The omens for this match were not boding well. First of all this is the postponed match from September and we were now without Rowland. Second, the road to Sudbury via Hadleigh was closed, and without any advanced warning, you didn't find that out until you got there. A U-turn and a recalcitrant satnav meant the captain arrived with no time at all to spare. And third, the said captain had failed to notify three quarters of the team that Sudbury had changed their venue so they turned up a the Quay Theatre only to find that out for themselves. Fortunately Bob was able to find Sudbury's web site and deliver his section of the team to the Sudbury Institute Club as required, although as neither Panagiotis nor the captain had arrived, there was some anxiety that they might be off to the old venue as well. Fortunately that was not the case, and with nothing further going wrong the match was started, albeit five minutes late and with incorrectly set clocks (more on that later).
  The Sudbury Institute Club had quite a lively chess atmosphere with a dozen or more members playing on six tables in the bar. The match itself is in a side room off the bar, not ideal as it's quite small and noise from the bar tends to filter in, especially when the door is opened. That being said it is quite comfortable enough.
  Bob finished first after a somewhat unusual game the second move being h4. This is almost the same as what Jamie faced in last week's C-Team match against Sudbury C, so clearly there has been some team analysis of this opening going on in Sudbury, variously know as the Despréz, the Kádas, the Anti-Borg, the Samurai Opening, Harry's Opening or Reagan's Attack (according to Wikipedia). Bob responded with 2…h5, fianchettod as normal, and castled (eventually). After twenty or so moves, many of said moves made by pawns, and few of which involved exchanges, a very busy and rather blocked position developed without a single pawn coming off and no open files to fight for control over. Without willing to risk anything drastic both players agreed a draw.
  It was a while before Panagiotis put us in front. His English was off to a flying start, but after the queens and three pairs of minor pieces were exchanged things began to look rather drawish. And as the game entered a 2R+B v 2R+N ending with equal pawns the pace slowed down and Panagiotis began do develop a hefty time advantage. The bishop proved to be the stronger piece and Panagiotis had it, and he was eventually able to obtain a pair of connected passed pawns on the queen's side and start moving them up the board. His opponent defended well and things didn't go quite to plan so Panagiotis had to give up one of those pawns and switch his attention to the king's side. He eventually managed to squeeze out the win, but there were times when it looked far from certain.
  Phil kept us in front but had a tough time doing so. He answered a Sicilian with 3.c3, which incidentally was the same line adopted by Rob Sanders on board 2, but the black players diverged after that and a long struggle began on both boards. As the game developed Phil became hampered with an advanced c-pawn that he was never given the time to defend with his b-pawn, and when it eventually fell things were looking doubtful. In a queen and knight ending Phil had a little compensation in a well placed and active queen, and when his opponent tried to advance his king's side pawn majority Phil was able to grab a pawn back and a draw was agreed soon after.
  Now it was up to Andy to get us to our target of three points per match for the rest of the season. Rob Sanders as White played a solid c3 Anti-Sicilian. Andy equalized comfortably, but it was very hard to see how Black could make progress. Unfortunately, White was over eager to exchange rooks; and on move 20 he lost his h-pawn to a neat tactic. Further exchanges helped Black and after 50 moves Andy looked close to victory in a B v N endgame a pawn ahead, albeit with both players close to playing on the increment.
  But on move 54, the game hit the buffers. Andy's teammates had noticed that his clock was not giving the full increment of 15 seconds per move, while still giving Rob his full increment. Thinking there must be a fault with the settings the clock was stopped. Based on what had been seen it was estimated that Andy would have lost about 6 minutes during the course of the match. Unfortunately, the Sudbury club has yet to master the complexities of their newly acquired DGT2500 clocks and proved unable to make the requisite adjustments, but in their attempts to do so they discovered that the fault was not with the time settings, but that the home team had set the clocks to a Bronstein rather that a Fischer increment. To the relief of the home captain, Rob threw in the towel in a demonstrably lost position and we were relieved, not only that a major incident had been averted, but that we had achieved the minimum three points we wanted.
