The Ipswich Sports Club venue is not ideal for chess, and is reminiscent of Dooley's Inn in Felixstowe. It's not the sort of place you would want to play in during the run up to Christmas. Bar noise aside, it was an interesting match of contrasts tonight, with two games lasting only half an hour and the other two going the distance.
  Bob had deployed his Réti, and the game progressed at a reasonable pace. After just thirty minutes and several exchanges later, and with neither side having any significant advantage, Ian Wallis offered a draw. Bob didn't think very long before accepting and so while only one pair if bishops had been exchanged on boards three and four combined, Bob and Ian went off for some post mortem analysis.
  They had barely reached the table across the room when Simon ended the sort of game you wish you could instantly forget. Simon's Caro-Kann was just getting started when his opponent sacrificed a knight on f7. It should never have worked, but Simon played his moves in the wrong order and paid the price with his queen.
  It would now be nearly two hours before the other boards finished. Jim had very carefully built up a strong positional advantage, as well as complicating matters to invite mistakes. With his king surrounded by a bishop and a queen, Jim had calculated that he needed worry about that because his attack was more powerful, and so it proved to be.
  The match was now level, so attention was now focussed on board four. John's record against Alonso is not that impressive, up until recently it was two draws and two losses, but since then the corner has been turned. Alonso opened with a Giuoco Piano, and a quiet game developed. John developed a strong looking attack on the king's position, but Alonso always seemed to have enough to counter any sacrificial blow, so John exchanged piece after piece to enter an advantageous rook and pawn ending. However, it took over thirty more moves to achieve the desired result.
  This result puts us temporarily at the top, but as every other team in the division has games in hand over us, we are unlikely to be there for very long.

After a rather heady start to the season against Ipswich B, we were brought rather heavily down to earth tonight against their club compatriots Ipswich C, who oddly enough are considerably stronger that Ipswich B. Not so much odd, but a little unusual was the fact that Ipswich C drew both of their games with white and won both with black.
  The games got under way without any indication of what was to come, especially as Ipswich C were without their top board and their board two was nearly half an hour late. Jim was the first to finish and he seemed to have the initiative out of the opening. Martyn Colebrook however proved resilient and always managed to find enough to keep himself in the game. Meanwhile on board one Bob had faced a Reti and decided to follow suit. It developed along familiar lines with a tight battle for the centre and very little in the way of exchanges; in fact after an hour and a half of play only one pair of pawns had left the board. A draw was eventually agreed, and the match remained level.
  Graeme went home kicking himself tonight. And very hard! After controlling the opening and achieving a position in which he had trapped an enemy piece, he declined to take it. He saw something better and quicker than a piece up in a long drawn out endgame - a mating net around a king that had consistently failed to castle. Graeme sacrificed a piece in the process but his opponent managed to slip through the net and he thus entered the ending a piece down instead of a piece up. Isn't that what they call in football parlance, a six pointer! Graeme played to the very end, way passed the resignation point, presumably in order to put off the good kicking he was going to give himself.
  Simon probably had similar feelings, especially as his opponent had a twenty minute deficit at the start of the match. Simon's Nimzo-Indian started along well travelled paths and things appeared well balanced. This game produced an unusual event, in that both players had, at different times, a fork on their opponent's rooks that lasted for several moves. Unfortunately when it was Simon's turn he was already a piece down and taking one of the rooks would not have done him any good. Like Graeme however, he played on until all hope was gone.
  A disappointing result indeed, but we're comfortably in second place, just half a point off the top.

Ipswich are maintaining their tradition of not constructing their teams in order of playing strength, hence their B-Team is considerably weaker than their C-Team, who we face in our next match. And although we out-rated Ipswich B on all but their top board, this was nonetheless an impressive start to the season and gives us a chance to bask at the top of the table, even if it's only for three weeks.