The Final Countdown....

Desperately trying to continue the rock anthem theme for the title of my latest blog post. Hopefully some of you remember a band who were what I like to think of as a "one and a half hit wonder" in the mid-late eighties. Name of the group titling this song? Europe. The only other song I heard from them was called "Rock The Night" - which I kind of did tonight in an individual club championship match at Daventry.

Paired against our board 2, Andy Foulds, being drawn with the black pieces, this was never going to be anything other than a struggle.

What can I say? I probably got lucky - Andy missed a tactic and ended up a pawn down with a, let's face it, not great position. Winning the game proved quite difficult and I probably got lucky again when Andy captured on a4 with his Rook (move 24) as this led to a quick win after I played what I would like to consider some accurate moves.

Naturally, Andy wasn't best pleased as he now ties with Kevin Bowman on 3.5 out of 5. I am now on 3 out of 5 which is a pretty dismal performance considering I should have been the favourite to win! That said, no disrespect to any of my opponents in this compo (see previous blogs!). I just felt I could have done better, that's all.

It was nice to finish the season (hence the title of the blog) on a high and perhaps I'm now coming back into some form (not particularly useful as there are now no games left to play between now and the start of the new season).

We discussed how the club championship should be decided and after I bullied everyone, we added up the "sum of opponents scores" for both Andy and Kevin. Result: Both players on the same score still! Andy then suggested a replay between him and Kevin and this will hopefully take place next week. So, Kevin, if you are reading this and Andy hasn't been in touch..... you are warned! I think players will most likely swap colours from their last game (they've already played each other). Having crawled onto three points, I was very much against playing a 6th round simply because there were only 11 participants in the first place and just couldn't face another game especially as it would mean I'd still have a very much undeserved chance to win the club championship. Although I played and beat both Andy and Kevin, their other results were more consistent than mine, so either one of these guys will make a worthy club champion and I'm looking forward to watching the game next week if they get it on!

So, that's me bowing out for the rest of the season with a win - I'll keep blogging though as there will undoubtedly be other stuff going on, worthy of reporting! In the meantime (and sorry for this Andy, but you know the rules - every game has to be blogged!) please enjoy this fantastic victory of mine!