This match was my third of the season captaining Castles in the Stoneleigh Trophy. Guildford are one of the more far-flung teams, and I am fortunate that I have a considerable journey to Castles, for it would otherwise have taken even longer to get there. In any case, upon arriving I discovered that, as usual, they had used up virtually all of their allowed grading points (700 per round) and given themselves a grading advantage of 191-171, 161-139, 168-138, 163-127. On the bright side, we needed only 2 points to draw - and with a similar near-miss on board 2, this almost took us there in one round:
Black was punished for his indifferent play in the opening, and might well have been miniatured if I had played 8. Qh3!. Nonetheless, he emerged a pawn down for ever-less compensation, and I missed two chances to complete the job - one deep (22. Nxc6!) and one babyish (37. Ng5). With my inability to pull the trigger, perhaps it is not surprising that Jones escaped.
Still, I had to turn my thoughts to the next game - with the score at 1-3, there was still everything to play for.
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