The 4NCL is one of the most enjoyable chess events in the English calendar and the time had come to meet up for the last weekend of this session. For the last couple of sessions I had played for The Jutes of Kent who had gradually moved up from division 4 to division 2, this weekend was the real test, could we get into the dizzy heights of division 1?

We had a rather dodgy start when we found out that we were booked into the wrong hotel. Andy Mac, who hardly ever sets a foot wrong, had got us booked into the hotel that was for the division 3 matches. This slight error was jumped on by John ‘which hotel am I in?’ Naylor. Who must have managed to have blagged at least two pints out of Andy by making him feel so guilty.

Anyway it was not the end of the world as we were only 4 miles or so away from the venue. We prepared hard on the Friday evening with a heavy ‘team building’ exercise which involved drinking a large number of pints whilst trying our wits out, over a number of blitz games.

John managed to beat everyone at Blitz including a visiting but rushed Keith Arkell. The main amusement came when Aly beat John after he missed a mate in one. This was extra sweet as John has had the habit of taking the piss out of ‘girly’ chess for the last session or two. Anyway I hope there is a rematch at ‘The 1st Big Slick International’ as John has given me 10/1 on another Aly win!! Whether he remembers this or not is another matter but bring your wallet along Naylor!!!!

Most of the team believed that it would be a formality getting into division 1, as our captain Chris Rice, had mentioned that we only needed to win 1 of our 3 matches. We would probably be the favourite in all 3 matches. As we will see this was based on a large miscalculation, anyway more of that later.

Our first match was against Kings Head. A friendly bunch of players who were also chasing a promotion place. Things were looking very good for us with two games to go. Chris Rice seemed to have an easy draw on board 7 and things were looking very promising for me after 47 moves on board 1.

This ending is very good for me. I am better because White’s king is a long way from his queenside pawns so they will be a target that White will find hard to defend. White will also have trouble stopping Black’s c-pawn. The game continued 48 Re8! White had to activate his rook. I was hoping for 48 Kf3 Rd2 49 Rd3+ Rxd3 50 exd3 Kd4 51 Ke2 Kc3 52 Ke3 Kb2 53 Ke4 Kxa2 54 Kd5 Kxb3 55 Kxc5 a4 and my a-pawn is too quick. 48…c4 49 Rd8+ This move should lose but things are very difficult for White. One example is shown in the variation 49 bxc4+ bxc4 50 Ra8 c3! 51 Rxa5+ Kc6! 52 Ra8 Rc4 and Black is winning. 49…Kc5 50 Rxd4 Kxc4 51 bxc4

Now Fritz gives both recaptures on c4 as completely winning for Black (plus 8 and plus 3!) but one recapture is clearly superior to the other. Which way should I recapture? 51…bxc4?? A horrible mistake. I should have captured on c4 with my king with an easy win, but I was too lazy to calculate! For example, 51…Kxc4 52 e4 b4 53 Kf4 a4 54 e5 Kd5! 55 Kf5 b3 and when I queen on b1 it will be with check so White can resign. In actual fact Black can also win with the trivial 51…b4! but things are not so easy in the game. 52 Kf2 Kc3 53 e4 Kd4? Another mistake. I should have gone for the queen and pawn ending after 53…Kb2 54 e5 c3 55 e6 c2 56 e7 c1=Q 57 e8=Q which should be winning for Black as White’s king is very badly placed, but I still thought that I was winning in a simply fashion. 54 Ke2 Kxe4 55 Kd2 Kd4 56 Kc2

Originally when I entered this ending I thought that this position would be winning for me as I assumed that White had to move his a-pawn which lets my king into b3 but that is not the case. It seems that White can draw by keeping his pawn on a2 and by just moving his king!! There is no way I can make progress!! 56…Kc5 56…c3 does not help, for example, 57 Kc1! Kd3 58 Kd1 a4 59 Kc1 c3 60 a3! Kc3 stalemate 57 Kc3 Kb5 58 Kc2 Kb4 59 Kb2 c3+ 60 Kc2 a4 60…Kc4 61 Kc1 does not help the game is still just a dead draw.

