Our fifth match of the season was a home match against Yate & Sodbury A on 21st November. When I arrived to set up for the match, a group were occupying our usual room so we played the match in our second room, since I couldn’t be bothered to deal with it. Going into the match, I expected us to have decent chances, since I knew Yate’s highest-rated player couldn’t make it and they are one of the 3 teams in contention for relegation, alongside us and Clevedon B. Because of that, I considered this a must-win match to stay in Division 2. I’ll cover the games in the approximate order that they finished.
Board 6
Lionel had White on Board 6 for his first game in the league, a game that ended in only 45 minutes, which admittedly is still over twice as long as Samson’s Clevedon masterpiece. The game started with the King’s Indian Defence and both players simply developed for the first dozen moves without trading anything. Black’s light-squared bishop became somewhat trapped on f5 due to there being pawns on e6 and g6, so Lionel played 12. h3, which threatens in some lines to trap the bishop with g4. Black tried to prevent this idea with 12… Ng5, but, in doing so, allowed a similar bishop-trapping tactic.
It was important to keep the knight on e4 because 13. g4 could have simply been met with 13… Nxc3 14. Bxc3 Be4, which rescues the bishop. While 12… Ng5 prevents 13. g4 because of 13… Nxh3+ 14. Kg2 Bxg4, there is another way to trap the bishop. Lionel correctly played 13. dxc5, attacking the knight on b6. If Black simply recaptures with 13… dxc5, after 14. Qxd8 Nxf3+ 15. Bxf3 Raxd8, White has 16. e4, trapping the bishop. In the game, Black played 13… Nxf3+ first, and the bishop also ended up trapped after 14. Bxf3 dxc5 15. e4. In an attempt to get compensation for the bishop, Black played the desperado 15… Bxh3 to generate counterplay against the king after 16. gxh3 with 16… Qg5+.
Despite the exposed king, White is in no danger after 17. Bg2, which Lionel of course played. Black managed to get somewhat active with 17… Rad8 18. Qg4 Qd2, but Lionel simply played 19. Re2 to harmoniously defend everything. Unfortunately for Black, but certainly not for us, Lionel continued to play flawlessly, exerting tremendous pressure on the remaining Black pieces, and this pressure culminated in the complete collapse of Black’s position after 25… Bxe5.
While 26. Bf1 would allow mate in one, it is realistically impossible for White to mess up here, so Lionel of course didn’t play that and instead won a second piece here with 26. Bxe5. If 26… Qxe5 is played, Black loses more material to 27. Qxe5 Nxe5 28. Rxd8+, and if 26… Nxe5 is played, as it was in the game, Black immediately loses a rook to 27. Rxd8+. Black resigned soon after, starting off the match with an emphatic win, and this meant that we already only had to score 2.5/5 on the remaining boards in order to win the match. Furthermore, this win made Lionel the first new B Team player to win their first game, and he graciously did so in the most important match of the whole season.
Board 2
Thomas had White on Board 2 and his game started with an unorthodox Indian Game where Black played 4… a6, which hasn’t been played even once out of 200 games at master level. Early in the game, after 9… Nxd5, Thomas’ position started to get a bit uncomfortable.
In the above position, the d4 pawn is rather weak and the bishop on f4 is challenged by the knight on d5. As ever, the engine is unfazed and claims that the position after 10. dxc5 Nxf4 11. gxf4 Bxc5 is completely equal, but Thomas instead tried to hold everything together with the perhaps more natural 10. Be3. However, this allowed Black to increase the pressure on d4 with 10… Bf6, which prevents 11. dxc5 because of 11… Bxb2. This pressure soon led to Thomas losing 2 pawns, but it seemed likely that he would quickly win one back so this was by no means fatal. In fact, Thomas technically obtained a winning position only a few moves later after Black played 16… Ne5. After 17. Nxe5 Qxe5, the sole winning move is 18. Qb6.
