Due to illnesses in the Saxmundham camp we started this match with one point already in the bag, which was a great shame really, for while we have every confidence that the result would have been the same had Panagiotis had an opponent, it´s not the way we like to gain points. Should we have postponed the match? Given that we had only a couple of hours notice, and we had already postponed our first A-Team match, that prospect was far from attractive, hence the decision was taken (somewhat reluctantly) to go ahead with the match anyway.
  It wasn´t too long before Phil made it two up. It was a QGD Semi-Slav Defence, which gave him a slightly better position out of the opening. At move 24, Phil´s opponent overlooked the loss of his b2 pawn to the black queen, which grabbed his a2 pawn on the next move, after which, with two pawns down and no effective counter-play, the White position soon became untenable.
  Graeme kept the sheet clean after his opponent miscalculated his response to Graeme´s f4 attack on his Sicilian defence. This resulted in a bishop sacrifice on his f7 pawn and three moves later him losing his own bishop and rook!
  Andy brought up the rear, and with it confirmed our clean sheet. Andy equalised easily against his opponent´s Tikiakov Anti-Sicilian, but appeared to have limited chances of a win in a 2R+B v 2R+B endgame. Fortunately, his opponent allowed a neat tactic, enabling Andy to go into a rook and pawn endgame a pawn up, an advantage that Andy easily converted.
  A very good start to the season, long may it continue for Bury St Edmunds have signalled their ambitious intentions with a similarly resounding victory over Ipswich.

Not that long ago things were not looking too rosy for this fixture. Panagiotis was unavailable and Andy was doubtful, and Felixstowe were unable to re-schedule. The possibility that we would be fielding three substitutes with Phil on board one looked a very real one. The only consolation would have been that we would have been shedding points to Felixstowe rather than Bury St Edmunds, as was the case last season. Fortunately Andy came through and that changed everything.
  John finished first having faced a Giuoco Pianissimo, or as he prefers to call it, the Quiet Italian because he can´t pronounce Giuoco. Both players developed along well trodden paths, but when John´s opponent allowed the exchange of the light squared bishops on a2, misplacing white´s rook, John jumped at it. An injudicious early d4 led to the loss of the e-pawn because of the misplaced rook. His opponent put up a strong rearguard action but one by one another three pawns fell, but it wasn´t until he lost his bishop as well in a rook and minor piece ending that he resigned.
  All the other boards went the distance and it was a long time before any of them produced a result. In fact the venue itself was shutting down and the manager came up to enquire how much longer we would be. As every clock was down to five minutes or less he was told about ten minutes, although in reality it was probably more like twenty.
  On board three, Bob played white against Ed Kirkham. After an even Reti opening, both players had good development and the position was relatively open. Bob opened the centre and obtained a satisfactory position which required him to take a black knight on c6 before playing a follow-up move. Unfortunately, Bob didn´t do that and as a result the position changed quite quickly. Although not a fatal mistake, that occurred a few moves later then Bob made a mistake and Ed forked Rook and Queen. The loss of the exchange led rapidly to black gaining a decisive advantage which won the game for Ed.
  The match score was now level, and it looked as though it would stay that way. Phil was clearly lost on board two and Andy was now looking good on board one. However fortune was to favour us with a remarkable turnaround on board two.
  Phil had faced a novelty in the London System, and was busted at move 11. And by move 17 he was two pawns down in a queenless middle game with a wrecked position. However, as Sun Tzu says in The Art Of War "When without resources, use resourcefulness itself." Lost positions convey a certain freedom; one doesn´t have to play sensibly, it´s a case of va banque, rolling the dice, being an awkward SOB. It paid off, Phil´s opponent vacillated as Phil developed illusionary counterplay. His opponent missed three or four tactics that would have won on the spot before blundering a piece in mutual time pressure, forcing resignation a few moves later. Phil got lucky, especially as he had offered his opponent a draw by repetition just a handful of moves before the blunder, which came as a result of trying to avoid the repetition.
  Fears of a 3-1 defeat should Andy have been unavailable were now replaced with confidence of a 3-1 victory. Andy´s opening against Phil Hopkins resolved into another Carlsbad structure (typically arising from a QGD Exchange Variation). Phil Hopkins, rather enterprisingly, sacrificed first his h-pawn and then his g-pawn in pursuit of a King´s side attack. Andy defended inaccurately and Phil had the chance to obtain a decisive advantage on move 30. He missed his chance, Andy consolidated his defences, forced the queens off and, now a couple of pawns up, made short work of the 2Rs + B endgame.
  This puts us top of the table, although for how long we don´t know, as the result of the Saxmundham v Bury match scheduled for the same night was not in at the time of writing.

This is the strongest team Ipswich A have assembled for some time, and it gave them a respectable 2-2 draw tonight. We still maintain our position at the top, but as our main challengers Bury have only played one match so far this season (a big win over Ipswich at that), they only need five and a half points from two matches to catch us.
  First to finish was Panagiotis, who played his usual English Opening. His opponent seemed to be doing fine, but at the expense of spending considerably more time on the clock. The game developed slowly, with Panagiotis having slightly better control of the centre and, seemingly, the initiative, although the computer engine is not impressed. Pressed by the clock (at times he had less than a minute while Panagiotis had over half an hour) his opponent eventually weakened his own pawn structure, allowing Panagiotis to steer the game towards a favourable ending. Eventually, black played a wrong knight move leading to a position were white was effectively a piece up; the win was not hard to get from there.
  Not long after that Andy made it 2-0. His game against Tim Lunn started off as a Sicilian Taimanov, but soon entered unknown territory after an enterprising early g4 from his Tim. Andy was knocked off balance, but Tim missed the chance for a big initiative on the king´s side. Andy regained control of the position, Tim misplaced his pieces and then missed a combination allowing Andy to force an endgame the exchange up - he resigned immediately. We were now two nil up, and while things were not hopeless on the remaining boards, they were not looking too good either.
  Graeme had played the f4 attack against his opponent´s Sicilian and moved into a balanced middle game. He then blundered, losing a bishop for two pawns and had to tread very carefully in the shadow of a smothered mate. His active queen recovered a third pawn, and later on (at which point the computer had them dead level) he couldn´t resist capturing a fourth - all passed and connected on the a-d files, stretching from the second to the fifth rank. Whilst achieving this impressive material advantage, his opponent put together an attack on the other wing that proved his downfall as the net closed in on his king´s position. In the end his queen got trapped as she and her rook tried to fend off the multiple threats from their opponent´s queen, rook and knight.
  Things were not looking good for Phil on the remaining board, in fact they had not been looking good for some time. Playing the Caro-Kann Advance Variation, he carelessly blundered a king´s side pawn in an even position at move 22. Thereafter his opponent very skilfully orchestrated a series of exchanges to maximise his advantage and tighten his terrier like grip on the position. Phil wriggled, bluffed, blustered, complicated, threatened, created some half decent counter-play but in spite of a couple of draw offers Andrew Shephard was not to be denied his first and well deserved win against him.

It was exactly four weeks prior to this fixture that we played host to Ipswich A in Manningtree, and apart from Manningtree's board four, all other board positions were occupied by the same players. The fact that it produced exactly the same result wasn't quite what we were hoping for. Credit where credit's due, Ipswich took their chances and raised themselves to the highest position they have stood in Division One for a very long time.
  Panagiotis was again first to finish, playing the Black side of a Sicilian Najdorf. As in the home match, the result was largely determined by the less-than-ideal clock strategy used by his opponent. Stephen Lewis' position was fine for some time and Panagiotis's speculative play could (or perhaps should) have led to a very comfortable middlegame for his opponent, but a few inaccurate moves however, led to the loss of the exchange, although with some compensation due to the weakened black squares in Black's camp. With White being down to his last couple of minutes for several moves, it was proving very difficult to defend. Even though Panagiotis's play was rather superficial in the last phase, eventually a defensive oversight led to him overcoming his opponent's defences and getting the point.
  Making his first appearance for us this season, Roland experimented with a very ambitious kingside expansion (g5 and f5) against his opponent's castled and fianchettoed king's position. It's an experiment that perhaps needs a little more testing before deployment, as it left his king very exposed to the counter attack, and Rowland was soon suffering the consequences.
  In an opening variation familiar to both players, Phil improved on a previous game and quickly gained a promising initiative only to completely and inexcusably leave an advanced knight en prise, gaining only a pawn as consolation. From then on his opponent took control, efficiently exchanging down to a simple win with his extra piece. "Shockingly lax play" said Phil, but he shouldn't be too hard on himself, we've all done it. Some of us a lot more often than others.
  Andy's game against Tim Lunn was delicately balanced after a sharp and theoretical King's Indian Defence led to a position in which White's space advantage and control of the c-file was matched by corresponding pressure from Black on the g-file and king's side. Tim self-terminated on move 30 with a dubious piece sacrifice for two pawns, followed by an exchange sacrifice on move 34, and finally the loss of his queen on move 38.
  We are now 2½ points clear at the top, but with Bury St Edmunds still not really off the ground with their 2023-24 campaign, we can hardly be said to be "comfortably on top". This could be heading for a very interesting conclusion to the season, as the last two matches for both Manningtree and Bury St Edmunds are against each other. Of course, this assumes that Bury complete their unplayed October and November fixtures before the end of March next year.