  We are now just half a point behind Ipswich Sports Club with a game in hand, but that by no means makes us favourites, there is still an awful lot that could go wrong between now and the end of the season.

Of all the matches we have left (apart from the showdown against Ipswich SC) we expected this to be the toughest, especially as Bury defeated Ipswich Sports Club 3-1 last month. As it turned out, we did rather well.
  While Panagiotis got off to a racing start on board one, it was Andy who finished first - and by quite a margin. The Dutch Stonewall is associated with a solid approach by Black, but not in the hands of Alan Watkins! Alan threw forwards his K-side pawns, without developing his Q-side. Andy offered a neat sacrifice to enable his queen access to the exposed Black king. Alan declined the sacrifice but got quickly mated anyway. A rare victory for Andy in under 20 moves and just over an hour's play.
  It was a long time before Phil was able to chalk up our second point. Phil opened with a Ruy Lopez, his opponent an Italian. A steady and largely equal game progressed with Phil accumulating small advantages that gave him a very strong middlegame. In the complications Phil's opponent lost a bishop, but he fought on and made Phil work hard for his victory.
  Panagiotis's King's Indian proved very effective, giving him a slight but definite plus throughout the game. It was still hard work, and quite nail-biting for the spectators as his opponent didn't go down without a fight. This game will shortly appear in our games section.
  With three points in the bag all eyes turned to Rowland, who was playing his last game for us this season - although not for ever we hope. This wasn't a typical Rowland game in that knife edge attacks were very much absent. It was a long time before the first pair of pawns were exchanged and a long strategic battle commenced. Although a pawn up Rowland appeared to have lost the tread for a while, allowing his opponent to penetrate a rook behind his lines. Rowland was now most definitely on the defensive, and he showed he was just as adept at that as he was at attack. However Laurie Pott had smelt blood and was pushing his advantage to the point where Rowland had to surrender a bishop to avoid mate. Laurie's only problem was the clock, and running very short of time he blundered his bishop leaving a rook and pawn ending that he had to concede could not be won.
  Three and a half points was a lot more than we could realistically have hoped for, but keeps us firmly on the heels of Ipswich Sports Club.

In many respects we were lucky to come away with three points from this match. And in a few other respects we were unlucky not to get all four. Half way through the match our prospects were not looking all that good. Panagiotis's attack seemed to be running out of steam, Andy's position looked far from convincing, Phil looked OK but not dominant, while Rowland looked chaotic enough to go either way. But let's start at the beginning.
  Panagiotis deployed his queen early in his English Opening tonight, and exchanged his fianchettoed king's bishop to disrupt the enemy queen's side pawns. Panagiotis was playing very quickly and gave his opponent no end of things to work through, so much so that after half an hour of play he was 25 minutes ahead on the clock, which eventually become 45 minutes. Tim Lunn was not squandering his time however, and eventually reached a reasonably safe looking queen, rook and bishop ending, a pawn up and offered Panagiotis a draw. Panagiotis rose from the board only to see a lot of uncertainty on the other boards, and it was some time before he retuned to continue his fight. He somehow managed to resurrect his attack and eventually break through Tim's defences to claim victory.
  Rowland had answered his opponent's Sicilian with an early g4, leaving his king in the centre. This had the effect of both creating huge complications and causing his opponent to consume a considerable amount of time deciding his response. The threats to the enemy king had to be answered but at the expense of a severely underdeveloped queen's side. Conversely, all of Rowland's pieces, that's two rooks, two bishops and a queen were bearing down on that king, along with several advanced pawns. Rowland had already sacrificed one pawn, so when his opponent had to give up the exchange, gaining a second pawn in the process he might have thought it possible he could hold out, but the final thrust of Rowland's last remaining king's side pawn proved to be the final nail in the coffin.
