As the season draws to an end, we have two Thames Valley League matches to report this week.

Our B team travelled down the M4 to Maidenhead, requiring a win in this and their final match for a hypothetical promotion slot which would keep our A team safe in Division 1.

We outrated them slightly on all boards so were hopeful of achieving the result we wanted but it didn’t quite work out for us.

Bertie fell into some prepared analysis and was soon worse. My game, a Dutch as expected (I’d predicted my opponent and knew what he would play) was much better than I thought at the time: I’ve annotated it for the website here. Sampson’s young opponent played the Exchange variation against his French Defence, and, although the queens came off early the position quickly became unbalanced. He won material but after missing some chances his opponent ended up with more than enough for the exchange, somehow getting a pawn to a7, which proved decisive. Jon played a Grand Prix Attack against his opponent’s Sicilian, giving up some pawns but not getting the attack he wanted. Matt faced the Morra Gambit, and again there was an early queen exchange. He held onto his material advantage, but missed several wins and finally agreed a draw in a rook ending where he was a pawn up with all the pawns on the same side. There didn’t seem to be a win at the time, but when he got home his computer told him he’d agreed a draw in a winning position. Tom was always in trouble after getting confused as to whether he was defending a Queen’s Gambit or a Nimzo-Indian. A rook down, his king was checked all the way up the board to g3, at which point his opponent had no more checks and was faced with inevitable mate. A very lucky point there, compensating for the missed chances on boards 2 and 6, but it was to no avail.

Thanks to all for playing, and especially to Sampson and Tom for driving.

On Thursday our TVC team welcomed Hounslow B to our new venue for their final match of the season. There was nothing at stake as we had already won Division 3, but we managed a narrow victory.

It would have been much more comfortable without an accident on board 2. These things happen if you’re out of practice. Well done to Pablo, David (a rapid victory with his trademark Stonewall Attack) and Abhay for winning their games, and congratulations to Mike RC, who has been an outstanding captain this season.