After defeating Saxmundham 4-0 in our first match of the season, our fortunes against them have taken a decided turn for the worse. We just about scraped a victory in the Norfolk/Suffolk Cup three weeks ago (despite heavily out-rating them), and tonight we came off second in this Division One match that could have been even worse. Both of these below par results mean that the odds have shifted heavily in favour of Bury St Edmunds taking both trophies. On the plus side, Saxmundham did provide a very nice cup of tea!
  Phil finished first after a blunder on move 12 left him two pawns down with zero compensation, the queens exchanged, a draughty kingside and his opponent in possession of the bishop pair - all by at move 16. And to save himself getting mated Phil executed a manoeuvre that you don't often see, a manoeuvre that some were not sure was legal in this position. With his king still at home on e8, the first of those pawns fell to a knight on f7, which was now attacking Phil's rook on h8. The knight could not be taken by the king or mate would follow, so Phil castled. It was perfectly legal and later a tempo losing inaccuracy by his opponent on move 18 let Phil back into the game with threats of his own, and his superior development allowed him to win back a pawn, leaving him with sufficient positional compensation for the other one. So Phil chucked in a draw offer, which to his surprise and delight was accepted immediately. Half a point rescued from the abyss.
  Andy had the advantage for most of the game after Simon Wilks's Nimzo-Indian converted into a Snake-Benoni. Andy went a pawn ahead on move 30 and appeared to be winning with connected-passed d & e pawns, but was under considerable time-pressure. Simon Wilks could have made matters extremely tricky, but blitzed out his moves, overlooking a simple tactic that lost him a piece.
  Simon faced a King's Indian where black played an early c5 instead of e5. Play immediately focussed on the queenside and with the a1 - h8 diagonal open, it was a sharp and tactical middle game. Simon gave away an initial edge by playing too passively for just one tempo, and then lost a central pawn in the middle game. He figured however that he had enough active counterplay for this, but made a mistake in giving up his light square bishop to turn his opponent's extra pawn into doubled pawns on the d file. After that, he had a chance to equalise, but missed it and then couldn't hold the endgame.
  John faced a QGD in which his opponent exchanged pawns on d5 giving John an open diagonal for his light squared bishop, which might have been useful had he actually used it. He was soon faced with a decision to either retreat a knight on e4 or to exchange it. He chose wrong, which led to the knight being exchanged several moves later with the disadvantage of leaving John with doubled c-pawns, which made his opponent's d-pawn a real pain. Twenty or so moves later that pain reached the seventh and there way no way of holding things together.
  After the match we discovered something that wasn't right - apart from losing our bottom two boards that is. It was something that some of us hadn't even noticed. The clocks on the bottom two boards had been set up without an increment. It would have made for an interesting problem if any of those four players had lost on time.

This is our last match before the double header against fellow title chasers Bury St Edmunds. And while this puts us one and a half points above them, Bury have a game in hand against Saxmundham, so it unlikely that we will stay there after that match is played. Unfortunately we have no idea when that will be (it is still scheduled on the LMS for Oct 31st) so unlike last year, we don't know the size of the task ahead of us, but a big win tonight would go a long way to making that task a little easier. And while we didn't get a clean sheet, three and a half points is a very good result.
  Rowland finished well ahead of the rest, taking full advantage of both the white pieces and the huge rating difference. Panagiotis put us two up a little later. His game had started as a quiet, slow English, and Black was doing fine until the point he allowed the wing push b4 challenging Black's pawn on c5. Panagiotis took over the centre, gradually increased the pressure, and eventually an exchange sacrifice led to the win.
  It wasn't long after that that Phil put us three up. His opponent essayed out his own home cooked variation against Phil's Queen's Gambit Semi Slav Defense. This involved forgoing castling, directing all his pieces towards Phil's king and leaving a bishop en prise on g5 for ten moves or more, which if grabbed, would have led to mate. Threats and a king hunt were the intentions, defensive precision was required. However, Phil managed to effect a series of exchanges and with a gain of tempo, grabbed the en prise bishop at the right moment, warded off a few threats, and produced a double attack on both his opponent's rooks, netting one and his opponent resigned on move 27, a rook and bishop down. A case of the biter getting bitten, but his attacking instincts and go for it mentality are worthy of respect.
  This left Andy fighting for that much desired clean sheet. Some players learn from their games and Peter Gemmell lost his way in complications in his previous two Suffolk league games against Andy. This time his choice of the safe and sensible English Symmetrical was rewarded with a solid, defensible position. In the last game to finish, Andy laboured to prove an advantage, but running out of time and ideas conceded the draw on move 53.
  If we assume Bury defeat Saxmundham 4-0 in their game in hand, we will need 5½ points from our remaining two matches against Bury. That's a big ask, but we did in last season's finale, so every chance we can do it again.

This result equals our A Team's worst over the board defeat ever* when back in December 2013 we were beaten at home, by the same score, and the same team. And it was the same player who saved us from a whitewash on both occasions. This defeat scuppers any realistic chance we had of retaining the Division One title, it would now take a miracle to deny Bury the trophy, so we will have to settle for being runners-up this season.
  Bury turned up with only one of their nominated squad missing, and while we had all of ours, we were still expecting a very close match. How wrong we were, at least as far as the end result was concerned. But at the half way point things were looking very different. We were looking very good on boards two and four, where the half hour time differential told its own story, and we looked at least equal on the other two boards where the clocks were within ten minutes of each other.
  But then the wheels started to fall off in the second half. Rowland had launched a pawn advance on a broad front against his opponent's King's Indian, although it was not until almost ninety minutes of play before so much as a pair of pawns were exchanged. After that the game opened up and Rowland's opponent had to surrender the exchange. And while Rowland's king's side attack was looking decisive, his opponent staged a counter attack down the queen's side, where Rowland's king had castled. Overlooking a two move mate Rowland delivered what he thought was the coup de grace, but he did so with the wrong piece and the game was flipped on its head.
  Phil was next to finish and as Black had equalised quickly via a series of early exchanges against his opponent's offbeat and fairly un-ambitious queen's side opening that was essentially a Nimzo-Larsen with an unusual move order. By move 23 both players had a queen, bishop and knight and an equal number of pawns in a balanced position with no real winning prospects for either side. When Phil's opponent offered a draw, he accepted immediately as he has a lot of respect for his opponent's play.
  Then our second wheel fell off. Jaden Jermy played the King's Indian Attack against Andy's customary Sicilian. After castling queen-side, Andy sacrificed a pawn, but obtained nothing for it. Jaden consolidated, and forced the exchange of queens. Andy regained his pawn, but found himself enmeshed in a neat tactic that won a piece, forcing his resignation on move 35.
  Not long after that, the final wheel came adrift in a game that had been looking good at the half way point. We have been so used to seeing Panagiotis brush aside all opposition once he starts to get the upper hand that we often assume his board is in the bag long before it actually is. And most of the time our assumption proves true, but tonight was the exception. With a strong attack developing from of his regular English, Panagiotis made an uncharacteristic miscalculation, caused in large part by playing too quickly. Almost out of nowhere both of his opponent's knights, supported by their queen, sprung into action and dominated the centre while Panagiotis' queen was misplaced and virtually out of the game. Panagiotis fought back, but by the time his queen had been brought back into the game, he was a pawn down in a dire position with simply too many weaknesses to defend. His opponent then found a neat win of a second (defended) pawn by snatching it with his queen, which led to a flurry of exchanges ending in a knight ending two pawns down. Hoping for a miscalculation from his opponent Panagiotis took it to the wire, only resigning when all hope was gone.
  We started tonight needing 5½ points from our last two matches, and for a long time it looked quite possible that we would get three of them tonight. Getting just half a point we did not expect. Even with a 4-0 win at Bury, we would still need Saxmundham to hold Bury to at least a 2-2 draw in the final match of the season. And in spite of the fact that Saxmundham actually defeated Bury in their first match, they are probably about as likely to do that again as we are to beat them 4-0.

* Manningtree were defeated 4-0 several times in Division One in 2010-2011, but we only had one team back then, so strictly speaking, that wasn't Manningtree A. There was a Manningtree A back in the 1981-1982 season, and they were defeated 4-0 by Ipswich D, but that was by default.

We needed a very unlikely 4-0 victory tonight if we were to stand any chance of retaining the division one trophy, and under normal circumstances tonight's victory would be a very good result for us. And had we achieved a similar result two weeks earlier, it would have been Bury needing a 4-0 victory over Saxmundham in their final match to take the trophy. As it is, Bury's 1½ points tonight seals the deal regardless of the Saxmundham result, and they must be congratulated for the 5-3 aggregate score over us in achieving that.
  Both sides were slightly weaker tonight, which meant (among other things) that Rowland was facing the same opponent as before, and with the same colour, and faced the same opening, but without any catastrophic blunders this time. He started his attack with a prepared piece sacrifice on move eleven, which could not be taken, but in working through the complications his opponent fell twenty five minutes behind on the clock. Four moves later that deficit had increased to forty five minutes, which is more or less how it stayed for the rest of the game. Rowland's attack was relentless but his opponent found some clever resources that kept the game alive, although at the cost of the occasional pawn. As the board cleared, the exchange and three pawn advantage would have been enough to win the ending, but a series of queen checks eventually bagged his opponent's queen resulting in instant resignation.
  We were looking reasonably good on the other three boards, with realistic prospects of draws on boards two and four, and a win on board one, which would have at least kept us top of the table for another six weeks. Graeme brought that result a little closer after a long, and for the most part, level positional struggle on board four. Graeme's long term advantage was the bishop pair, which resulted in an ending with bishop v knight and a pair of rooks. Graeme had taken control of the d-file and managed to infiltrate his rook on the sixth rank supported by a pawn on each side, but there was a lot that could go wrong and Graeme did well to hold things together and keep us in front.
  Phil finished next, collecting the half point we were expecting, although the ending was looking very touch and go. It started with a London System and within seven moves the Queens were exchanged, as a known book line was followed for the first thirteen moves. Neither player could claim an advantage in a fairly closed game dominated by mass exchanges on the e4 square, as White strove to open the e-file, so that at move 30 a single rook and equal pawns ending had been reached. Black temporarily sacrificed his e pawn in order to create a dangerous passer on c3, while the White king was eating up the Black king's side pawns. The White rook was tied to preventing the c3 pawn's advance and accepted Black's draw offer on move 42, with a three fold repetition looking the best option for both players.
  This left just Andy's board, which still had a lot of potential. Jaden Jermy's treatment of his Benko Gambit against Andy was highly unusual: eschewing queenside activity in favour of a king-side advance (...f7-f5) and obtained some activity by isolating Andy's d-pawn. Running short of time, Andy tried an enterprising exchange sacrifice, which seemed dangerous. However, Jaden coolly returned the exchange to go into an easily drawn rook and pawn endgame and thus the fate of both teams was sealed.

