Newport V Priorslee Lions

Newport were looking to do the double over us and put themselves top of the pile, but we were hoping to seriously damage their title chances.

Well its only fair to say my game was over before some of the others had even began Chris who willing told me he had gone into the trouble of looking up some of my games had assumed I would play a certain line of Caro kann was to be thrown toatally out. The reason being in recent encounters with Chris in blitz and rapidplay ,I had noticed he was playing certain lines and getting better from them assuming he had been working at them meant abandon my usual agressive line for a more negative one, simple just the very change had put Chris in bewilderment and confused him into playing TERRIBLE CHESS!!! something I am usually guilty of. Having plenty of time to watch the other games I can say that 1,2,4 and 5 were all looking like proper games, well maybe exception of 2 who had played quite afew moves pressing the clock but without actually starting the clock (thats digital for you). Well with us 1-0 in the blink of an eye, it was board 4 that caught the eye next Simon the super aggresive player (sarcastic) had a lovely knight move but would he play it? the answer was yes and that meant if Steve was to survive he would haveto give a piece away, he opted to try and solve his problem with defensive play , sigh no chance! Although it took a while mainly because Steve wasn't moving he was next to fall 1-1 and the state of the match was looking drawn , On 5 we were a piece down ,2 was dead drawn and on 1 Adrian was looking really strong. I stopped looking at the boards for a while but to my horror on returning to board 2 the most drawn of drawn games ,Nathaneal the Magnus Carlsen of the division had somehow turned it into a win, yikes with us down on 5 as well things were looking bad. Then a shift on 5 Munroe continuing to fight on played a lovely sacrafice that changed the outlook of his game into a much more unclear one , Adrian was still sticking it to Nick in convincing style. 5 was next to finish a draw, the way I saw it although Munroe was 2 pieces for the rook down his position was that good that he was favourite to win but none the less he was relieved to get the draw, as were we as it had become clear that 2 was lost unless Nathaneal was going to walk into a draw very unlikely.He didn't and wrapped up the point  so with just Adrian left and the score  2.5-1.5 it was down to him to finish off Nick and save the match for us which he did in comfortable fashion. Man of the match performance against Nick on board one, closely followed by Simon for Newport.