  Things were now starting to look better. Andy had rapidly equalized against Stephen Lewis's London System, but overlooked an enterprising exchange sacrifice. Stephen obtained full compensation for the exchange in an endgame, with 2 Bishops, a pawn, and the initiative; but he followed up inaccurately, allowing the exchange of pieces and a bind on the dark-squares. Andy then converted his material advantage without difficulty.
  With three points under our belt it now looked as though we were going to get a clean sheet. Phil's Caro-Kann had developed steadily, but as we entered the ending Phil was two pawns up. His opponent was running short of time and had to give up a bishop for one of those pawns, and now with queen and bishop versus queen, Phil began hoovering up his opponent's remaining pawns. And then, quite uncharacteristically, Phil made a one move catastrophic blunder by placing his queen en-prise when taking one of the last of those pawns. With just a bishop to fend off a queen, Phil immediately resigned, and we were all left to console ourselves with the thought that at the half way stage of tonight's match we would have been content with a 3-1 victory.

Last week it was Manningtree C, this week it's just Manningtree, that's two visits to Saxmundham in a week, and once again we were not in the usual playing room. Which was just as well for the noise coming from the darts match in the main hall would make Felixstowe's Dooleys appear like an oasis of calm. And for some reason this seemed to make those engaged in their post mortems less hushed than usual. That notwithstanding, as defending champions of the Suffolk section of the Norfolk and Suffolk Cup we did the job and go into the final.
  As the games got under way there was no sign of the margin of victory that was to follow. Rowland felt the need for an early draw tonight, so he offered his opponent one. Not in the usual manner mind you. He saw the possibility for his opponent to give up a piece and go for a perpetual check, so he offered it and his opponent accepted. In the meantime Simon Wilks had played an Exchange Variation against Andy's King's Indian, swapped off the queens, and obtained a slightly favourable position. Andy sacrificed a pawn on move 15, but Simon miscalculated and soon found himself worse in an ending in which the two bishops proved decisively stronger than a bishop and knight.
  Shortly after that Phil finished his game, which kept us one point ahead. It was a while before John converted his one pawn lead (given to him on move four) into final victory on move thirty four, and now we just needed half a point from either Graeme or Bob to secure the match.
  Graeme's was a typically active game which eventually led to him giving up both his rooks for a queen and a pawn. It was later to become several pawns plus the exchange but when we reached the stage where it was Graeme's queen and knight versus his opponent's rook and two knights, his opponent allowed an exchange that would have lost him all three of his pieces if it were it followed through, so he resigned instead.
  Now Bob had to suffer the pressure of more than half a dozen pairs of eyes scrutinising his every move while every minute or two a load roar would enter the room from the darts match. Bob had by far the better position with passed and connected a and b pawns securing his long term future, but also he had to be careful not to fall foul of a crafty mate delivered along the half open h-file. With his opponent running on increments Bob's breakthrough came in the centre with a pair of bishops and the match was over. And as far as we know (apart from a 6-0 default win) this is the largest margin of victory we have ever had in this competition (although we have been on the receiving end of a 5-1 beating in the past).

Although defeated, Sudbury will probably see this result as something of a victory, and while it has put a small dent in our championship campaign, we are still on track, so long as we don't suffer too many more of such hip-cups. The evening started without fireworks and without too much in it on any of the boards. It wasn't long however before both Panagiotis and Rowland squeezed wins from their respective games and put us on course for a comfortable win.
  Unfortunately Phil slipped up along the way and found himself in rather tricky waters, eventually being forced to give up the exchange. It only delayed the inevitable as a dangerous central passed pawn proved decisive.
  From a Queens Gambit Declined, Andy laboured to prove a technical advantage in an IQP position. However his opponent, Robert Sanders, defended stubbornly. Chasing the win, Andy overpressed in a B+N endgame, and walked into an obvious tactic. Fortunately, his opponent, with only 2 minutes left on the clock, cautiously offered a draw in a now highly favourable position: which Andy had no choice but to accept.