The strength of this move is far from obvious, and it would be easy to not even consider it as a candidate move, since it makes a lot of sense for White to focus on winning back a pawn. What 18. Qb6 primarily does is it prevents Black from developing. White controls the d-file so Black’s best way to develop the bishop would be through b5 and Bb7, but this is of course impossible if the queen is physically preventing b5. If Black can’t develop the bishop, the rooks can’t easily be developed either. If Black plays a waiting move like 18… h6 for example, White’s threat is 19. Rd8. If Black lets White play 20. Rxf8+, then 20… Kxf8 gets mated immediately by 21. Qd8#, and if Black plays 19… Rxd8, White fully infiltrates with 20. Qxd8+ Kh7 21. Rxf7. Therefore, one of the most natural ways for Black to try to avoid this is 18… Qb5, but this doesn’t work either because 19. Qc7 attacks the rook on b8. If Black simply saves the rook with 19… Ra8, White is mating after 20. Qxf7+ Rxf7 21. Rd8+. As I said, while everything works out perfectly for White after 18. Qb6, it is a very difficult move, so Thomas played 18. Rf3 instead to try to win back the e3 pawn. Thomas indeed won the pawn back and the players traded into a rook endgame where Thomas was only down one pawn. While Black missed a couple of chances early in the endgame, Thomas defended very accurately for the remainder of the game, until tragedy struck.
Thomas touched the g3 pawn with the intent to recapture on h4, briefly forgetting that the rook on e6 was hanging and thus he needed to play 45. Rd6+ first to defend it and then play 46. gxh4. While Thomas recognised this before playing 45. gxh4, he was forced to play it because he had already touched the g3 pawn and touch move is in effect in these games, so Thomas could do nothing other than resign. I lost a game, in which I was mating, due to touch move in the final round of BUCA 2024, which ended our team’s 8-match winning streak, so I know just how annoying touch move can be. I just hoped that half a point wouldn’t make a difference in this match.
Board 5
Jake had Black on Board 5 against an amusingly similarly-named opponent and his game started with a French Sicilian. White played dubiously in the opening so Jake got a better position early in the game, and he soon launched a powerful kingside attack where White’s position was on the verge of complete collapse after 18… h4.
The best move for White here is 19. Nxe4, which allows 19. Bxh3 with the threat of mate but White still has some hope of survival despite forcibly losing the knight back. However, in the game, White played 19. Qxd5, which loses objectively. Jake saw the winning line here, which is 19… hxg3 20. Qxa8 gxf2+ 21. Kh1 Bc5, sacrificing a rook for a knight and a pawn. While Black definitely has compensation for the material, there is no knockout, so Jake instead played the safer move 19… Nxg3, which returned the position to near-equality. This equality was short-lived, however, since Jake’s position got rather uncomfortable after White played 22. bxc4.
Jake had to play 22… Bc5+, take on g3, and exploit White’s horrible pawn structure in the long-term, but it’s certainly still dangerous, so Jake decided to sacrifice his dark-squared bishop in order to get 2 connected passed pawns with 22… Qxc2 23. Qxa3 Bxc4 24. Bxc4 Qxc4. However, this loses objectively because the pawns aren’t very far advanced and White’s position doesn’t have any other weaknesses. White launched a kingside attack, which prevented Jake from making much progress with his pawns, and White eventually won one of the pawns tactically with 35. Rxb4.
Jake had nothing better than to play 35… Qxb4 and allow 36. Qxa7, and the loss of the b-pawn made the a-pawn very weak, so White soon won the a-pawn too, and Jake resigned not long after. The momentum of the match was definitely not in our favour at this point, since we needed to score 2.5/3 on the remaining boards in order to win the match. Because of this, I had already come to terms with our inevitable relegation, but of course we had a chance, and a chance is better than no chance.
Board 4
Dimitar had White on Board 4 and his game started with the Réti Opening, which transposed into a Catalan. The position remained equal for the first half of the game, until Black made the first mistake with 21… c5.
While the c5 pawn appears to be adequately defended, it is not because 22. e4 forces the rook to retreat and opens up the bishop on f2, so after 22… Rdd8, Dimitar cleanly won the c5 pawn with 23. dxc5. Matters went from bad to worse for Black immediately after the loss of the pawn, since Black responded with 23… Rc8, which already grew Dimitar’s advantage into objectively-winning territory. While 23… Rc8 makes sense because it attacks the c5 pawn and 24. b4 doesn’t really work because Black gets counterplay with 24… Bf6, Dimitar found 24. a4, which forces 24… Nc7. With the knight blocking the rook, c5 is no longer hanging so Dimitar played 25. Rab1 to prepare b4 and move the rook off the same diagonal as the knight. Dimitar continued to press and he was able to create a passed c-pawn and plant his rook on an excellent outpost with 35. Rd6.