The club´s first league match of the season, and the result was a considerable improvement of last year´s equivalent encounter in which we lost 3½- ½.
  John finished first, coming out of a Nimzo-Larsen with strong king´s side pressure after having sealed off the queen´s side. His opponent´s effort´s to counter on the king´s side could have been somewhat problematic had he not completed a pawn exchange with the wrong pawn and immediately lost a piece. The score was levelled after Bob finished a somewhat painful game that he would rather forget, so we´ll say no more about it here.
  Rod´s opponent also employed a Nimzo-Larsen, but with an unorthodox move order that led to a rather un-Nimzo-Larsen looking middle game. Rod had to weather quite a storm and reached the ending theoretically level, two rooks each, with Rod having three pawns for a knight. It soon became four pawns for the knight, and could have become five but the counter play that would have given his opponent meant it wouldn´t have stayed five for very long. Rod took the safer option and corralled his opponent´s king leading to a perpetual, thus keeping the match score level.
  Simon, who had put in a true Captain´s performance, was now the centre of attention. He had reached a minor piece ending a pawn down, but the fact that the bishops were of opposite colours gave us hope. Eventually Simon managed to achieve the first part of his strategy and exchange the knights. Fortunately his king was already ideally placed for this type of ending, so Simon just needed to arrange his pawns on the right coloured squares in order to neutralise his opponent´s extra pawn and offered a draw. His opponent was not about to make things that easy however, and attempted a number of manoeuvres to try and penetrate Simon´s defences. Simon didn´t put a foot wrong, and hampered by the fact that he was down to his last couple of minutes Simon´s opponent accepted the inevitable and agreed a draw.

We went to face a Woodbridge team (that outrated us an average of 150 points per board) knowing this might be our toughest match of the season. Things started fairly calmly, so much so that Simon finished on Board 1 within 30 minutes and 19 moves. Both players played accurately in a Nimzo-Indian defence. After an exchange of pieces on f5, Simon was at risk of losing a pawn, however he found counterplay on the kingside that black needed to respond to first, the only good defence for which was a repetition of moves threatening Simon´s queen.
  Next to finish was John, who from a solid position in his Nimzo-Larsen attack overlooked a tactic that led to the loss of either a knight or the b2 bishop. His chose to give up the knight for a pawn, and though for a while it looked like he might capture a second pawn as compensation, his very solid opponent managed to defend everything and there was no way back into the game.
  David was involved in an interesting struggle as black on board 4 in which his opponent pushed all 4 kingside pawns while David expanded on the queenside. His main weakness was a backward d pawn and this looked certain to fall, but David found his own active play on the e file and his knight created enough threats to equalise. A draw was offered by his opponent in a rook and pawn endgame with white having a 2-1 pawn majority on the queenside and David a 3-2 majority on the kingside. David accepted, which seemed a wise decision.
  Bob had a hard fought game on board 2 against his opponent´s typical queen´s pawn opening and threatened kingside attack. Prepared for this, Bob avoided castling into the attack, setting up a very imbalanced position where he gobbled up pawns with his queen in the centre and queenside while white tried to create active threats against his king in the centre. These threats proved tricky, requiring very accurate defence by Bob who managed to get all the minor pieces off the board, leaving each with a queen and rook. Though he had an extra pawn, white´s active queen and rook just managed to keep Bob´s pieces tied down and a draw was agreed with both players low on time.
  Despite the overall match loss, which by the way, was concluded to the muffled sounds of bingo from the room next door, followed by a more noisy clearing of tables and chairs, 1½ points was a fairly encouraging result for the team overall, hinting that we might even be able to achieve an improved result in Division Two this year if we can keep up the standard.

It was a very cold and frosty evening as we assembled at the Methodist Hall for tonight's match. And uncharacteristically, the heating wasn't on, at least not in the hall, because the foyer outside was warm enough. We fought a minor skirmish with the controls of the wall heater with only minor success, so virtually everyone played their game with their coat on.
 We out-rated our guests by an average of almost 200 points per board, and the score line reflects that. The games however do not and Saxmund- ham can feel hard done by not to have got at least another point. We expected Simon to finish fist, and indeed he did, but not for the reason we thought. Uncharacteristically Simon had blundered a piece quite early in the game but struggled on in what was clearly a lost game. By bluff, threat and confusion he managed to generate enough counter play to salvage half a point.
  Rod followed some time later, having won two pawns earlier in the game and decided that that was enough, even for a bishop of opposite colour ending. His opponent played the ending quite well as Rod had to try probe after probe to get through. His opponent's failure to advance his h-pawn led to his downfall and Rod was eventually able to break through to attack that backward pawn from the rear.
  With a point more than it looked as though we would get, Bob was closing in for the kill on board two. He had always appeared comfortably in control of his game, and a nice combination around his opponent's beleaguered king eventually won him the defending knight. It wasn't long after that that the king's position crumbled and we were 2½-½ up.
  Graeme had produced an interesting game and it was difficult at times to know who stood better. However, as the ending approached Graeme was developing some serious threats and his opponent eventually decided to surrender a knight for a couple of pawns to relieve the pressure. It was not without some merit as his opponent's resulting pawn phalanx could not be ignored and Graeme had to tread carefully to maintain his advantage. But as further pieces were exchanged the ending with two bishops v one was only going one way.
  This raises us one place in the table, and keeps us comfortably mid-table, and not that far off the league leaders.

Manningtree B haven't been beaten 4-0 in a league match since October 2017 *, and oddly enough that was against Sudbury as well. We knew we would be lucky indeed to replicate our last two encounters with Sudbury, but we had realistic hopes of at least staying level with them in the table. Alas it was not to be and things started to go wrong very early in the match as the boards all fell in reverse order.
  John faced the London System and was soon facing another hack attack in which he managed to play all the wrong moves in the right order. Computer analysis showed that there were several points along the way that would have kept things together, but he was forced to resign on move 18 facing a mate in one - and that was after his opponent had missed a sacrificial mate in four on move 12.
  Bob hadn't handled his game too well either, although he did last twice as long as John did. He misplayed his favourite opening, and to say that he wasn't happy with himself would be putting it mildly.
  Graeme had one of his highly tactical and complicated games, and managed to steer it to a rook and minor piece ending a pawn up. Both players were running low on time when Graeme overestimated the strength of his passed pawn and surrendered two of his other pawns as a result. The full point may have been there if he hadn't given up those pawns, but there was definitely at least half a point in it.
  Simon was putting in another captain's performance on top board and doggedly kept things together, and as the game was reduced to a queen and rooks ending it looked for a while to be heading for another draw. However, after the queen and a rook came off (along with a couple of pawns) his opponent started to break through in the centre. Simon might have had better chances attacking his opponent's pawns at the rear, but it was a difficult position to handle and Simon eventually suffered his first defeat of the season, while Sudbury achieved their first match win of the season.

* Technically we were beaten 4-0 by Ipswich in January 2020, but strictly speaking that was our C-Team in disguise.

When Manningtree B faced league leaders Woodbridge in their first encounter of the season, they were at half strength but still managed to take one and a half points from the match. Tonight we were at full strength, but this match ebbed and flowed considerably such that at one point it looked quite possible that the only point we would get tonight was on board four. It was unfortunate that Rod had to sit this one out due to either his opponent forgetting to put the fixture on his calendar, or forgetting to check that calendar before tonight.
  Simon finished first, and should have come away with the full point after gaining a terrific advantage from his Caro-Kann, which netted him the exchange and a pawn, and should have netted him the game as well. Here the share of luck went to Woodbridge after Simon missed a killer and subsequently allowed his opponent to build a very dangerous attack with his bishop pair and queen. To stave off mate Simon had to surrender his queen for a rook, but that only delayed the inevitable and a few moves later the mate could not be averted. It was one of "those that got away" stories, and it levelled the score. By this time things were not looking to rosy for Manningtree B, for while there was still a lot to play for on boards two and three, neither seemed to be turning in our favour.
  Bob had responded to his opponent's London System with his solid fianchettod king's side, although he didn't get to castle and the game became highly tactical. His opponent appeared to be getting the better of things as both of Bob's rooks played rather defensive roles on their respective wings, but Bob kept himself in the game, maintaining material equality and bit by bit began to equalise the position as well. With each exchange of pieces Bob's position looked slightly safer, and with the last exchange that just left a rook and bishop of opposite colour, Bob offered a draw. His opponent thought for a moment and then accepted.
  We had at least equalled our previous result, and it was beginning to look as though that was how it was going to stay. Graeme had faced a Centre Counter and as usual it produced one of Graeme's very complicated and tactical games. But as the ending approached, bit by bit Graeme seemed to be on the back foot - his pawns were scattered and he was under a lot of pressure as the enemy king began its march up the board. But here is where our share of the luck was dispensed, and under growing time pressure his opponent missed his path to victory, and shortly after that, also missed his chance of holding a draw. Graeme still had to play very carefully and accurately in the rook and pawn ending, which offered plenty of opportunities to mess up, but he managed it and we came away with an unexpected match win, raising our match performance to 50% with our board performance just a fraction behind.

Manningtree B was somewhat under per this evening, and that score line certainly reflects it. As this was the only match taking place in Bury tonight, and as Bury had a lot more than eight for their other activities, we weren't playing in Bury's main hall, but a smaller side room, which is also the access room to the hall from the rest of the building. While this makes the passage of people in and out of the main hall more noticeable, it is certainly not an excuse for our lack of points.
  Simon is experiencing that phenomena that hits all chess players from time to time, i.e. poor form. Or put another way, it seems so much easier to lose these days. Simon faced a King's Indian Defence, which he is quite comfortable with, but this time he simply missed the point that Black's Qe8 was not just a defensive move to avoid being attacked by a bishop coming to b6, in the process it double-attacked his knight on a4 with the help of Black's d7 bishop. This lost a piece for little compensation (a temporary pawn) and while he battled on creating some activity with the bishop pair, Black made no mistakes in converting.
  Bob likewise faced an opening he was comfortable with, but a few inaccuracies on a very crowded board and he found himself in a spot of bother. The situation didn't improve when his opponent refused to make any similar inaccuracies, and bit by bit the game swung away from him. Bob was far from happy with his performance, but he wasn't the only one.
  Graeme played the Sicilian f4 attack against the Sicilian dragon. Unusually for Graeme, his attack soon petered out and the position became very drawish quite early on. He never looked liked winning but without careful play he could so easily have lost. Although rather dull by Graeme's standards, a draw proved a satisfactory result.
  John faced a Vienna, of which he knows little, although he is very familiar with the King's Gambit. His opponent castled long, announcing a clear intention to launch a king's side assault, but it didn't even start because John pre-empted it with a queen's side attack. It was looking very promising at times, but his opponent always seemed to find just the right move at each critical point. When the attack fizzled out we were left with a rook and pawn ending which boiled down to a rook and two pawns each. When his opponent tried too hard to win John could have captured both enemy pawns and kept both of his own, instead he exchanged both pairs, which just goes to show, if you are only looking for a draw, the chances are that's all you'll get.

