The omens were not looking good when David had to pull out on the day, but thanks to Jamie we were at least able to avoid a postponement, if not a board default. It was the usual journey to Saxmundham, dark and wet, and having left road works and closures in Manningtree we were greeted with the same as we arrived in Saxmundham, although the closures didn't affect us thank goodness.
  Going by their nominated squad Saxmundham B should be up there with Ipswich Sports Club B, vying for the top spot, but instead they were near the bottom with us. They started the season well enough beating Felixstowe B 3½-½ but prior to tonight they had only collected six more points in their next five matches. And unfortunately of course, we had to give them another one before the match had even started.
  John H finished first and it was a long night for a short lesson that he'd had before. His opponent played a somewhat offbeat opening 1.Nf3... 2.d4... 3.e4.... and John countered with his customary c and d pawns, but unwisely thought to disrupt his opponent by pushing them too far, c4 and d5. That unduly exposed his kingside and delayed development whilst needing his Queen to support the advanced pawns. His subsequent play was OK, nothing stupid and no major oversights, but the unwise opening which he'd "learned" some months before undermined the rest of his game and led to another painful defeat.
  Jamie had curbed his impulses for rapid replies and gradually developed a very good position with good chances of winning. Material stayed level until the ending when Jamie went a pawn down in a rook and queen ending. He continued to play actively and managed to get that pawn back. After the queens and a pair of rooks came off he was facing an advancing isolated a-pawn supported by the enemy king and rook. On the other wing he had pawns on the g and h file facing another isolated enemy pawn on the h file. It was a classic situation where Jamie would have to deploy his king towards his own pawns, give up his rook as the enemy pawn queens, and force his opponent to do the same on the other wing. Unfortunately Jamie left his king too long on the queen's side and his opponent was able to pick off his king's side pawns and eventually queen his own a-pawn.
  John M was last to finish in a game that was balanced from the start, which was unusual in that the Nimzo-Larsen usually produces the exact opposite. John had decided that he would go for the sharpest lines because he thought he was probably going to lose anyway, so might as well have some fun. His opponent however declined the opening moves that would lead to such lines and the game continued in which the only imbalance was 3v2 pawns on the queen's side and 3v4 on the king's side, with the struggle for control of the open d-file dominating the game. That resulted in the exchange of all four rooks resulting in a queen and minor piece ending that would require the skill of a Master to win for either player so a draw was agreed.
  Although we only came away with half a point, there was great compensation in being able to leave Saxmundham at 9:30, so in spite of the road closures in Manningtree we managed to get home earlier than we do on most club nights.

Although Ipswich Sports Club are running away with Division Three, this should have been (on paper at least) quite an evenly balanced match. And indeed it was until the pieces started moving. We continued the current habit of playing upstairs, but that was probably our first bad move. Unlike our rapid play tournament before Christmas, the wall heaters blew out nothing but cold air, and the temperature in the hall started dropping such that by half time everyone was playing in overcoats. In contrast, the hall downstairs was comfortably warm AND they have replaced the bulbs in the spot lights around the walls, so the lighting was up to spec as well. Such is life.
  Jamie was first to finish, facing the London System he paid the price of a hasty move without thinking it through (and who hasn't done that before?). Unfortunately for Jamie, it was in the opening and it lost him a piece. He tried to get himself back into the game but the damage was already done, and there was not only a lack of any compensation, his opponent always seemed to have a plethora of good moves to follow up with. As the pieces were swapped off, one of those good moves netted his opponent the exchange, so rather than play on a rook down Jamie resigned.
  It was a while before Harrison's board finished. He had faced a Caro-Kann and seemed to be handling it quite well, playing the advanced variation. Before long the position opened up considerably after Harrison mistimed a central strike and his opponent was able to build up an attack and win both of Harrison's central pawns as well as forcing the exchange of queens. It became a very difficult game after that, trying to solidify under a lot of pressure and ultimately ended with Harrison resigning after 32 moves, a piece and a few pawns down.
  David was unable to stem the tide, although it was far from a foregone conclusion. He had faced a sort of King's Gambit, except that he hadn't played 1…e5 to his opponent's 1.e4. A huge battle for control of the queen's side followed, which David had handled pretty well. Attention soon transferred to the centre and things started to drift in his opponent's favour. David put up resourceful resistance, but as the ending approached he found himself a pawn on each wing down in a rook and bishop (same colour) ending. His opponent played well to advance the extra pawn on both wings and after forcing David to exchange rooks all hope was gone.
  It was now down to John to salvage a little pride for the team. Like Harrison, John had faced a Caro-Kann, which got off to a slow start that led to a pawn congested centre concealing the threats behind. The balance of power shifted after John lost first one pawn, and then a second. He was looking quite lost but then his pawn deficit was reduced back to one. A little later and the pawns were level, and we were now hopeful for at lest half a point. Under considerable king's side pressure John managed to force off the queens, neutralising that pressure and was suddenly two pawns up into the bargain. Unfortunately they were difficult to hold on to and they entered the ending with equal pawns again. A draw was offered and John accepted, not only because the position was now dead drawn, but the fingers of both players were in danger of freezing to the pieces and nobody wanted that. On review both players missed opportunities, one of which was John missing a tactic to pin his opponent's queen! Nonetheless it was an intriguing game and a welcome result on the night.

