It has long been one of our foibles that we often struggle against B teams, and this was no exception as we fought out a drawn match against the Bs of Horfield. A number of the games finished quite early, and often abruptly, and I’m not quite sure what happened at the end of some of them, which means this may be even more inaccurate than usual.

David was playing a dull-looking London system type game against Rob, with a early queen swap. When they finished early I assumed they’d shaken on a draw, but apparently David had somehow been mated. I have no idea how that happened. James finished soon after, smoothly outplaying Mike.

Gareth looked a bit better against Peter in what looked like a Kalashnikov Sicilian, although I find it hard to believe that Peter didn’t play his normal English opening. Next time I looked Gareth had won and the players were on the way out. I have no idea what happened. Dunc drew with John at about the same time after a balanced game.

Igor seemed to be struggling from early on against Phil, who had both a better structure and more active pieces. Igor fought hard, but Phil played well to notch up the point. Again, I missed the denouement, so don’t know exactly what happened at the end.

I do know what happened in my game. I felt I was a bit better all the way through, with slightly better development and a bit more space. It wasn’t much though. It swapped down to a heavy piece ending, where despite persistent probing I couldn’t find a way through. I decided to take the offered draw, after a long think, since I was in serious danger of over pressing and being worse.

I guess Horfield will be happier with the result than us, but it was a very fair result. Horfield have a string of good players, and I think they’ll comfortably avoid the drop this season

JC