To jump on to the wordle bandwagon, for this report you must guess the chess moves and I’ll let you know which ones you got right and if there are in the correct position. It’s about time this website was bought out for seven-digit sum. This is my way of saying I don’t have any good game snippets to include in this report, although I doubt you could guess some of the opening nonsense we wheeled out this time.
Once again, the University got off to a great start after D. Fault lost again on board 1. Even Anonymous occasionally won some games. A shame for James to not play, but if I didn’t know any better, then it’s almost like the other teams want us to win the division. Both Horfield and Redland evened up the match with Tom’s opponent winning what appeared to be a nice attacking game in an Open Sicilian. This seems to be an occupational hazard of the Sicilian; sometimes White goes for a serve-and-volley style game and this time, it worked every time.
Dan Varney restored the one-point lead after achieving good gambit play out of the opening without actually having to give up the pawn. However, the remaining three games still could have gone either way and the pressure was on. I felt very fortunate to escape another dodgy opening with a draw after investing large amounts of time just trying to survive an early positional loss. I took a moment to weigh up the pros and cons of a draw offer with less than a minute on my clock before sensibly snapping my opponent’s hand off.
2.5-1.5 meant that it was down to the two new A team recruits to take this one home. Stan “Faceman” Roynon showed some excellent tactical flare in a sequence of moves that throw away his advantage. Luckily for the University, he managed to win it all over again, clinching the match. Jonas “B.A.” Zurba-racus showed that he hates travelling in taxis as much as aeroplanes, after spilling his entire bottle of water all over himself on the journey to the match. However, his play certainly improved as he dried out, saving a drew in a lost to very lost middlegame.
A good result from a tighter match than the league table would suggest but the University’s strength in depth really paid off once again. In a move that can only be described as tempting fate, Arsenal weren’t The Invincibles for the game they won 6-0, but for the close matches they eked out in their favour. Hopefully, we will be even stronger for the next match against our main rivals for the title when Dan Savidge (the Arsene Wenger of University chess) and others are back in the side. Sports.