive bullet. Still, excellent news, with Steve playing for 2 results on 1. Dale was next to finish, holding on 3, to secure the match and take a massive step towards promotion! Sam’s game had blown up in time trouble with players seemingly caught in a tactical current, at Caissa’s mercy, and Steve was sadly lacking attacking prowess on 1 as the time control approached. Still, it mattered not. Steve drew and Sam ultimately lost, but the points were secure! In a break from tradition, we won 4-2—Steve accepted some abuse for not immediately resigning his drawn position once the 3.5-2.5 was in the bag!
This massive win called for a victory pint, followed by a high-spirits trip to our go-to Indian restaurant where they apparently remembered us—probably Sam, because I was wearing an entirely different cats+chess t-shirt from last time :). Excellent food as always! A draw from our final 2 games seems likely to be enough. Unfortunately everyone was tired, and since I had neither driven nor won I had no capital, so we couldn’t really take advantage of the 1pm Bank Holiday Weekend start time.
Sunday: Eternal Optimists 1 – Castell Nedd
Well, we all predicted this one because we had literally played all the top teams already, and knew we would be up against it still. We were playing the only team to take points off the soon-to-be champions having drawn with them on Saturday. /sigh. Well, honestly, we should maybe have got something. Board order was kept the same to balance colours and give us more fair options in the final round. Steve basically got smashed on 1. He was down 300 FIDE, but the idea was to give the talented players easier games! Think cricket! :D Sadly, Andrew took leave of his senses on 6 against a kid, and castled queenside without thinking, into a monstrous attack, with absolutely nothing for him on the other side. He lost quickly and secured meme status for next season. Steve was never anything better than worse on 1 so we can forget that one, but the other boards were interesting. Sam had an immaculate win on 2, gaining activity in a kind of Ruy Lopez structure and finding a very nice tactic, perfectly executed, to bring home the point. Wish I had played it! Nice reminder that board 1 is hard, and Sam is strong! Unfortunately Josh was under a lot of pressure, and it was difficult to see him surviving, but Hywel had a kind of ideal endgame, with a Spanish exchange structure. The computer gave him +2 at some point, but it was clear he was on top, having the real pawn majority. Unfortunately possibly lack of endgame experience cost him big time. Playing too fast cost him first the win, which was slightly unfortunate as his move was at least natural, but then cost him the game as he failed to realise the critical nature of his position. Endgames DEMAND deep calculation! They look simple, but they rarely are. Well, no points then, but Dale smashed his opponent after gaining the bishop pair and a dominating position, before cashing in and picking up a piece. Good to see some great chess still being played at the end of a long season!
Well, Hywel, perhaps disappointed with his game, decided to chill at the hotel, but 5 of us ventured back into Rugby for an Italian and some booze. Spirits were still high, despite the loss, because the big win on Saturday meant maybe the job was already done, but we all still wanted to make sure in the final round. Well, the beer in Spoons tasted weird, or that’s my excuse, so when they closed we went on to find somewhere better. We ended up having a late night on the wrong night, but everyone had a good time, and maybe we don’t need to win anyway… Still, I was responsible, just in case, having stolen a 2nd white for myself and lumbered Sam with black I made sure to drink less!
Monday: Castell Nedd – Ashfield 2—Final round!
Well, somehow they found some spare players and dug out apparently the former Luxembourg Champion on board 1 to spoil our party, but we had our own surprise by all turning up on time and ready to play! We had studied the table, and concluded that a match draw was 100% enough, and it had been suggested that we should all just resign our games as soon as we hit 3 points! Andrew atoned for his sins by getting a quick win on 6 to settle our nerves. Well he did go home early! Sam seemed to have a very nice position on 2, and Steve was pressing hard on 1 after suddenly half-remembering a book he looked at 10 years ago and dumping most of his time into the opening. Dale’s position looked ok for a while, but apparently he was taken into some serious prep and things were worse than they appeared. His opponent got a very active position and ended up cashing in with a huge attack to win the game. Rxg2 was devastating. Steve’s opponent had also cracked, though, and with all his pieces suffering, blundered a tactic that cost his queen and the game. At this point, at a glance, the match itself seemed to be slipping away, but actually Josh’s opponent had gone all-in on a scary attack that didn’t work, and when I went to look at this I noticed Hywel was up a clean piece in an ending! Hywel easily brought home the point from there leaving us with the draw we needed, and Josh up a bishop for 3 pawns playing for 2 results. Well I assume it was winning at some point but in the end it was too tricky and his opponent defended well. Sam eventually lost after well, something bad must have happened, but we had already won the match, you guessed it, 3.5-2.5!
Well what a fantastic and unexpected season! Promotion! I don’t know how that happened! W8D0L3, and we spent almost the whole time on the top boards, and played all the hardest teams! But for some surprise final round results we might have finished 2nd, but in the end had to settle for 4th on game points (well we were very efficient with our wins!) with a huge 3 point gap to 5th place! Next season is going to be brutal, but fun!
From an individual point of view, everyone chipped in with some points, from an unexpected cameo by Kim when I least expected it, to Glyn picking up a surprise win when he least expected. David McGhee joined us for one weekend and banked 2/2 right when it was needed, and Steve turned his form around halfway through to finish well, and Dale was steady throughout. Josh was Mr. Reliable with white, and, despite 0-0-0?? Andrew DV got us some key points and top-scored for us.
Well done everyone!
