We arrived quite early in Sudbury tonight, mainly because they have found a new venue to play in and we wanted to make sure we could find it in the dark, and also because we needed to make sure we could find somewhere to park and we didn't know how far from the venue that might be. As a result of this, when we entered the room they were still looking for a fourth table and it was several minutes before the equipment arrived. Having said all that, they still managed to get everything set up and ready to go with a good five minutes to spare. The playing room itself is in a small room off of the bar, and while not ideal, it was fortunately relatively quiet. It remains to be seen if that remains the same in the weeks running up to Christmas.
  When setting up the pieces one of their number asked, "The queens go on their own colours right?" which didn't fool us for a minute and as the games got under way things were looking quite level on all boards. However Jamie's somewhat passive opening meant that he was on the back foot throughout the middle game. But it was only after a series of exchanges that left him a pawn down did he come to discover how just a single pawn can be so decisive in a rook and pawn ending.
  Our latest recruit, Harrison, had quite a game in his first experience of over the board league chess. He was doing extremely well and applied considerable pressure to his opponent's king's position, which eventually led to his opponent blundering a rook. This looked cut and dried for our first point of the season, but his opponent was not without some compensation and did his best to mix things up. And it worked for him when a not so obvious oversight allowed a knight manoeuvre that led to the loss of Harrison's queen, and now, being a rook for queen down it really was cut and dried.
  The honour of getting that first point went to John H, who was engaged in quite an unusual game. Unusual in that John had four central pawns, two each on the d and e files, with open c and f files. John more or less dominated the game and eventually one of those central pawns queened, and while his opponent tried to create compensating threats John's two queens sealed his fate.
  John M brought up the rear to level the match in a Nimzo-Larsen where his opponent castled queen-side and had to face the advance of John's queen-side pawns. John's superior position was evident but his opponent put up stiff and accurate resistance to the point where John feared that he might have to settle for a repetition of moves in a rook and pawn ending. Thankfully inspiration arrived and a way through was found, which gave us a much improved result over our first match.
  All that was left to do now was to find our way home in a dark and torrential downpour, which seemed to take a lot longer than the journey there.

We weren't too sure if we could maintain a C-Team this season, but we decided to give it a go anyway, and thanks to new boy Oliver, we started the season without a default. Oliver set off with gusto, and while his inexperience showed, he made a good fist of it with great enthusiasm. Ipswich Sports Club does not use the DGT2010 digital clocks and it was clear that not many of us knew how to operate them. Just to get them ticking was a challenge that required several button presses before the right combination was hit. It was also clear that not everyone in Ipswich SC knew how to set them up as at least one of the clocks in the division one match that was being played alongside us was not adding the increments. When one of the players noticed it they had to pause the game, count the moves, multiply them by 15 seconds and reset the clock accordingly. Something to think about when we next play there.
  John H faced a Sicilian defence against an opponent who appeared to be dressed up like a chess piece. The game went on to settle evenly with both sides castled king's side and central advances impeded by pawns. Black found an opportunity John had overlooked using a bishop to skewer his queen against a rook. He was partially relieved to escape that but at the cost of a knight in a counter that had good attacking options. His real undoing was the mismanagement of a passed black pawn on the b file and missing the glaring threat of it capturing his rook on a1 with promotion.
  David's game started off very well and he soon found himself in a very strong position believing he was heading for a win. Unfortunately he missed the strongest continuations and the game began to drift. His opponent fought back resourcefully and eventually turned the game around. This proved to be one of those that got away.
  John M overlooked a distant check in his Nimzo-Larsen that lost him his a-pawn. However, the half open a-file proved to be more of a liability than an asset to his opponent and after forcing John to soak up a lot of pressure on the king's side his opponent decided to abandon the a-file in order to increase that pressure. John went from a pawn down to a pawn up, had control of the a-file and his opponent's king's side attack had more or less stalled. And just when John's mind was turning from holding on to possibly winning, catastrophe followed. In his haste to drive his opponent's king into the open he hit a blind spot and placed a rook en-prise. Game over.
  We should have come away with at least 1½ points from this match, which would have been quite respectable, but no matter, we are not seeking promotion just yet.