Stowmarket retain that tradition of bringing tea and biscuits to the table, like we used to do until we replaced the maid with an urn. And they do make a pretty decent cup of tea.
  David prefers coffee, and that got him off to a good start as he turned his opponent's Ruy Lopez around, achieving a commanding position that won him the exchange and a couple of pawns. His opponent's compensation was a connected pair of passed pawns, which David had successfully blockaded, and when his opponent misplaced his queen and lost the supporting pawn, he resigned.
  John opened with a Nimzo-Larsen, although his opponent was playing a different opening entirely. With only a pair of bishops off the board John calculated that a pawn push in the centre would lead to a series of exchanges and relieve him of a backward e-pawn. Well it did both of those, but he should have looked one move further. An attack on a defending rook led to the loss of the exchange, followed by a complete collapse of his position.
  Simon was doing much better. He persevered with his King's Indian and this time achieved a much better position than his previous few outings. An unusual position developed, with only a pair of rooks and pawns exchanged, the bulk of both side's pieces were on their respective first and second ranks, as if they were both sparring from a distance. Simon controlled acres of space on the queen's side, but to prevent his opponent's rook getting into the game by taking control of the open b-file, Simon harassed his opponent's queen with his own queen. His opponent was very reluctant to exchange queens, as at the time it was his only active piece, so he allowed a repetition of moves and accepted Simon's draw offer just before making the third. Simon could hardly have brought an end to his run of poor form at a better time.
  All eyes were now on Graeme. And there were lots of them. At any point over the remaining half an hour of the session, between six and ten pairs were fixed on the remarkable conclusion of a very complicated game. It started as a Centre Game and after his opponent castled long, an all out assault on Graeme's king's position followed. There were a couple of opportunities to finish Graeme off early, but his opponent missed them and Graeme survived to battle on, although the complications made that very had work. At times it looked as though Graeme had saved it, but his opponent proved extremely tenacious, and with time running very low, finding the right move proved ever harder. When a crucial knight could no longer be supported Graeme's position crumbled, and there was nothing left to do but resign.
  The team was quite happy to come away with one and a half points considering we were out-rated on every board, and by a big margin on some. They were valuable points that might help us keep our current position in the table to the end.

We always knew it could get tricky towards the end of the season running three league teams again as substitutions get exhausted and options reduced, but Simon did very well to gather a full team for tonight's delve into the heart of deepest, darkest Suffolk. Sadly those efforts didn't prevent the club's second default of the season as our board four was unavoidably delayed.
 It was good to see Adrian back again, making his first appearance this season and showing that he hadn't forgotten how the pieces move. In fact he had gained a useful advantage, being the exchange up in a two rook v rook and knight ending. But it was complicated with six pawns each so he decided that the active knight was too much of a headache and as the better part of valour is discretion, he opted for the draw. Meanwhile Bob had efficiently seen off with his opponent, and Graeme had concocted his usual confusion of complications, and as neither could determine who stood better, they agreed a draw.
 This leaves the table in an interesting position. Both us and Bury B have two matches left to complete the season, and we face each other in our final match. Bury's other match is against title chasing Woodbridge, while we face mid-table Stowmarket. If we can take more points off Stowmarket than Bury take off Woodbridge, the gap between us closes, and the prospects for our final showdown increases.

Simon started the night off terribly with an early exit after managing to miss a mate in one on move 15 of an advanced Caro Kann, normally his most trusty opening. No excuse for this really, but Simon certainly learnt some new interesting details on move order in this variation. Note for future reference, don't play c5 when you are several developing moves behind white in this opening and your opponent is ready to counter with c4.
 Jim always felt in control of his game and was next to finish. After winning a pawn, his opponent then dubiously sacrificed another pawn for activity against Jim's king, but was running out of material and his own king wasn't safe. He finished things off in style with a tactic to win a rook (the recapture of which would have allowed a royal fork).
 Rod was also looking confident throughout, in a King's Indian with opposite side castling. Rod broke through first, creating intense pressure on the B file with doubled rooks and steadily accumulated a material advantage and then exposed his opponent's king. A very clinical finish, and we were 2-1 up.
 Bob's match was great for the remaining spectators. All pieces remained on the board well into the game, with his opponent (as black) going for a kingside pawn storm. In fact the h pawn advanced all the way to h3, pinning the bishop on g2 which was subsequently lost. Bob's compensation was some good piece activity, although it looked far from sufficient, but Bob kept things very complicated, refusing to simflify by exchange pieces and accumulated a big time advantage. With less that a minute remaining, and unable to co-ordinate nor activate his pieces, we half expected Bob to be offered a draw. His opponent ploughed on however, perhaps believing that his extra piece would tell in the end. But Bob's active play eventually forced enough inaccuracies for him to start winning back material. His opponent was eventually forced to give up his queen for a rook, and Bob finished off the queen versus bishop and rook endgame. A very strong game from Bob, and a great win for the team that gives us a fighting chance of finishing ahead of Bury for fourth place in our final match.

There was nothing vital riding on this, our final match of the season, as we had already achieved our prime objective, i.e. not getting relegated. However, we stood one point behind Bury in the table, with both teams equal on match wins, therefore a minimum win of 2½-1½ would see us swap positions, and give us enormous satisfaction in the process.
  As the games got under way it was clear that this was going to be a challenging task, despite the fact that Bury were without two of their nominated team, including their top board, and we were at full strength. After an hour's play there was not much in it, except on board one where Bob had overlooked an annoying queen check that cost him his b-pawn. His compensation was the half open b-file taking aim at his opponent's king (that had castled long) plus half an hour on the clock, which gave us some hope that perhaps something could be salvaged with a bit of luck. And it wasn't for want of trying as Bob played as actively as possible, but as the pieces came off, his knight was to prove less effective than his opponent's bishop and another unfortunate oversight saw Bob drop another pawn. It was digging in heels time, but the two pawn advantage was decisive in the end.
  Not the best starts for us, but there was still hope; both Simon and Rod were looking good, while Graeme was looking not so good, but at least not bad. Rod had played the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez, which led to an early exchange of queens. Both had castled long and Rod always seemed to have the edge, but his opponent was nothing if not resilient and as the game progressed that edge seemed to disappear. A miscalculation during a series of exchanges saw Rod enter the endgame a piece down, and it wasn't long after that that Rod resigned.
  That was clearly the end of our hopes of rising one step up the table, although the same could not be said for Bury, who with another 1½ points could leap-frog Stowmarket and take over third place. Graeme helped them a little in that respect, although far from willingly. His opponent played the Centre Counter and the game progressed in a very un-Graeme like manner. No ridiculously complicated, knife edge positions that test the nerves of even the spectators, but rather a steady strategic tussle with both sides struggling for any kind of advantage. As the pieces came off, material equality was maintained almost to the end, but in a queen and bishop ending, with both sides owning a passed pawn, Graeme dropped a centre pawn and he was now quite definitely on the back foot. After the bishops came off it was an interesting queen and pawn endgame, and while it would have been easy to go wrong, his opponent didn't and we were now three down.
  It would be tempting to say that Simon put in another Captain's performance, but the last time we did that it jinxed him and he lost a string of games afterwards. So we're just going to say he played his Caro-Kann to very good effect, matching his opponent's king's side attack with strong pressure on the queen's side. It was that pressure that netted him a pawn and a valuable passed connected b-pawn. In the rook and knight ending that ensued, it was that pawn that cost his opponent his knight, although he wasn't going to give up so easily. Creating his own passed h-pawn and marching it to the seventh, it was now Simon's turn to surrender his knight, but by now the rook and pawn ending was so clearly won that his opponent didn't take much longer to resign. A 3-1 defeat is not the best way to end a season, but we didn't finish bottom, and that means a lot.

It was good to welcome two new members of the club to the delights of league chess - and to welcome Jim back after an eighteen month interruption. And while we were soundly beaten by the team that will no doubt run away with this division and return to division two where they belong, we can take solace from the fact that we didn´t suffer the same fate as did Felixstowe B two weeks earlier.
  Our youngest new recruit, Kenzie, finished first, and after a somewhat unorthodox opening entered the middle game queen and pawn for rook and knight down. He nonetheless put up a spirited fight and found a number of good defences along the way indicating a lot of potential for the future. But try as he may, he was never quite able to get back on level terms and in the end the material imbalance proved decisive.
  Jim opened his return to the board with a Pirc that developed according to plan at first, but having failed to simplify a little earlier it gave his opponent a clear advantage on the queen´s side, where his advanced pawns and control of the centre were looking dangerous. Jim kept things under control however and saved our blushes from a whitewash.
  David was third to finish, responding to his opponent´s Sicilian with an early c4 and started to ´build a wall´ which caused his opponent to fall half an hour behind on the clock working out ways to get over it. It was some time before even a pawn was exchanged, and for a while it looked as though we might get our second half point from this board. It wasn´t to be, and in the complications of the middle game David emerged a knight down. He struggled for a while, but when his opponent forced the last rook off the board David was forced to resign. An unusual post script to this board could be added because the pieces had been set up the wrong was round, with black having the lower numbered ranks, resulting in some of the moves being written down with the wrong number against them.
  It was now left to our second new recruit of the evening to see if we could improve the score line a little. Mark put up a good solid defence to his opponent´s English and with a fair wind and a clear sky it looked possible that we might even get our second half point from this board as well. Unfortunately Mark overlooked the loss of a pawn, and was under a lot of pressure from there on. Despite that, he put up a stubborn rearguard action that took his opponent quite a long time to break down, and when he finally did, a pawn deficit was the least of Mark´s problems.
  We have no intention of wining this division, the last thing we need is two teams in division two, but at the same time a little more than half a point would have been nice. Our next opponents Ipswich C, are on paper the weakest team in this division, so here´s hoping.

