And so to the action on board 1. With the black pieces, John Robinson was facing Andrew Wilson. Andrew opened with the London system but with John having played h6, and with Andrew’s Queen on d2 and the London dark squared bishop on f4, John was unable to castle Kingside for a while and John’s pieces seemed to be in a bit of a mess. A bishop was on e6 blocking the e pawn’s advance to challenge the centre and Andrew’s pieces seemed well developed. However, with a plan for white unclear and John’s plan to get his pieces onto better squares, John had time to untangle his position and in the end managed to get a comfortable draw with the team 2-0 up at the time and perhaps a slightly better position. The half point earned by John secured the match. Andrew Wilson wasn’t aware of the match score and shook hands before checking – whoops.

I will not poke any fun at Julian for being late because the game that he played was absolutely outstanding. You will note that the image I have included is not one of deep concentration from one or both of the players but the final position which is, quite simply, a work of art. White has just delivered check on h3 with the Bishop which leads to a beautiful forced mate and the even better bit is that White had just played Ng5 and I don’t think black could stop Bh3 at all.

I am unsure of the opening (the Maddigan Gambit apparently), although it looked incredibly bizarre with castling neglected (Julian had ‘artificially castled’ I think on the image and Paul Gibson wasn’t able to castle at all). All of white’s pieces are pointing towards black’s King and this gambit seemed to invite Julian to attack – playing into Julian’s hands.

On to board 3 next and Mick had the black pieces against Larry Hayden. Against Mick’s reply to 1.e4 – e6 along the French line, Larry played Qe2 – apparently some sort of Anti-French system so Mick continued with his St George defence with a6 and b5. Development of pieces continued but Mick didn’t get time to castle. Larry attacked on the Kingside and Mick had to divert his Queen from the Queenside to the Kingside to help with the defence. The Queens came off and this helped Mick and he tried a pawn push to upset White’s defences but soon after board 1 had agreed a draw, a draw was agreed on this board almost immediately after.

On to board 4 and Matt had the white pieces (hurrah!) and it was surprising that he knew what to do with the white pieces having had black for most of his games. He was playing one of the only other ladies on the Leicestershire chess scene – Liz Gist. The game looked even after black struck back in the centre with c5 but once the Rooks came off, Matt found a good combination to pinch black’s h pawn by making us of the overworked King on g7. In a devastating (what turned out to be the final) blow, Matt played Bxg6+ after Qf8 which forced a resignation two pawns down and a lost endgame. The resignation seemed a bit premature and Liz exited stage right in quick fashion. A good result for Matt.