The only way for Black to stay in the game at all here is with 35… Rdc8, because after 36. Rxa6, there’s 36… Rxc5, exploiting the fact that the b4 pawn is pinned to the rook on b1. However, after 37. bxc5 Rxb1, the position is still winning for White, just a bit harder to win than the position after 35… Rxd6, which was played in the game. This only helps White because after 36. exd6+, the c- and d-pawns are connected passed pawns. Dimitar simply walked his king to support his pawns and he soon got a third connected passed pawn. As the game drew to its conclusion, an amusing situation arose when Dimitar played 44. Rd6+, and stopped the clock, believing it to be checkmate.
However, Black has 44… Kb7, but fortunately this was definitely more of a funny occurrence than an issue and the players quickly resumed the game, although this was short-lived, as Black resigned after 45. Kb5. With this smooth win from Dimitar, we had levelled the score in the match, so it was up to me and Samson to score at least 1.5 points between us.
Board 3
Samson had Black on Board 3 and I told him before the game that I was hoping for yet another crazy comeback win, so we’ll see if that happened. His game started with the rare 3. a3 Anti-Nimzo-Indian and, while the game was equal for a while, the momentum started to shift in White’s favour with 18. Ne5.
The position is somewhat dangerous for Black already and Samson responded with 18… Bxc3, which objectively gives White a winning advantage. The problem with trading the bishop for the knight here is that after 19. bxc3, the pin on the knight on f6 becomes stronger because the bishop cannot drop back to e7 when it is not on the board. Therefore, after 19… Ba8, White exploited the pin to open up Samson’s king with 20. Ng4 Rb8 21. Nxf6+ gxf6 and launched a powerful kingside attack with 22. Qg4+. White continued the attack and Samson tried to generate counterplay by creating a passed c-pawn, but White seemed to be on the verge of completely crashing through after 35. Rbb7. Samson tried to hold the kingside together with 35… Rf8, but by this point I was already confident, perhaps naively given Samson’s ability to win seemingly any position in classical, that Samson would lose this game and thus we would at best draw the match.
White has a knockout here, which is 36. Rxf7, sacrificing the rook for what is essentially a mating attack. After 36… Rxf7, there’s 37. Qb8+ Rf8 38. Qb7, creating a battery against the knight on f7. The only try for Black is 38… Rg6, but this is met with 39. Be5, adding another attacker to the knight on g7, which can’t move because of 40. Qxh7#. Then, the only try for Black is 39… Qe1+ 40. Kh2 Qxf2, threatening 41… Qxg2#, so White cannot simply play 41. Bxg7 and instead must sacrifice the queen for mate with 41. Qxg7+ Rxg7 42. Rxg7+ Kh8 43. Rg6+ Rf6 44. Bxf6#. However, White didn’t find this and instead played 36. e4, a move that I do not understand and the engine doesn’t either because this loses the entire advantage. This hangs d4 so Samson played 36… Qxd4 and his passed c-pawn suddenly appeared to be dangerous for White after 37. exd5 Qxd5 38. Rd7 Qc5. White retreated to blockade the pawn with 39. Qc1 c3 40. Qc2 but this gave Samson the initiative with 40… Ne6.
Against all the odds, but in keeping with Samson’s recent game history, he suddenly appeared to have decent winning chances, despite the position being hopelessly lost only a few moves prior. White then played 41. Bh4 to threaten the fork 42. Be7 or to restrict the king and attack the c-pawn with 42. Bf6, but this is too little too late. Samson correctly dismissed the ideas of 41. Bh4 and played 41… Nd4, forcing the queen off c2 and making the c-pawn unstoppable. If White insists on continuing to blockade the c-pawn with 42. Qc1, there’s simply the royal fork 42… Ne2+, so all White can do is sacrifice the bishop for the pawn. Being down a full bishop would be too much for White to survive, so White resigned instead. Poetically, the game ended with 41… Nd4, reminiscent of 21. Nd4+, the final move of Samson’s timeless 20-minute comeback win in our previous must-win match against Clevedon. With this miraculous win, we were guaranteed at least a draw in the match, and it was all up to me to win us the match.