It was touch and go this evening, with the very real prospect of finishing with the same score line as our previous match. Fortunately Caissa was kind to us tonight and saved us from that humiliation.
  John finished first after having carelessly given away a pawn as his opponent trod rarely travelled paths of the Nimzo-Larsen. This led to a series of forced exchanges while John tried desperately to avoid them. He was on the back foot for the next twenty moves or so before a fortuitous opportunity to take control of an opened c-file reversed the game.
  David soon followed, but his game too was not without incident. He had started well enough and was comfortably in control, but he unfortunately delayed castling for too long and got into serous trouble, and under the pressure blundered to hand control of the game to his opponent. David then dug his heels in and defended well as he slowly got himself back into the game and was eventually able to turn the tables and mount a strong attack that went on to win the game.
  Playing his first league match for us tonight, Jamie put in an excellent performance, maintaining his balance throughout. In the ending Jamie was a pawn to the good, and after the last remaining pieces came off, the game had whittled down to a single rook pawn. However his opponent was able to maintain the opposition, and thus Jamie was unable to advance that pawn any further than the seventh rank.
  Playing his second game since his return, Jim faced a sharp opening in which (as Jim put it) a sharp Jim would have remembered when to sacrifice his QNP to achieve an advantage in the Benko Gambit. He still managed to generate sufficient counterplay to make the game complicated but simply ran out of time and energy to maintain the complications into the endgame.
  This lifts us off the bottom into a more respectable position in the table. Our next match is against Felixstowe, who have been convincingly beaten in all three of their matches so far, but if they were able to field their nominated team, they would be tough opposition for us.

There may only be one F in Felixstowe, but they have two venues, so the evening didn´t get off to a very good start when we all turned up at the Seafarers to find no sign of the opposition. Attempts to phone their captain failed as his battery had died, but we eventually got a call from another of their team to inform us that Felixstowe B play at The Dooley Inn, so it was all back to the cars and a three minute drive out of the docks. In fairness to Felixstowe they did send out an email at the start of the season telling us this, but they might like to consider updating their web site with this information rather than rely on our team captain´s memory. We arrived at Dooley´s to find that Felixstowe had assembled their full nominated squad, something they had not done in any of their three previous matches, which explains why they have only gained one point from twelve boards, so an expected easier ride proved to be the exact opposite.
  It has been said before, but Dooley´s is not the ideal venue for a chess match, situated as it is in a small connecting room off the main dining area without a door and therefore subjected to the muted tones of music and TV. And even less ideal as the music is generally awful. But at least there weren´t many punters in, so we were spared the additional noise of a restaurant full of diners and children, although that will no doubt change in the run up to Christmas. Thankfully we have no matches against Felixstowe B during that period.
  Our two new comers to league chess tonight, Kenzie and Mark, were both quite impressive at the start, deliberating carefully, taking their time and making sensible moves - well most of the time anyway. Kenzie played the exchange variation of the French, which proceeded into a very lively game after Kenzie had castled long into a half open b-file. His opponent seemed reluctant to attack down that avenue and all the action took place in the centre and on the king´s side. As the pieces came off there wasn´t a great deal between the two, but then a disastrous miscalculation changed all that and we were 1-0 down.
  Mark faced a King´s Gambit, which he declined, which may have confused his opponent, who shortly after lost a knight. Mark was comfortably on top when he suffered a moment of blindness and placed a bishop en-prise to deliver a check. While it would not have been a total disaster, but merely restoring material balance with a better position, Mark was lucky that his opponent only realised the bishop was en-prise the moment after he moved his king out of check. A few moves later and Mark had an overwhelming advantage, but instead of delivering the fatal blow, Mark decided to entice the enemy king into the open by unequivocally returning the piece. It wasn´t a good decision, but he still had a winning position. But as we all know, winning positions are not always won.
  Martin faced a QGD in which his opponent failed to castle and launched a king´s side attack with an early h4. It was a long time before anything more than a pair of pawns had been exchanged, and the board was looking decidedly crowded, although it was Martin that was on the back foot. He put up stubborn resistance, but it was his opponent´s dominance proved decisive in the end.
  David played the somewhat unorthodox c4 to his opponent´s Sicilian, always a useful tactic for taking someone out of their prepared lines. A strategic battle for control of the centre followed, and while his opponent had managed to place a knight in the hole on d4, he then quickly swapped it off as David pressed on with a king´s side attack. His opponent defended well, and with time running low for both players a draw was agreed.
  So Felixstowe B scored three and a half times more ´over the board´ points in this one match than they have in their last three. We didn´t expect that.

We travelled to Bury with reasonable hopes of restoring our match record to 50% and keeping ourselves off the foot of the table. So what went wrong?
  First Mark, perhaps a little distracted by his young opponent doodling on whatever was in front of him, went astray after a promising start. John´s opponent´s opening move order invited a hack attack, which would have worked had he started it a move earlier. And Bob found himself under heavy pressure and had to give up the exchange, which only succeeded in delaying the end. Only Jamie shone tonight, and after winning a piece in the opening, he steered his game to a won rook and pawn ending by giving the piece back later on.
  That´s three heavy defeats out of four matches, which leaves us at the bottom of the table. But are we bovvered?

We lost our first encounter against Ipswich B ½-3½ in our first match of the season. So this time we strengthened the line up a little, although our level of success remained the same. By coincidence, we were playing alongside our A-Team this evening, who were also playing their second match against their Ipswich opposite number, and with a marginally stronger line up they also achieved the same level of success as their first encounter.
  Jim faced an Advanced Caro Kann in which he played Ne2, Ng3, and h4 to put pressure on black's light squared bishop. Unfortunately, after Bg5, attacking the black queen, he overlooked a tactic against his uncastled king and rook that meant his bishop could simply be taken and after the resulting exchanges, Jim was a piece down with queens off the board. He battled on well, creating some activity to make it as difficult as he could, but his opponent made no mistakes, closing down the threats and making sure his extra piece proved decisive.
  David had a big space advantage and good piece positions out of the opening. Having achieved this position he played too passively and somehow his pawn structure collapsed, losing several pawns and the exchange in the process. He battled on bravely. but the damage was done and there was no way back.
  Jamie, playing a much more experienced opponent, started well enough, but positionally he was gradually getting worse, leading to the eventual loss of two pawns. After all of the pieces were exchanged bar a knight each, the extra pawns were enough to convert for his opponent.
  John played the Marshall Attack and his opponent responded with the line John himself uses whenever he faces a Marshall in which black either plays defensively or offers another pawn to up the anti. His opponent declined the second pawn, and managed to find the right moves, in the right order, to dissipate the attack. A common feature of the Marshall is that if it doesn't succeed black ends up in an ending a pawn down, and the initiative switches to white. It was a tricky rook and pawn ending, but with care and concentration there was just enough in it to be held.
  We remain rooted to the bottom of the table with five points, which is an average of exactly one point per match. But if you look at it, this means we are a very balanced club, a team at the top of Division One, another at the bottom of Division Three and another bang in the middle of Division Two.

We started this match with a very low bar - just one point per match so far. Unfortunately we failed to reach it, but it was not for want of trying. Our average is now just 0.92 points per match. Not that that's the point, we have a good batch of new recruits all keen to improve their game, and this is all valuable experience.
  Before the match Jamie was our equal top scorer for the team, but tonight's game was something of a war of attrition as his forces were gradually chipped away at, and as the ending approached the material deficit was too much to hold. Kenzie is yet to get off the mark for the C-Team but his gradual improvement is evident and he started well enough tonight, but he should probably have spent a bit more time on his moves as his opponent began to dominate the centre and push through it. Had he not lost a piece in the complications, the rook and minor piece ending would have been perfectly playable.
  John deployed the Nimzo-Larsen again, which was developing nicely when his opponent offered two pieces for a rook and a pawn. It was the sort of position in which a bishop pair against a rook looked very promising, so John went for it. He always looked better, but try as he may, his opponent always seemed to find the right defence and after turning down a draw offer, he found himself offering one himself a dozen or so moves later.
  Jim took his game to the limit having achieved a very promising position from his Pirc, but then suffered the fate only too familiar to us all. Everything spun on a single bad move and Jim was on the defensive for the rest of the game. He made his opponent work for it mind, and took it right down to a king and pawn ending. We remain at the foot of the table, which is no big deal, in fact it's something to be proud of. While we are a club with a team at the very top of the league, we also cater for a team at the very bottom. Although it would be nice if we could finish the season with an average above one.

Manningtree C does not seem to be having much luck in their first season back since the pandemic, but they are not going down without a fight. In our first encounter with Felixstowe B back in October they brought out their strongest side for the first time this season and roundly thrashed us 3½-½. Tonight we very nearly returned the favour.
  David was playing the same opponent as before and never looked to be in any serious trouble, and for the most part seemed to hold the initiative. It was never quite enough for either side however, and after a good deal of effort from both sides the result of their previous game was repeated. The result of the match however, looked far from being repeated. We were comfortably up on boards three and four, although board one was very unclear.
  Martin was next to finish after being materially up for most of the game. The sight of the White queen on g7 surrounded by three pawns (h7, g6, f7) and the rooks on h8 and f8 bore a striking resemblance to some kind of composition, and while the rest of the board was quite open, Martin pressed his advantage and put us in front.
  Kenzie was looking on course to increase that lead and come away with his first league win for the team. He had come out of the opening a piece up, but as the game progressed he lost the exchange and was thus fighting with two pieces for a rook. It was still a significant advantage but as so often happens in chess, the game somehow drifts away from you, and unfortunately in this case, it drifted too far.
  With the score now level it was touch and go on board one. John had faced a sacrificial attack in a variation of the Queen's Gambit that could not be accepted and had to soak up a lot of pressure for a very long time. Once the pressure was relieved the resulting queen and two rook ending was turning rapidly in John's favour, but it was during a series of checks to pick up a pawn or two, that his opponent walked into a one move mate. In his defence, he was running on increments.

It is always unfortunate to default a board, but we knew it would be a risk when we decided to enter a C Team this year, let's hope it's the only one we incur.
  We were heavily our-rated on all but board one, but David and Kenzie put in excellent performances in spite of that. Kenzie's game was and English that morphed into a Queen's Gambit, and he struck out to gain a lot of space on the king's side. It initially cost him a couple of pawns, and eventually a piece, but he battled on regardless showing a determination that should put him in good stead for the future.
  While John was opening with a Nimzo-Larsen, David was facing one. It wasn't the first time David has faced this opening, but he'd forgotten the trap that lost him his e-pawn and so he lost it again. But that was all he lost, and David dug his heels in and the game went all the way to a rook and pawn ending with David just a single pawn down. Whether the game could have been saved is a moot point, but David certainly put up a tremendous effort to do so.
  John's Nimzo-Larsen seemed to take his opponent off guard for he took a very long time playing his first move. Maybe he was digging deep into his memory banks, for although he took quite a while on his first dozen or so moves, they were all in the book and pretty much followed the main lines. After that though his position began to deteriorate and John was on course for victory, but he underestimated his opponent's resources and thought he had given it away to a perpetual check. After the draw was agreed John's opponent pointed out the bolt hole, which is very annoying as yet another half point was thrown away.
  We remain at the bottom of the table, and will probably stay there unless we can overturn Bury C in our final match of the season.

