Our first match of the new season, and we were hoping to emulate the demolition job Ipswich Sports Club had inflicted on Sudbury two days earlier. After all, the title could well be decided on how well the top three teams handle the bottom three. Rowland got us off to a good start, finishing first, and some way. He quickly established an advantage with the white pieces and wasted no time pressing home with it.
  It was quite a while before Panagiotis made it 2-0. He faced a Dutch opening and had a slightly better position throughout the opening. His opponent started burning time on the clock and soon enough Black's position became unpleasant. Down to a few minutes, Black moved his knight to b4 and resigned after Panagiotis responded by playing a5 with tempo (and taking that square away from Black's a-pawn), as the knight would soon be captured.
  Phil made it 3-0 after a trendy White line in the Caro Kann Exchange System (6.h3) quickly led to a set-up where Black gets the 2 Bishops at the price of an isolani d-pawn. Then Lots of manoeuvring for an advantage by both sides with nothing tangible, until Black grabbed White's a4 pawn on Move 25, unleashing a ten move flurry of tactics almost from nothing. The isolani d-pawn unisolates itself and becomes the hero of the hour, advancing to e3, granting his comrades a monster attack against White's king, none of which the player of the Black pieces had planned or anticipated. White wards off mate at an overly high price in material, counters with verve, traps and tricks but has to resign on move 40.
  Three nil up, but the chances of getting a clean sweep were looking very slim. Something went badly wrong for Andy against Tim Lunn's anti-King's Indian Smyslov System. Tim achieved a huge space advantage with powerful constraining pawns on d5 and f5, and a half-open h-file from which to attack the Black King. Both players ran short of time, and either side might have won in the chaos of the final 20 moves. An entertaining game to watch, from which a draw was probably the only fair outcome.