Board 1
I had Black on Board 1 and my game started with the Scotch Gambit. After I blitzed out 12 moves of standard theory, my opponent surprised me with 13. f5, which is certainly dubious but I didn’t know that for sure at the time, so I spent a lot of time before playing 13… Qe7. After 14. e6 fxe6, the best move is the simple 15. fxe6, but my opponent and I erroneously thought 15. Qh5+ was better.
Black is objectively much better here if 15… g6 is played because 16. fxg6 is met with 16… 0-0-0, but I thought this was too much so I played 15… Kd8 instead. Despite my dodgy position, I proceeded to play the best move for the next dozen moves, but I got rather low on time as a result. However, I figured that the counterplay I had been able to generate by spending a lot of time would perhaps be sufficient to draw without needing to spend too much more time, since I was up a pawn after all. This counterplay began with 26… Qc1, attacking the bishop and the c2 pawn. I correctly thought that White had nothing better than 27. Rf1, so I was surprised when my opponent played 27. Qf2. This move makes sense because it defends the White bishop, attacks my bishop, and prevents 27… Qxc2 because of 28. Qxc2 Bxc2 29. Rxf7+, losing a rook. Despite this, I had another idea: 27… Re7, sacrificing the bishop, because 28. Rxf5 loses the queen for a rook after 28… Rxe1+ 29. Qf1 Rxf1+ 30. Rxf1. After 28. Kf1, I then found a flashy tactic with 28… Qxc2, which admittedly lost half of my advantage but some moves are irresistible.
The best move for White is 29. Qxc2, accepting an endgame down 2 pawns, but my opponent called my bluff and accepted my bishop sacrifice with the objectively-losing 29. Rxf5. The way to win the bishop back is with 29… Qd3+, forcing 30. Kg1 so the king no longer defends the bishop, and 30… Rxe1+, forcing 31. Qxe1 to deflect the queen away from the defence of the White rook so that 31… Qxf5 reaches an endgame where Black has 2 extra pawns. As I tried to convert, I walked over to the match result sheet, believing drawing the match to already be a lost cause, and discovered to my shock that not only had Dimitar converted his game into a win but Samson had successfully executed his usual strategy of winning dead lost positions, so I realised that all I had to do for us to win the match was not lose. Likely due to a combination of this newfound knowledge, being low on time, having a bit of a cold, and being bad at chess, I traded queens because I mistakenly thought my king could get to my d-pawn before the White king, so I simply blundered the d-pawn, my biggest asset. However, the endgame was still objectively winning.
While I am presently specifically working on my endgame skills, or lack thereof, with barely a minute remaining, I had no time to calculate the game to its conclusion, so I lost all of my advantage by playing the inexcusably bad move 44… h4. Realising immediately that I was doing a great job if I was trying to lose, I offered a draw here, but it was understandably and frighteningly declined. Fortunately, I then somewhat came to my senses and defended the endgame by timing my pawn pushes so that I could maintain direct opposition and deprive my opponent of any winning chances. To my immense relief, we promptly agreed to a draw, giving us the half a point that we so desperately needed.
Summary
While I was almost certain we weren’t going to win this must-win match until I read the match result sheet in the final minutes of the match, we somehow narrowly won it 3.5-2.5. For the first time this season, everyone was winning at some point in their games, so the games were perhaps going better than the final score indicates, even if the latest Samson comeback largely made up for that. Regardless, with this match win, we are now on 4 match points in the league table, ahead of Yate and Clevedon on 2 and 1 match points respectively, so, if we want to be in Division 2 next season, it should be sufficient to beat Clevedon and Yate again, although that would be no mean feat. In the meantime, we can do our best in the remaining 2 matches this term, without the pressure of needing to win them. Our next match is an away match against Horfield & Redland B on 3rd December, so the next match report will be posted soon after that.