61 Kb1! The safest. 61…Kc5 62 Kc2 Kc4 63 Kb1 I shortly agreed a draw as there was no way that I could make progress.

This result was obviously rather devastating for me and the team. If I had won then Chris could have taken a draw and we would have won the match. Instead Chris pushed too hard for a win and actually managed to lose which meant that we lost the match. On top of this at dinner that night, we found out that we had miscalculated what we needed to do in order to get promoted. It now looked like we had to at least get a win and a draw in order to be promoted but in some cases two wins were needed! A win and a loss and we would be relying on all other results going our way…

Dinner was eaten in a rather sombre fashion even though a bit of wine cheered the mood up a bit. Most players then returned to the hotel for the odd drink and an early(ish) night, the exception being John ‘which hotel I am I in’ Naylor who found a local night club that was staying open late for the Ricky Hatton fight (which lasted all of 5 minutes! a long time to wait for that!). At least there was the option of a bit of extra rest in the morning as the game started at 1pm.

So the team really had to win on Sunday and it was not going to be easy as we were playing Warwickshire Select who had beaten us last year and out graded us on some of the boards.

Our confidence was given a great boast when Mark Rice managed to smash his opponent up in very quick fashion on board 5. Chris Cooley on board 2 also played a brilliant game and crushed his higher rated opponent, Nick Thomas, on board 2. These games are well worth looking at if you get a chance. My game was quite interesting but again I did not find the best continuation and decided to take a draw to guarantee that we would win the match.

I had reached this position after 37 moves. I have good compensation for the pawn. Black’s king is weak and my knights are well placed on d5 and c3. My opponent was in serious time trouble. I now made a typical mistake and attempted to blitz him. 38 Rg2? This is simply blunder. I should have played 38 e6!? with an unclear position. 38…Rc6? Both of us had missed that Black could play 38…Bf1 winning the exchange! 39 Rb2 Qa3 40 Rb7? Qf8? Again this is a mistake Black can still play 40…Bf1 with a winning position. 41 Rgb2 Re6

And we agreed a draw both oblivious to our joint blindness. As you can see I was on pretty poor form over the weekend. These things sometimes happen, I find that in my case, I can either play well or like a complete patzer! The patzer in me had taken over this weekend!

I have to admit that before I joined the Jutes of Kent I had not heard of Chris Cooley but it has become very clear by sitting next to him that he is very talented and is only let down, now and again, by his handling of the clock. There is another player in the team who has obtained almost godlike status after his impressive results over the last 3 years. And it would come down to him to save our arses on Monday the final round of the 4ncl…

So we finally managed to win. Which meant that for us to go up, something like the following had to happen the next day. (I do apologies if I get this wrong but trying to take the scenario in whilst consuming copious amounts of wine is often a but tricky)

If we won we would go up.

If we drew then Kings Head had to lose and we would go up.

If we lost then we would go up if either of the two following things happened:

Kings Head had to lose and then it would go to game points we were ahead by 1 point. If Poisoned Pawns lost both us and Kings Head would go up.

So we relaxed into a good but pricey Chinese meal that included the whole Jutes of Kent team and Drunken Knights team captain Neville Chan. It was full of good banter and drunken chit chat. Most of the team then decided to take a trip back to the hotel, the exception being Naylor who decided to meet up with Spence for a game of poker, which I believe went on until 8am. The man can stay awake for weeks! I have to admit that I was very tempted to join him but Aly warned me against the idea and for the sake of my head I am glad I took her advice!