While we were still unable to find our first match win this season, the end result was probably better than we could have hoped for at the half way point where we were looking in danger of a near whitewash. If Felixstowe went over their games afterwards they were no doubt lamenting a number of missed opportunities.
  Unfortunately for us that was not the case on board three where John had miscalculated a knight placement and lost a central pawn. A phenomenon experienced by all of us now and again then took over in which one bad move is followed by an even worse one. Immediately after losing the pawn John advanced his g-pawn, leaving his knight on f3 undefended. This was promptly captured, which also led to the loss of a rook. John fought on but his opponent was not about to let him of the hook. This is one game John would rather forget about as soon as possible.
  Jamie had made a similar mistake in overlooking the loss of his crucial e-pawn, which was followed by the immediate loss of his f-pawn. Jamie rallied his forces and the phenomenon mentioned above ended there. Things were still pretty bad for Jamie, but he made it as difficult as he could for his opponent, who consequently failed to find the right plan to capitalise on his advantage. It boiled down to a pawn ending and Jamie redeemed his earlier inaccuracies and overturned his opponent's pawn surplus and finally managing to tie a pawn race, following which his opponent immediately offered a draw. With several pawns and a queen each Jamie thought for a while wondering if the tide had now turned, but he accepted the draw offer, which was probably wise.
  David gave us our second half point after a long struggle with his opponent's English. He never looked in any serious danger even though his opponent maintained White's opening initiative for much of the game. David however, had weakened his opponent's king's side pawn structure and the fight for control of the open e-file dictated a lot of the play.
  Oliver brought up the rear. After an interesting response to a Sicilian, Oliver ventured down some risky paths and on two occasions should have lost a piece. His opponent however failed to spot either opportunity and as the game progressed Oliver appeared to be getting the better of the ending. Having driven his opponent's king up the board a little, a mate in one presented itself, although it required an exchange "sacrifice" in order to execute it. Fortunately Oliver saw it and calmly dismissed a defending bishop with his rook. His opponent didn't see what was coming and after taking the rook was summarily mated.

We had high hopes of ending our drought of match wins this evening as we travelled to Ipswich to face the only team below us in the stats table. Alas it was not to be.
  There is a line in the Nimzo-Larsen in which Black avoids all the fireworks and White has some risky choices to make. Tonight John M's risky d3 failed to produce the desired result and he had to concede an ending with bishops of opposite colours. In spite of consuming twenty or more moves trying to capture an isolated a-pawn, his opponent managed to find the right moves at the critical moments and John had to settle for a draw.
  David had faced an Italian Game, which developed well enough but then started to drift away from him. As the ending approached his opponent had clear winning chances, but less than accurate play on his part and determined effort on David's turned the game around giving us our only win of the night and just our fourth over sixteen boards so far this season.
  Jamie is nothing if not enthusiastic for the game, and while his game developed reasonably enough, Jamie has that weakness known to many of us and difficult to get rid of - turning games on a single instinctive move that turns out to be disastrous.
  John H faced a queen's pawn opening. All four minor pieces were quickly traded in early play, and both castled kingside and then exchanged queens. So it was a short fuse to the endgame with seven pawns and two rooks apiece. The balance of control swayed and John gained a useful time advantage, although neither player offered a draw. Regrettably John lost out to white's eventual success in a pawn race and was left to chew on another blank.

We were expecting a full team tonight, although had we had one, Harrison would not have got a game as their board four also failed to materialise. We gave our respective absentees about ten minutes and then re-paired the two players facing empty chairs so they would both get a game. And Harrison did not let us down. In only his second match for the club he deployed a line of the Caro-Kann he's been exploring to good effect and got his first win for us under his belt.
  John H had a game of intricate mid game calculations and he thankfully maintained his game discipline to avoid clear errors. He's been working on the Italian game and his opponent countered with two knights and castled kingside. John decided to castle queenside and launch a kingside pawn storm. He ended with a commanding pawn on the 7th rank committing black's resources, and on review might have used other sequences in the late jockeying. Overall, it was a good game and he didn't feel let down in conceding to his opponent's final winning tactics.
  John M paid the price of underestimating his opponent's chances. Having miscalculated a piece winning manoeuvre he lost a pawn instead, but then couldn't stop a series of exchanges that led to a rook and minor piece ending. It was pretty sterile and could easily have been drawn, but John spurned the drawing lines, which would have been fine if he'd taken a bit more care. And even in the rook ending when it was clear he was now worse off, he failed to bring his king into play early enough and suffered the consequences.
  It's been a sorry start for our C-Team this season, but at least we've been able to field one, and with new and willing blood like Harrison, we should be able to do so without too many defaults.

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 at one point John had four central pawns, two each on the d and e files, with open c and f files. John had got off to a shaky start playing 1.e4 d5 2.Nc3 d4 forcing him to retreat his knight in spite of having rehearsed this line earlier. His opponent thus gained advanced pawns with an early focus on d4. At risk of his queen being trapped John succeeded in clearing the centre and his breakthrough came attacking a rook and simultaneously exposing an attack on a bishop. His opponent gave up the exchange and John was comfortably ahead in both material and position. Mistakes followed that could have turned the game either way, and John was relieved to seal the win after two and a half hours of intense, nervous play.
  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.