Our penultimate match of the season and it was good to see both Kenzie and Mark still eager to get their first points on the board for the team. Mind you, it's not been for lack of trying, nor opportunity, there have been a few points and half points that have slipped through their fingers. Unfortunately their duck was not going to be broken tonight.
 Kenzie has a habit of finishing first, and tonight was no exception. He was facing a similarly aged improver who looked very dangerous, and like many at this age, who improve so fast, perhaps under-rated. After a balanced opening, Kenzie advanced on the queen's side, but his opponent trapped a piece and was always in control after that, winning Kenzie's only compensation (a passed pawn) and then promoting his own pawn.
 Mark on the other hand finished last, which is notable in its own right as checkmate was on the cards for both sides in one of the bloodiest openings we've seen for years, with queens and minor pieces invading the other side with little regard for defence. Once these attacks petered out Mark had a good position, but allowed an advanced knight to get pinned to his central king losing the piece. With all rooks still on the board he battled on very well, and for a long time until eventually his opponent's rooks and knight combined to begin a mating attack. With the final move of the game White checked Mark's king with his knight and Mark resigned. Prematurely is an understatement for that knight was also defending the adjacent rook, which was now hanging and there for the taking, more than equalising material. It just goes to remind us all, never believe your opponent. It's fair to say the whole room noticed the end of this game.
 The good news of the night came form our top board where Jim secured his first league win in nearly three years. Before the match Jim declared that he had stopped playing regular openings, preferring to mix it up. Well, perhaps he should write a book on that as before the opening even seemed finished he was a whole rook up for a pawn. His opponent claimed he saw compensation on the king's side but he was seeing things the rest of us didn't. Jim created a dangerous mating attack, won another piece in the defence of it, and then calmly traded down to win.
 While all of the excitement above was going on, Simon was playing a positional (and not too interesting) Caro Kann, with both players trying to get knights on outposts on the open C file. They both managed it, which forced a lot of minor piece trades and a drawn endgame, making that the second Lunn he's drawn with in two games.
 This result improves our match average from 1.0625 to 1.1111 (we find joy where we can). With one match remaining, and four points adrift at the foot of the table, we would need to beat Bury C 4-0 to rise above them. And if Felixstowe lose their remaining match against Bury D 4-0 as well, we will rise two places up the table. Don't get your hopes up. Even Caïssa in her foulest mood with Bury and Felixstowe couldn't make that happen.

Tonight we were playing back upstairs as the Eastern Angles Theatre Company were putting on a production of Stones in his Pockets in the main hall down stairs. It was slightly unusual because the performance took place at ground level with the stage used for half of the audience. Not so unusual was that it took a while to remember how the tables were laid out upstairs - where exactly did we used to put the table with the coffee on it? Anyway, everything went ahead smoothly enough, and we didn't hear a word from the troupe downstairs.
 This match was much closer than the score line suggests, and at one point it looked as though we might even win it. Kenzie, still desperate to get his first standard play points for the team put up another determined effort, but he overreached himself with some pawn advances and eventually paid the price. Mark too has been desperate to get any points for the team, standard or rapid, and tonight his duck was broken. His game was very quiet as his opponent didn't appear to be trying to win, or perhaps he had heard of Mark's reputation and didn't want to risk anything. After a couple of hours play, with only one pair of minor pieces exchanged and the pawns approaching lockdown, Mark offered a draw, which his opponent readily accepted.
 The other two boards were looking very good for us - David was the exchange up, albeit for a couple of pawns (which were later to prove decisive) and Adrian had come out of his English with two pawns to the good and a winning advantage. However, it didn't take long to realise that David's rook was going to struggle against a bishop and three connected pawns, and with the queens still on David gave the exchange back and went for a perpetual. Unfortunately it wasn't quite there, and now we couldn't even draw the match.
 Adrian had come out of the opening with a strong advantage, and when the rook and pawn ending became a pawn ending, we were still sure of the full point. Unfortunately Adrian missed the winning line and a pawn race ensued, and while Adrian queened first, his extra pawn was on the rook file, so after the queens came off, his opponent's king was well placed to hold it off.
 Finishing bottom of the division is not a big deal, at least we managed to keep our average of points per match above one.

Although we have out-rated Ipswich on both of our two previous encounters this season, they have managed to hold us to a 2-2 draw on both occasions. And tonight looked remarkably close to following suit.
  Things started quite well in the first round, and at one point we were a pawn up on every board. But it was not to be Graeme's night tonight. He was about to enter a rook and pawn ending a pawn up (albeit a temporary one) but he then inexplicably blundered by failing to recapture the final bishop, so when the rooks were exchanged he entered the ending with pawns v pawns and a bishop. Phil followed next, and although a pawn up, his opponent defended well by creating all sorts of complications that prevented him capitalising on that pawn. Very soon after that, Panagiotis levelled the score. It was a highly tactical and entertaining game that was on a knife edge for much of the time, with (amongst other things) both sides threatening to win the exchange. And just when you thought it couldn't get any more complicated, it actually did. Panagiotis was finding moves most of us wouldn't dream of, however his opponent was countering doggedly, but in the end too much was lost in those complications and his position gradually crumbled. Andy brought up the rear and put us in front. He had been a pawn up for some time and had also accumulated a substantial time advantage. These were enough for him to steer his game to a positive conclusion.
  It was now apparent that with the score at 2½-1½ in our favour, we only needed one and a half points in the next round to progress to the final, as long as one of those points came from the top three boards. But we didn't want to go through on board elimination, so two points was our target.
  In the second round Andy went from being the last to finish to being the first. It was an early draw with a lot of material still on the board, but with dangerous attacks by both players on their opposite number's king's positions. It was a satisfactory result that brought us half a point closer to our goal. Shortly after that, Phil edged us another half point closer. His game had gone from looking pretty good to somewhat worrying, as his control of the queen's side was slipping away. Fortunately he had enough threats around his opponent's exposed king for his opponent to accept a draw by repetition. We were now half a point away from the final and barring disasters, we looked certain to get it.
  Not from Graeme unfortunately. He was doing ok (in spite of a cramped queen's side) until an advanced bishop, supported by a pawn, could not be retreated, leading to the exchange of the bishop and the loss of the pawn. Graeme fought on but he was very much on the defensive for the rest of the game. Panagiotis' second game was quite unlike his first. This time it was much less tactical with a rapid exchange of pieces into a rook and pawn ending. It boiled down to a rook and two pawns v rook, but it was far from clear if it could be won. Panagiotis gave up the rook pawn in order to advance his bishop's pawn, and stubborn defence meant that took a very long time. Both players were down to the increments as that pawn advanced towards that queening square with all the agility of an arthritic snail. Stubborn and accurate defence in these endings is difficult enough at the best of times, but when you're down to your last few seconds it's even harder, and in the end it was the clock that decided it and we came away with the clear victory that we wanted.

Our previous three attempts at this competition saw us knocked out by Felixstowe on each occasion. This year Felixstowe were defeated by Bury, who we expected would give us a very hard time tonight. They were however, without their top two boards, the consequence of which meant that Panagiotis and Andy could win the title for us without the need of any help from the rest of the team. And after the first round it looked as though they might have to do just that. As it happened we collected one and a half points there in the second round and secured the trophy with a comfortable margin. Had we not done so, this would have been the first season since 2012-2013 that Manningtree's name would not have appeared on at least one of the Suffolk League's trophies.
  By way of a post script, we made a mistake in assuming that Rule A1.7 Players may make one substitute appearance for another team from the same club in a different division of this competition. applied to the individual teams, but it applies across all teams, andas John had already substituted in a B-Team match, this substitution was declared illegal, and thus the score was adjusted to 5-3. Thankfully, this did not affect the overall result.

Manningtree B scored a comfortable win against Bury St Edmunds B, who were without any of their nominated players. We now face Sudbury in the semi-final on January 9th.
  In his first game Bob picked up one, and then a second pawn, to claim the full point, only to find the same thing happen in reverse in his second game. Simon did an excellent job on board two, although he was helped with a little luck in one game after his opponent deliberated for a long time over an exchange sacrifice, which he should have made because the alternative was to lose a piece. Rod got into a little difficulty in his first game, but made up for it in the second with a comfortable win. John probably should have won both of his games, but let his opponent off the hook in the first after having built a two pawn advantage.

Our line-up was a little unusual, with Rowland subbing for Graeme, and Jamie making his first appearance for the B team as an emergency sub on Board 4 for David (more on this later).
  The first set of matches had four decisive results, but ended 2:2. Rowland was first to finish, playing a flawless exchange version of the QGD with a minority attack and grinding his advantage in the endgame. Bob and Jamie both lost their games with positions where they lost a pawn and then another, and the endgames were too tough to hold. Jamie had an incredibly tough match as his opponent, despite playing his first competitive match in 25 years, had an estimated rating of 1600 and looked if anything stronger. Simon's game went the distance in a sharp KID in which he managed to neutralise black's kingside activity and break through on the queenside, winning a pawn and then converting that to a piece, and the endgame, while sharp, was clearly winning.
  So with all to play for we started the final games with anticipation. Things started well, as perhaps annoyed at his first round loss, Simon's opponent played a hyper aggressive opening against his Caro Kann that unfortunately led to the loss of the exchange and two pawns by move 12 and, with Simon achieving a passed D-pawn on the seventh rank by move 17 he resigned.
  Here the fortunes turned, with Jamie unable to overcome his opponent's very careful play aimed at picking up pawns despite a good attempt at a counter attack on the kingside. 3:3. Next was Rowland, who despite a stated intention to continue playing positionally, decided to defend with a Sicilian and messed up his move order leading to a clearly worse position out of the opening, requiring him to use a lot of time calculating every move. It proved too much to handle in a rapid game and we were 3:4 down.
  However, if we could draw the match at 4:4 then the rules are that the lowest board score is eliminated first. With Jamie having lost his games, elimination of this board in the calculation would mean we win the match overall, something that wouldn't have been a possibility if we had had to default this board (thanks Jamie!).
  Easier said than done, however, and Bob's game was going the distance and with a complex middle game, and with most pieces and pawns still on the board to navigate, anything could happen. Unfortunately his opponent's careful manoeuvring steadily shifted the position away from Bob, and with a minute on the clock Bob was staring at a position two pawns down with an exposed king, effectively a completely lost position. Knowing only the win would do he battled on, playing the most active moves and keeping pieces alive. Suddenly, with himself under time pressure, Bob's opponent inexplicably (although we all know how this happens!) recaptured a pawn with a rook instead of his queen, allowing Bob's queen and rook to leap into action and execute an immediate checkmate. No-one could quite believe it at first but there it was, a stunning last minute victory and a 4:4 result. That means Manningtree win the match on board elimination, and are through to the final against Woodbridge A in May. This all made for a merry drive back. Next week we play them in the league and Sudbury will no doubt be out for revenge.