  Although this leaves us eight points off the leaders, we have three games in hand, and as our next two league matches are against the bottom two teams, we will soon have a pretty good idea whether or not we are going to catch them.

Ipswich Sports Club is a very active place, so much so that the newly formed Chess Section already has 26 names taking part in its club championship (according to the table on the notice board anyway). And while we were playing our match, there was a mixed doubles tennis match taking place on the floodlit court in the rain outside. Such dedication! Unfortunately that activity is prone to invade the chess playing area, and the concertina doors are hardly sufficient to keep the noise out. Especially as they make even more noise when you need to open and close them to visit the loo. All very reminiscent of Felixstowe's Dooley Inn, and not somewhere you would want to play during the run up to Christmas. Ear plugs are worth considering.
  If you look at the stats, Bury, ISC and Manningtree are the highest rated teams (in that order) so we started the season thinking we would need to hold own against Bury and ISC and hope that we would score better than they do against the rest of the field. And while we did that against Bury (even though we were three men down) little did we imagine we would thump ISC, even with our full squad. Mind you it has to be said, we did have a slight head start when we discovered that for the first time this season they were without their board two, veteran Stephen Gregory.
  As the games got under way a common theme seemed to be running through the boards - expand the pawns, and after an hours play all boards were finely balanced (that's a euphemism for "didn't have a clue who stood better"). Panagiotis was the first to pick his way through the complications. His game started as a symmetrical English, with David Spence opting for the Botvinnik triangle formation (c5-d6-e5). Panagiotis failed to demonstrate any tangible opening advantage and went for a threefold repetition before move 30; this was probably not a very memorable game, but it gave us a crucial half point against their formidable board one.
  Phil then gave us our first full point of the evening. On move ten of a Caro-Kann he obtained a strong central pawn duo at the price of granting his young opponent the two Bishops. Phil then strove to keep the pawn centre under restraint, while his opponent tried to liberate it, and in conjunction with an open f-file, launch a major attack on Phil's king. To this end his opponent offered an imaginative but speculative temporary sacrifice of his knight on c3. Phil had to accept or go under but in the longer run his opponent had misjudged his attacking potential. Phil defended with central play v wing attack, taking over the central files, winning the exchange with the dark square bishop, whose counterpart had been allowed to be exchanged for a knight. Phil's opponent's back rank was weak and on move 24, Phil's queen took a bishop, putting itself en prise to his opponent's remaining rook. However, if taken he would be mated in one and if declined, would be left to play on with three pieces down, so instead he resigned.
  Of the remaining two boards, we looked to be winning on board one, but board three looked precarious, although according to Rowland, it was all under control. In an Italian, in which Rowland had spurned a fried liver, he played an early a4. But it was sometime before it advanced to a5, and by the time it got to a6 (unsupported by the way) it looked more of a liability than an asset, but in the end it proved to be the killer. Rowland played an outstanding game where every defensive move was an attack in disguise. His opponent may be a little rusty, returning for his first season in five years, but he is still a formidable force to be reckoned with and Rowland showed he can handle a quieter game just as much as one full of fireworks. And he finished the minor piece ending with precision, giving us a two point lead.
  Would we make it three with just Andy left to finish? As Black he faced Martin Fogg in a sharp, theoretical Richter-Rauzer Attack against the Classical Sicilian. Neither player knew the theory, and White offered a pawn sacrifice for nebulous compensation. When Andy seized a second pawn, a few moves later, forcing the exchange of queens, this should have been the end of the matter. However, to his credit, Martin continued to play actively, forcing Andy to play accurately, right until the end when both players were playing on the increments. On another day, Martin's tenacity might have been better rewarded.
  Coming away with 3½ points was more than we could have hoped for, and it puts us just half a point behind ISC in the table with a game in hand.

