Anstey’s first team maintained their 100% record in 2022 with a superb 3-1 win over table-topping Market Harborough’s (hereafter MH2 because I’m not typing Market Harborough every time!) second team.

Having been made aware beforehand of the fact that MH2 could only field 4 players, (having previously agreed 5) Captain/Chairman/Founder/Dogsbody/Taxi Ben Vaughan selected only his finest 4 players to take on the mighty table-toppers who are all but guaranteed promotion – John, Julian, Mick and Matt.

With the transport to make the long journey already in place, and thinking that Matt would be in the hairdressers car Porsche, Taxi for the evening Ben decided to not upset the status quo and chauffeur JJ to the venue. (For an explanation of JJ, please look to the right). Upon arrival, Ben observed that Matt had bought the not such a hairdressers car 4×4 (couldn’t tell the make as it was dark). Conceivably, Matt could have played chauffeur.

With the words from the captain that it is only a game and not to be too fired up still ringing in their ears, the squad of 5 and team of 4 made their way into the venue. We were greeted almost instantaneously my MH2’s friendly captain Mike Garland who proceeded to welcome us and escort us to the nice and cosy playing room and battle commenced at 7:30 sharp.

On board 1, John Robinson was facing off against the experienced Romilly Ilersic, carrying with him a FIDE rating of 1908. John was disappointed not to be facing Mark Waterfield who had previously beaten John in the home fixture and John fancied a rematch with the white pieces. Anyway, a stodgy game emerged with pieces developed slowly and a semi-locked up centre with a half open c file. After shuffling pieces around, John offered a draw which Romilly declined, citing the match situation and he wanted to play on. Space on the board was at a premium and once both players got to around 8 minutes each left on the clock, both players agreed a draw. As Romilly said after the game ‘It would have taken one of us to blunder which would have been unfair and very possible given the time’. Romilly strikes me as the type of chap that when he talks, you listen.

On to board 2 and Julian faced the conqueror of Mick in the home game – Jon Redding. AKA ‘Bigfluffything’ on chess.com – can’t let him get away with that username! Jon has recently played well and received a boost in his estimated FIDE rating, placing him on board 2 and sitting opposite Julian, with Julian having the black pieces. In an accelerated London system, Jon played a gambit line, gambitting the e pawn for either for quick development or just because. Julian managed to hold onto the e pawn, defending it with a Knight, Bishop and pawn. After the game Julian remarked ‘If he is going to let me have it, I am going to try and defend it whilst creating other threats and trying to pick up another pawn or whatever material.’ In this case, it was a big ‘whatever material’ as Jon captured a Knight with his Queen and almost immediately realised that Julian could play a discovered attack, winning said Queen. It was one of those ‘OMG’ moments and I think I heard Julian apologise once he captured the Queen for Knight. Thereafter, it was a case of converting the win by trading off pieces. There was a passed a pawn to be careful of but once Julian had amassed enough material to win that pawn, Jon resigned.

Next in this wholly uninteresting read (can’t you tell that Boris is due to go on holiday soon!?) to Mick on board 3. Mick was playing David Curran, who had beaten Julian on Julian’s debut in the reverse fixture. Seemingly the most uninteresting game after John’s game on board 1, my assumption that this game was uninteresting was actually incorrect. With Bishops on b2 and c1 ominously pointing at his opponent’s King, Mick had a lot of play, whilst trying to manage David’s Knights leaping around the board, occupying good squares. After a little bit of jockeying (that’s the last horse-led reference I’m afraid), Mick completed a menacing looking Rook-lift over to join in with the attack on the Kingside. With a good-looking Kingside attack and being the last to finish, the match was already won in our favour at 2.5-0.5 so Mick (very sportingly) offered a draw saying that the result was done, which was accepted. Post-game analysis (with David instantly whipping his phone out to analyse) indicated that Mick had a very strong attack three moves before the draw was agreed. Aside from that it was very even. Once everybody had tediously offered their critique on the 3rd board, it was time to go home after deciding that we all like to blunder other people’s pieces.

Finally and last but not least, to Matt on Board 4. Matt was playing the aforementioned Mike Garland Jnr on the last board. Captain Ben and Mike had a notquiteaGM draw in the home leg. Matt is affectionately known as ‘the Killer’ in the second team, a nickname that seems to be growing amongst the club, he is also known as, erm, ‘the Killer’ by his first team captain. Matt has a habit of running low on time and even made the effort to make himself an approximate guide in relation to move count and time elapsed on his scoresheet but I can assure you as his captain, he will kill me off one day! The approximate guide to his time was basically saying by move 10 (for example) he should have used 10 minutes and so on. That was well and truly out of the slightly open window. The game itself was actually pretty even although about half way through, Mike had connected Rooks, an active army of pieces versus Matt’s not-quite-artificially-castled King and seemingly defensive pieces. The next time I looked, Mike had a pawn on the 7th rank with Matt’s Rook blockading it. Mike’s Bishop was directly protecting said 7th rank pawn and Matt’s position was looking fairly lost, given the inevitable time trouble Matt was in by now. The next time I looked again, Mike had resigned and when I looked at Matt, he shrugged his shoulders. That was all the explanation I needed.

All in all, congratulations to MH as a club; A) For a fantastic website (better than ours but we are getting there), B) For the fab venue – I really liked it and C) For being good sports and being such a friendly club. Whilst the 4 boards were getting down to business, I had quick sanity breaks chatting with Rene, Amrik, Robert Mills and new Doncaster Minor Champion Alistair Geear. Thankfully, we won’t have to drive for such a long way any time soon, apart from the second team that travel there tonight!