We defied the odds and defeated Sudbury on board elimination to get to the final, and here we are, nudged out by the same method tonight. Rod and Jim both did excellent jobs on the bottom two boards, and we were so close to getting just that half point we needed from any of the four games on the upper boards, but it was not to be. We can nonetheless hold our heads high, Woodbridge are after all Division Two Champions, and like last year, will be back in Division One again next year.

We entered this Cup Tie with every expectation of progressing to the next round, and we have to hand it to David and Kenzie, who both played their parts with excellent games and performed as hoped. John and Mark, however did not do so well, but at least Mark has an excuse, he´s a beginner. John however, has no such excuse for turning two won games into losses on single moves. Under the rules of a drawn match, the bottom board is eliminated, so unfortunately Kenzie´s 100% score gets nullified.

The last time we faced Saxmundham in this competition we out-rated them by a similar margin of approximately 190 points per board and achieved an identical result (although we were not helped by the unfortunate default of our bottom board for reasons outside of our control). With Bury St Edmunds being the only other club in the competition this year we assumed that Saxmundham would be the whipping boys, which teaches us yet again the folly of assumptions.
  Saxmundham won the toss and elected to play white on the odd boards, and even though the heating was definitely on, there was a definite chill in the air as we started, and as the match wore on the odd jacket or jumper was brought into service. Panagiotis was the first to finish in a style we expected several others to follow. The game started as a Symmetric English and Panagiotis had a slight advantage until his opponent allowed the break 19. c5, which changed that to a large advantage due to Black's weakened pawn structure and passive light-squared bishop. This eventually led to Black's resignation when that bishop was trapped and could not avoid being captured.
  Andy finished next and set a trend that continued for the rest of the match. He had unfortunately missed an obvious tactic on move 7, which enabled his opponent to trade pieces and simplify the position. Simon Wilkes never looked in danger, and Andy reluctantly conceded the draw on move 33. And suddenly our prospects of a big win to give us every chance of toppling Bury in the final match seemed to evaporate. There were no clear advantages for us on any of the remaining boards; in fact we were looking decidedly doubtful on boards three and four to the point where losing the match was a distinct possibility.
  Simon's game was super close as well as being a bit dull. It was an English that transformed into more of a QGD. As black, Simon got the better of the opening, with full development. But the pieces got traded down with neither side making any mistakes sufficient for either to create an advantage. Even though both sides had a backward pawn the game eventually boiled down to an ending with six pawns and two rooks each, and with no way to break through without adverse consequences, both sides repeated moves and the game was drawn.
  Graeme appeared to be playing a King's Gambit, although his opponent was playing something else entirely. Unlike the average King's Gambit, this developed into a rather slow positional game, with Graeme's main advantage being on the clock. As the ending approached Graeme missed winning of a pawn, although it would still have been far from a won game, but a pawn is a pawn and it's generally better to be one up than one down. The resulting queen and minor piece ending gave little scope for digging traps and a draw was agreed.
  And now we were staring at the very real possibility of losing the match, or at beast scraping a draw. As Black Phil faced the exchange variation of the QGD and found himself totally outplayed and devoid of counterplay due to consistently subtle play by his opponent. John Feavyour manoeuvred with threats on both wings and in the centre, gaining space and improving his position at every turn. When his breakthrough finally came however, Phil was able to counter with a tactic that netted the exchange but at the cost of two pawns, which led to an ending with a queen, a powerful entrenched knight on e5 and two extra pawns facing down Phil's queen and rook. In looming mutual time pressure a draw by three fold repetition ensued, much to Phil's immense relief, as John held all the winning aces both on the board and on the clock. A lucky escape for Phil and the team.
  Rowland's game went the full distance. He played the Nimzo-Larsen, although his opponent deviated from the more common paths, and the game developed along more positional than tactical lines. Slowly but surely the game seemed to drift in his opponent's favour and Rowland had to dig deep to hold things together. In the rook and knight ending Rowland lost a pawn and had to dig even deeper. After the rooks were exchanged material balance was restored and in the knight and pawn ending Rowland's defence was sufficient to prevent his opponent's king from leaving the action to devour his Queen's side pawns. With both players running out of time a draw was agreed.

In stark contrast to our first NS Cup match against Saxmundham where we were able to field our full A-Team squad along with two from our B-Team, tonight we could only manage two from each of our A, B and C teams. However, the respective results are somewhat paradoxical when you consider that we out-rated Saxmundham by an average of 199 points per board but only just managed to beat them, whereas here we were out-rated by nearly 260 points per board and still managed to get something out of it. Had the fixtures been reversed we would probably won this section of the competition, but as it happens we finished second in the table by virtue of our one match win.
 Bouncing back from his league defeat to Bury last month, Panagiotis won in good style, and Bob improved our score with an excellent performance on board three. Phil's performance on the other hand was not so excellent.
 When you have the white pieces and you find yourself mated in 25 moves, and you didn't see it coming, and your opponent has only used eleven minutes of his time, you reach certain conclusions:
1. You have not played very well.
2. Your opponent has played very well.
3. The quality gap between a 1900 player and a 2200 one is rather large.
4. Time to put in some serious chess study to avoid a debacle like this one in future.
Back to the drawing board Phil!
 Not unexpectedly, Simon and David also suffered at the hands of their much stronger opponents, although Simon did learn another new way to lose a King's Indian, so there was some consolation.
 Bringing up the rear was Jamie, who deserves extra credit for not only stepping in at the last minute, but also for putting up a terrific performance on the bottom board, making his much higher rated opponent work very hard for his win. The game went the distance and his opponent had just ten and a half minutes left when the end finally came.
 There's only one thing worse than travelling all the way to Bury and losing, and that's not being able to get home again afterwards. Thanks to the major road works on the A14, those nice gentlemen at National Highways closed the road and diverted traffic via Dis, meaning that none of our squad were home before mid-night, and some were considerably later than that.

You might be interested in a little history here. When we won this trophy in 2016-17 (as the U145 Cup) we did so with a prior record of not having won a single match in this competition in any of the six seasons we had entered it. And since then we have finished bottom or joint bottom every year except for last year. Furthermore, we would not have won it at all had it not been for two unexpected results in the final matches of that season where we stood half a point above Bury in the table, but where Bury were poised to overtake us. Bury´s bottom board outgraded his opponent by over 50 points but had somehow managed to lose, while our dear, late Alan Story turned down a draw offer in a completely dead, bishop of opposite colour ending with a couple of pawns each. Half a dozen moves later his opponent´s bishop had disappeared and Alan went on to win. Maybe this year it will be our turn again.
  Bob was playing Bob again in a fairly closed game in which both players were content to exchange pieces and keep the boat from rocking. After several exchanges there were stll fourteen pawns on the board and as neither side could take control of the open file a draw seemed almost inevitable.
  Graeme played the exchange variation of the Ruy Lopez giving him a very strong centre after the opening. However, he blundered whilst manoeuvring his pieces to form an attack, which led to another exchange variation, i.e. the loss of his rook for a bishop. His attack however still had some impetus, but it lacked ammunition, particularly as his opponent focused on exchanging pieces to reduce material. He then witnessed what he described as "the poorest move I have seen in my 42 year chess career" when his opponent offered to exchange queens - except he´d placed his queen on an unprotected square. So Graeme just took it and his opponent resigned.
  John had faced a typical QGD and reached the point where he felt a thrust through the centre was in order. But when his opponent exchanged a knight on a crowded board, for some reason John thought his opponent had captured a protected pawn instead and initiated a sacrificial attack of his own that he calculated would leave him a pawn up with his opponent´s pawns scattered, all the minor pieces off the board, and his opponent´s king still uncastled. When the flurry of exchanges ended he was surprised to find that his opponent still had a piece left. There was a little compensation, although not much, but a few moves later, in order to prevent a smothered mate he made a move that would rival Graeme´s opponent´s for the poorest move ever and lost his queen for nothing.
  With the match score level we now turned our attention to Simon, who had been excelling himself once again on board one. In a QGD his opponent had played e5 too early, allowing Simon to win the pawn, but at the cost of giving up both bishops for black´s knights. Simon figured he could hold onto the pawn but the bishop pair was certainly reasonable compensation for black, who managed to find a way to equalise through a series of exchanges that left Simon with isolated a and c pawns, and it proved difficult to hold them both. Simon managed to exchange all the queenside pawns and the rooks, but at the cost of king activity, and although still a pawn up, it led to a theoretically drawn but complex pawn ending, due to the fact that the black king could get among the enemy pawns first. Simon played with precision while his opponent appeared more concerned with Simon´s threatening pawns than the need to advance his own h pawn, and having wasted a tempo by advancing his g pawn he came second in the ensuing pawn race.