Once again we were upstairs tonight as the lighting problem in the main hall is still outstanding. And this seems to be the room of choice now, due mainly to the excellent lighting there. Mind you, it is a little bit cramped for two simultaneous matches, not helped by the fact that the smaller tables appear to have disappeared, and some of the longer ones are even longer. In spite of being significantly out-rated, Ipswich put up a spirited fight and made us work hard for our points. This result puts us second in the table and 3½ points off the lead, who we just happen to be facing in two weeks. That will be a crunch match and will no doubt go a long way towards determining who will be lifting the trophy this season. But back to tonight.
  Panagiotis and Rowland were relatively early finishers while Phil was making headway in his game where he had exchanged two minor pieces for a rook and two pawns. His perseverance paid off and he was eventually able to convert that into a win. With two and a half points from three, Andy was bringing up the rear.
  Andrew Shepherd as Black put up stubborn resistance against Andy in a Nimzo-Indian. Andy obtained a small advantage in a triple minor piece ending (B+B+N) vrs (B+N+N). The best that Andy could do was to trade pieces into a Bishop ending a pawn up. That ending was defensible with best play. However, Black had almost run himself out of time, and Andy converted his advantage without difficulty.

With three of our squad unavailable for this crucial match against fellow contenders Bury St Edmunds (the team with the highest average rating in the league), we feared we would go down heavily and suffer a huge dent in our hopes of keeping Ipswich Sports Club within touching distance. And while Bury were without two of their squad, they still out-rated us by an average of 135 points per board, so it was a great achievement to share the points with them, although we were so very close to causing quite an upset by actually winning the match.
  Jim finished first, which was a little ironic as his board was played at the slowest pace - about half that of the other three boards. After 1.e4 e5 Jim continued with the rarely seen Bishop's Opening, which explains the slow pace as both players carefully trod some unfamiliar paths. It was a solid performance, with little coming off the board, and with neither willing to risk everything on speculative manoeuvres a draw was agreed.
  It was some time before Graeme followed. He opened with a Sicilian in which his opponent gained a significant special advantage on the queen's side and Graeme came under a significant amount of pressure. His opponent miscalculated a piece exchange and recaptured with the wrong pawn and lost his b-pawn, or it could have been a deliberate sacrifice, for it didn't look like a pawn that could be held for very long. Graeme had a very long think before trying to hold on to it, for a couple of moves at any rate, and the position rapidly descended into a rook and bishop ending, with Graeme now a pawn down and a significant time deficit. And when the remaining pieces came off the pawn ending was looking decidedly precarious, but thanks to some very precise defending Graeme was able to hold on and keep the match score level.
  Meanwhile Panagiotis was putting in a tremendous performance on top board. His English had led to a fairly complicated middle game when his opponent ill advisedly captured Panagiotis's d-pawn with a bishop following which he immediately faced the loss of that piece. He had a very long think before responding, which meant he was not only material down he put himself so far behind on the clock that he ended the game on the increments. He managed to fight on however in spite of his material deficit until a pseudo rook sacrifice threatened mate in two. He declined the sacrifice of course, but Panagiotis followed it with a check whereby the only legal move was to accept the sacrifice, so he resigned instead.
  We now found ourselves in the unexpected position of being ahead, and an assessment of Bob's position gave us reasonable grounds for hope that things would end that way. Bob kept his usual Modern approach and developed very well to equalise out of the opening. The board was threatening to become pawn-locked and as the pieces were exchanged we entered a rook and bishop ending with seven pawns each. On top of that, the bishops were of opposite colours, so a draw looked decidedly possible. Time was running low for both players, and Bob's opponent was clearly not going to be satisfied until he'd exhausted all avenues. Had Bob been able to exchange the rooks a draw would be easy, but constant attempts to break through finally succeeded when Bob ran out of moves and had to resign when his bishop got trapped and could not be saved.
  Considering how things could have gone, we were very happy with a draw. And while we may be seven points off the top, we have two games in hand, so a couple of 3-1 wins and we're back in the fray. Not much to ask is it?

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.