I awoke for breakfast and for some reason I agreed that it was my job to bring John to the game. So at 10.50 I went to his room in an attempt to get him to the car. Chris Rice had got me a key for the room so after a number of attempts at knocking on the door I decided to enter. John was still in full clothing with his shoes on, which at least meant it would not take him long to get ready. His first question was, ‘Which hotel am I in?’ which wasn’t a good sign but we managed to get him to the car by 11.15 so things were kind of on track… I then suddenly realised that I had lost my jacket and my car keys were in my jacket, after a minute of pure panic I went to reception and asked them if they had had a jacket handed in. Fortunately someone had collected one from the bar on the previous night. The keys were still in the pocket! And I thought I was sober the previous night! Worrying thought but maybe a sign that out luck was in…

Anyway onto the game. We heavily out graded our opponents the next day but it quickly became clear that we were going to lose by a large margin, so time to cross those fingers! My game was another rather pathetic affair. 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 g6 6 Be3 a6

The Dragadorf variation. A new beast in the chess world. At the moment there is little theory on this opening, I have just finished writing a book on the opening that will be published by everyman in September, or sometime around then. 7 f3 b5 This is the so-called Accelerated Dragadorf! 8 a4 One of the critical tests of Black’s set up. 8…b4 9 Na2 e5 10 Nb3 d5 11 Bg5 d4 12 Bd3!? Slightly unusual. I analysed 12 Nxd4 as the main line in my forthcoming book. 12…h6 13 Bd2 Nc6 14 0-0

Black has no problems here. He has some extra space I would imagine the position is about equal. White has no weaknesses. 14…Nh5?! I thought that this would be an interesting way to try and get some kind of attack going but nothing materialises. 14…Be7 was much more sensible. 15 Qe2 Be7?! I should probably play 15…Be6 here in order to try and stop White’s next move.

16 Bc4 A good move White’s bishop is well placed on c4. The bishop may drop into d5, Bxf7 is sometimes a threat and the d3 square is vacated. So 16 Bc4 is a move that fulfils a number of useful functions. 16…Qb6 17 Kh1 a5 18 Nac1! The knight comes around to d3 which is an ideal square. 18…Bg5 19 Nd3

I spent 30 minutes here trying to find a good plan but the more I looked at the position the more I started to feel negative about my chances. What I am supposed to play? 19…Nf4 is bad because White can play 20 Bxf4 exf4 21 e5!? and I am in trouble and to be honest I couldn’t find a better plan. I also saw that White has a simple idea, 20 g3 and then 21 f4 when my kingside will start to fall apart. Basically I had had enough of being outplayed and decided to offer a draw before matters got any worse. My opponent decided to take the draw so that was the end of my weekend.

The excitement was just starting though. In our match it had got down to one last game Alexis Harakis verses Gavin Lock. In the Kings Head match one game was also in progress the top board clash A.Slavin – B.Savage. At one stage it looked like the Poisoned Pawns might lose but one of their players managed a great swindle and his opponent blundered a piece. This meant that the Poisoned Pawns were up which meant either the Jutes of Kent or Kings Head would get promoted but only one of us! A horrible position to be in!

Alexis was a pawn up but the position looked like a dead draw and Ben Savage had some winning chances but the position also looked like a dead draw. Ben also only needed to draw for Oxford to win the league.

For us to go up we needed either of the following to happen.

Alexis to win and Ben to draw or Ben to win and Alexis to draw! Talk about a tense finish! Both players from Kings Head and Jutes were hovering around in a tense state.

Now Alexis has performed like a magician over the last 3 years and he has yet to lose 1 game! An impressive record, if anyone could win then it would be Alexis. When Alexis started doing his leg and arm stretches next to the board we knew he was serious. Mr Motivator would have been proud of his routine. The game went on and on and then with some amazing technique, especially under the pressure he was in, Alexis managed to force his king to the back rank! One step nearer! And ten minutes later his opponent had resigned! What a performance and well done Alexis. The top board in the Kings Head match was soon a draw so Jutes had done it in the 8th hour.

Kings Head must have been gutted but they took it very well and congratulated us and Alexis. So a proper gentleman’s performance by them, its just a pity Poisoned Pawns had not lost. As then we would have both gone up but that is the way it goes sometimes.

Anyway to division 1 next year were we probably get crushed but we will have a go at doing it in style! A big thanks has to go out to everyone in the team and especially to Andy Mack and Chris Rice (he’s the guy in yellow, in the photo below, he looks especially happy that we went up! Show some emotion Chris!) who have managed the team and brought it to where is is now, cheers guys!