It was another busy week for us with 5 of our teams playing; two members ended up playing three times.

On Monday our 1^st team travelled to Newark and recorded a 4 – 1 win. John S was as solid as ever, drawing with David Coates. Mike N-E defeated Alex Combie while Mike B outplayed Graham Ladds. Nikolai defeated Keith Aiton for the second time this season and Felipe drew with Richard Myers.

On Tuesday we saw a topsy-turvy match between the 3^rd and 4^th teams. At one point it looked like it would be 3 – 1 to the 4^th team but it ended in a draw. Marian (G4) played one of his opening tricks on Nikolai and was clearly better but Nikolai gradually got back into the game and eventually forced a draw. Paul (G4) played well to reach a strong position against Felipe and simplified into a completely winning 3 v 2 on both sides of the board. The rest of the game is the stuff of nightmares for him as he somehow allowed Felipe to win back those extra two pawns and then the game. Ouch! Graham (G4) and Peter G-M had a close game but when the dust settled Peter was a passed pawn up. He couldn’t fail to win. In a moment he will wish to forget, instead of ignoring Graham’s attempts to disrupt the pawn structure on one side and sweeping up two pawns on the other side, he allowed Graham to disrupt the pawns and had to settle for a draw. It made for painful viewing. Tom (G4) was defending carefully against Keith who then dropped a rook. We have all seen matches turn but this was something else.

Our 5^th team was out played by Nomads 3, losing 3 – 1. Only Ronnie prevented a clean sweep.

Our 2^nd team was similarly outplayed at Grantham 1. Felipe had an uneventful draw but otherwise it wasn’t pretty viewing. Drag was almost equal after the opening but then made a bad move which Paul Cumbers punished. Onos faced the same attack he had faced last week from Mike N-E but Stephen Prior played it more precisely and Onos made a couple of errors. John H never got going as Chris Holt’s central pawns stormed forward and crushed him. Nikolai had a chance to enter a drawn opposite coloured bishop ending but in trying to win he allowed Andy Hebert to invade his position. A lesson learnt.

Felipe and Nikolai showed great commitment by playing three times this week, both playing away at Newark and Grantham, with only 1 defeat from those 6 games.