What started as a very close match in every respect became quite a con-vincing win for us, and it could so easily have been even more convincing. But we aren´t complaining - a two point lead at the half way stage puts us firmly in the driving seat.
  Although Rod finished first, it was after a long and eventful game. Rod faced a Sicilian, and after castling long he began a campaign on the king´s side. His opponent, Angus, responded with a campaign of his own on the opposite wing. In the process all the minor pieces where whittled away and they entered the ending with a queen, two rooks and seven pawns each (oddly enough, this was repeated exactly on Jim´s board). Under pressure and with his king boxed in Rod gave up his queen for both enemy rooks plus a pawn or two. Rod looked to have the advantage, but both players had to tread very carefully. It spite of the rook pair and a dangerously advancing pair of pawns, Angus was just about able to fend them off with his lone queen, helped by a dangerous pawn of his own threatening the boxed in king. Unfortunately Rod missed the opportunity to eliminate that annoying pawn and both sides settled for a draw by repetition.
  Jim kept the sore level having also faced a Sicilian in the less familiar line where you recapture on d4 with the queen rather than the knight. Jim was always on the front foot throughout his game, but his opponent is nothing if not a very resourceful defender, and managed to contain Jim´s efforts to break through his king´s defences. Jim was convinced that there was a way through and spent a lot of time looking for it - after all if Carlsen could find it why can´t he? With time dwindling for both players, and still no break-through in sight, a draw was agreed.
  Not long after that Graeme gave us our first whole point. Playing the Latvian, the game developed as such games often do - complicated. In a tight and crowded board Graeme spotted a neat pawn exchange on c3 that pocketed him a pawn. A few moves later a second one followed. A bit later still a third pawn suffered the same fate. Graeme had to be careful however, having castled long all three of those pawns were on the queen´s side, meaning his opponent had three open files on which to concentrate his forces against Graeme´s king´s position. Graeme was careful, and it wasn´t long before his three pawn advantage proved overwhelming.
  For a long time things looked pretty tight on the top board, a lot of tension in which Bob was at a disadvantage with his uncastled king, which was a bit unusual because more often than not, the Modern Defence involves castling quite early. As the game unfolded Bob managed to castle "manually" and emerged with one distinct advantage; the bishop pair. In direct contrast to boards two and four, all the major pieces were exchanged on this board and we entered an ending with two bishops v two knights (plus pawns or course). You don´t see that very often. Bob spotted a little trap, if he attacked one of the pawns, he could trap one of the knights if his opponent went to its rescue. It worked out as planned and while his opponent struggled on with just a knight against two bishops, he ran out of time in a hopeless position.

Although this division has a field of only three, we were proud to be sitting two points clear at the top. And we could afford a 2-2 draw, or even a 1½-2½ defeat and still be in with every chance of winning it as both Ipswich and us have the same opponents (Bury) to play in our final match. Even a 1-3 loss would not have been a disaster, but this!
  It was another bad day at the office for Bob, but this time it wasn't a misplayed opening, quite the contrary in fact. In the complications that followed his opponent's English, Bob's tactics won him the h-pawn and he looked set to consolidate. However as if from nowhere his opponent developed a deadly counter which Bob only saw when it was too late. It was disappointing but we still looked good for a point or two from the rest.
  And it was Jim who finished next. His Pirc was met with an Austrian Attack and a tough battle followed. It was touch and go for both sides, for it was clear that a slip from either could mean curtains. Bit by bit pieces were exchanged and the tension eased to the point where a draw seemed the logical next move.
  Simon had gone into this match with the bold declaration that he wasn't going to draw tonight, "I'm out to win" he said. Well he was half right. His Queen's Gambit was declined and both players were off to a brisk start - at move eight both clocks were still showing 1:15. By move fourteen Simon had won a pawn, but it proved to be temporary, due in part perhaps to his lack of king's side development. The king's bishop was still at home, which meant that castling was delayed, and eventually cancelled altogether. After the pieces came off, an ending with two rooks plus pawns followed with everything level apart from Simon's doubled f-pawns. However the position was perfectly defendable, but then Simon made an uncharacteristic blunder. Taking a rook off the second rank to attack a backward pawn, he had overlooked the fact that his opponent's seizure of that rank was made with a check. Simon fought on but his opponent's total control of the seventh rank decided things.
  For the first time tonight we were beginning to worry about our prospects. Graeme had responded to his opponent's Sicilian with f4 and sharp complications followed. As the game progressed Graeme offered that f-pawn, and after a very long think, his opponent accepted it. Graeme had already developed quite a time advantage, and this stretched it further, which proved to be a bit ironic in the end. Both players had a pair of bishops bearing down on their opposite number's kings, although Graeme's looked the more dangerous in an interesting position with multiple pins on his opponent's king, which was stuck in the centre. One got the feeling that something was going wrong when each attack on the pawn in front of his opponent's king was met with that pawn moving one step further up the board. That feeling could now be described as alarming as the tables were turning and Graeme had pieces pinned and in trying to work his way through the complications Graeme's flag fell.
  We now have a mountain to climb if we want to win this trophy. We need at least one and a half points more than Ipswich get in our final match against Bury St Edmunds, which basically means we need to defeat them 4-0. I wouldn't put any money on it.

As we said at the close of our previous report, we needed to get at least one and a half points more than Ipswich do in our last matches against Bury if we are to win this trophy. The problem with this 2-2 draw is that even if Ipswich fail to get the one point they now need to finish above us, it will mean Bury will leap frog the pair of us. And if Ipswich do manage the bare minimum of one point, they will take the trophy, for while all teams will finish on eight points, and Ipswich and Manningtree will have the same number of match wins, Ipswich's aggregate score against us is 3½-4½ in their favour, meaning they will top the table.
  On another day we would have won this, but only Rod shone tonight. Simon started off well enough with a King's Indian and looked to be about to break his run of bad form, but a couple of poor moves and not only did his advantages disappear, but the game with it. Jim is still struggling to return to winning ways, but still did well to avoid defeat and John couldn't find a way to win his game even though he had a queen for a bishop and rook. Oh well, there's always next year.

There was a certain amount of confusion over the ratings to use to determine the handicap for this match, to the point where we all assumed that Saxmundham had the highest average and needed to get five points in oder to win the match. And we went away thinking that we had won by denying them that. As it turned out, in the cool light of the following day, it was Manningtree who had the highest average, but not by enough to invoke the handicap, so it was the actual score that determined the winner.
  We started well enough, winning the first round 2½-1½, but fell back in the second to hand victory to Saxmundham. Simon was the star once again winning both of his games, although it has to be said he was a bit lucky in his first game, going from a lost endgame the exchange down, to an endgame two pieces up in the space of half a dozen moves. Bob was always going to be up against it, but made a good fist of it, especially in the first match. Both of John´s games looked headed for draws when the loss of a pawn in a BvN ending proved decisive in the second. David did very well, and should probably have won both games, but two pawns down in a rook and minor piece ending he overlooked an exchange that would have seen him win the piece, although the ending would not have been plain sailing by any means.
  So our first match in this new competition and we come away empty handed. It was good fun nonetheless, and at least we didn't get lost on our journey into deepest Suffolk.

Rapid play ratings might appear to exist in some kind of parallel universe. Based on our rapid play ratings we averaged 50.75 more than Wood- bridge, hence according to the handicap rules, we needed 5 points to win the match. In the real world of standard ratings, Woodbridge averaged 90.75 more than us, with the biggest difference of nearly 200 points on their board 2. Evidence of the very different nature these two forms of chess, or just evidence of the more random nature of rapid play ratings? That´s something the introduction of this division is intended to find out.
  We didn´t get off to a very good start chasing that five points. And while we were unlucky on board four, where after staging an excellent come back from a lost middle game, Jamie missed a draw by repetition, we were lucky on board two where Simon managed to salvage half a point with a fair bit of help from the clock.
  We did slightly better in the second round, but we were still a very long way from grabbing the 3½ points we now needed to take the match. And thus we finished with the same score as our previous match against Saxmundham, and remain on zero match points. As a post script here, you may have read in the rules that the wining team is awarded one point, with draws getting half a point each. However the tables show two points have been awarded for each win. The reason for this is quite simple - the computer says no! The LMS does not have a setting that allows teams to receive one point for a match win, so the league is going to have to change its rules.

By our calculations on the night, we needed six points to win this match against Felixstowe, but according to the LMS the following day we only needed five and a half. But then the LMS featured a few category P ratings in its calculations, including Graeme's at 1441, which is clearly ridiculous. Apart from the fact that even on a bad day Graeme's rating would be higher than that, it would make our board order illegal and we would be penalised one and a half points and thus lose the match. There are clearly still a few wrinkles in the system to be smoothed out, but it'll get there in the end.
  Playing at the Dooley Inn can sometimes be a noisy experience, but tonight it was quite peaceful, especially towards the end of the evening when there was hardly anybody in the place apart from ourselves. Although we significantly out-rated our opposition tonight, none of us got everything our own way and we had to fight hard for every point. There was the usual mix of blunders and missed opportunities but we just about managed to get the six points we needed, and get our first match points on the board. We have just one match left in this competition (at home to Ipswich) and it would take a very strange combination of results indeed for us to even stay where we are in the table, let alone share the top spot, but hopefully it will have achieved at least part of it's objective and given a lot more players a more accurate rapid play rating. And besides that, it is quite fun.

Our final match in this experimental division and we go from a 6-2 win in our last match to a 6-2 defeat tonight. It's been an interesting experiment that has seen its fair share of disasters, not all of which were committed on the board - applying the correct rating to a player has also caused a few mishaps. Anyway, tonight Ipswich out-rated us by an average of 182 points meaning they needed 5½ point to win the match, a target they achieved with room to spare.
 Kenzie and Mark are quite accomplished at playing rapidly, but even in this rapid play format one does well to take one's time, you have more of it that you think. Both of our new recruits were heavily out-rated, and both finished their respective games well before our two seasoned upper boards.
 In the first game Phil declined the Queen's Gambit in a Semi Slav and gambited a pawn of his own for an advantage that never came. Instead he was simply a passed pawn down and being outplayed until his opponent advanced the wrong centre pawn, blundered a piece and was soon in a hopeless ending where Phil's knight (the only piece left on the board except the kings) picked off the enemy pawns at will.
 Meanwhile things were not going all Rod's way on board two. But after his opponent blundered a piece, things started looking up, until Rod reciprocated by leaving his queen en prise, game over.
 In the second round Phil's opponent misplayed his Caro-Kann, ending up with no queen's side play, his pieces bunched mainly on the back rank, with Phil having a central bind and promising attacking options against the Black king but nothing concrete was coming up until Black played f7-f6, trying to break out of the straightjacket. An exchange sacrifice on this square led to a rook being temporarily pinned by a bishop. Black had an easy way of breaking the pin but went badly astray, blundering a whole rook and resigning three moves later.
 Things didn't fare any better for Rod in the second round, although it wasn't until the ending when an enemy rook penetrated to the seventh that things really fell apart.