Bore draw

Another Yorkshire League match and this time it was away at Holmfirth. A bit of a trek from Settle, and traffic delays meant we barely arrived by kick-off time which wasn't ideal. Holmfirth had put out some fairly weak teams over the winter but also a decent one last month, so we didn't know what to expect. This time it was another fairly strong one, we had a modest rating advantage but 4 of their team were rapidly rising (and therefore probably under-rated) juniors. I was facing a grown-up 1800 on board 1 (father of board 4), we settled into a delayed QGA and though I haven't played that in a while I seemed to find the right moves and build up a decent position with a big centre. Then I miscalculated and allowed a mass exchange to a simple position where we agreed a draw. Stockfish concurred with an impressively level 0.00 evaluation!

Can't really complain with an eval over 90%, though annoyed to have miscalculated Nxe4.

We were first to finish, but Martin rapidly lost his game on board 2 to a very strong junior. Steve on #6 was losing for most of his game but then escaped into a winning position ... and immediately agreed a draw! Oops. Liam was the next to fall, and it appeared that Mike on #4 was down a piece in a dismal position and Charlie (#3) was also under the cosh. So it looked like we were on for a heavy beating. 

Then I looked more closely and realised that Mike had an extra rook (and pawn) for the piece! He carefully untangled himself and won convincingly. Charlie, on hearing of the 2-3 score, knuckled down and beat off his opponent's attack, simplifying to a rook endgame where his opponent's advanced pawns were suddenly a weakness which he converted very accurately. So we escaped with 3-3 to continue our long unbeaten run. Just one more match to go!