Monday 13th December

Captain's Corner

'I want you to be captain Paul.' Finally someone had recognised my visionary leadership ability, my inspirational man management skills, I was to be honoured with the C Team captaincy. I knew it would happen one day. 'We've got a match tomorrow night I'd forgotten about and I'm desperate so I thought of you.'  Well, anyway, we had an 'exciting blend of youth and experience' and I thought we should do well against a SASCA B team who perhaps have not had as good a start to the season as they might have wished for. Eric conducted the whole evening like a CIA assassin. He arrived silently and alone, swiftly and mercilessly checkmated his victim, and melted back in the December night. The only sign he had been there at all was a chilling 1-0 on the scorecard. With my knees banging up against a primary school desk much more suited to the size and age of my opponent my position was as cramped off the board as it was on it but after the complementary freeing manoeuvres of h6 and going to get a cup of tea my opponent blundered his Queen just before the time control and was soon mated. Ian seemed to have a lot more room on and off the board and ran out a quick and clear winner. Due to some adventurous play by Martin Lau Peter's game was entertaining. He took advantage of what we thought were a couple of bad mistakes and showed us that you can actually checkmate with minor pieces too. Azmiddin took the innovative approach of losing material in order to confuse his opponent into not being able to choose from several different wins and thereby won on time. The Buridan's Ass sacrifice. In contrast to the woodpushing going on elsewhere Mursal's game was high quality but as he had actually taken time to think of good moves he only had a couple of minutes left to press home his one pawn advantage and another draw on time was agreed. 5½-½ was a good result.