By Dan Varney.
Another week, another away game; and this week we welcomed a new member, Fergus Skillen to our team. Unfortunately, Ian had injured himself and couldn’t come so this report won’t be up to the same standard as usual.
Two and a half hours into the match and for the first time yet none of the games had finished relatively quickly and we were beginning to have to blitz out our moves, perhaps something that favours our players. Alas the tension was broken, and our new member Fergus was the first to finish. He played a very solid game taking a win, hitting the ground running for the first team. Dan Savidge was next to finish after his opponent gambited a pawn in the opening, showing us why he’s captain as he kept his cool under pressure and held the advantage, not crumbling from the intensity of his opponent’s threats.
James’s opening preparation against a titled player left his opponent playing something that she hadn’t played in a while whilst the opening was fresh in James’ mind. He played aggressively and controlled the position exploiting weaknesses on both sides of the board, finally forcing his opponent to resign.
Now that we were 3-0 up, unable to lose the match we only needed a draw to win the match overall, but Tom had other ideas. After his opponent made a slight inaccuracy Tom calmly converted his position into a won endgame and promoted a pawn to another queen showing why his bishop was stronger than his opponent’s knight in open play.
With a win we couldn’t lose the match, but I wanted to upkeep my 100% record. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be as my opponent and I seemed evenly matched and there were no chances for either of us to gain an advantage the whole game and a draw was agreed after a fight from both of us to try and win. Editor: I’ll still buy Dan half a pint of Thatchers if he wins his remaining games before the Christmas social!
Finally, it was just Rasi left. Whether it was the granola he had for breakfast, or the bartender talking to her customers about her uncle Craig; something must have distracted Rasi and he unfortunately blundered a loss from a won endgame.
Bath A 1.5-4.5 University A
Next week we look forward to welcoming Bristol and Clifton!