Wednesday 19th January

With no Mursal or Azmiddin Kev went mad and put me on top board. Unfortunately 60 out of the 64 squares seemed to be White and I no longer had my White squared Bishop. I was mated just after the time control. Peter's game seemed to be an uneventful draw. In stark contrast Kev's game was very entertaining. He sacced a Bishop and the wrath of his pieces descended heavily on his opponent's position. The King 'bravely ran away' to the Queen side. Kev tucked away his Bishop on h7, where no-one could see it, opened the a-file and used his hidden Bishop to support a mating attack. Dave's miserable form continued with another loss. Ian's was the most curious game of the night. He must have been expecting fireworks when his opponent played the Evans Gambit but instead was faced with what seemed to be a very questionable strategy of swapping off at every available opportunity to a pawn down ending. Ian played well to force through the extra pawn. Me, Ian, and Peter had much more fun happily throwing pieces at each others positions in the post mortem. Eric looked crestfallen when he learned that his opponent's grade was 52. Still, 'You can only beat the player they put in front of you'. A good result with a weakened team.

Paul B