Daventry A v Olton A

Tonight was our first game in the top division and it was a bit of a baptism of fire for all of us.

Olton are probably favourites for the league title and this was our first game in the top flight. We were outgraded by some distance on every board but we did give a good account of ourselves.

With just a little more luck, we could even have had a win on board 4, with Andy Johnson outplaying his opponent for much of the game, winning the exchange before stumbling in the endgame.

We are all agreed that we'll learn a lot this season; about our chess and about ourselves!

The final result was Daventry A 0.5 - Olton A 3.5

Scorecard:

Board 1:  Andy Foulds (149)         0  -  1  Phil Holt (195)

Board 2:  Kevin Bowman  (144)    0  -  1  Alan Lloyd (182)

Board 3:  Tim Lawson  (144)      0.5 - 0.5 Robert Reynolds (164)

Board 4:  Andy Johnson (127)    0  -  1  Mark Cundy (165)

My game was a typical effort - not too much thinking and just trying to keep life reasonably simple and trying to be difficult to beat! Well, it worked and I was reasonably comfortable in the end. Here's my game: