The University's Indian Summer

 Tuesday 21st April was a big day for me. In the morning I handed in my dissertation, and in the evening I played in a match that looked like deciding the fate of the University's survival bid in Division 1 of the Bristol League. Some people have asked why I care - I'm not coming back next year - but to me this is a ridiculous question. For one thing, no-one likes getting relegated; for a second, I am unsure how well the A-team would hold together without the top players, whose involvement is basically conditional on staying in Division 1. If a society that you head collapses as soon as you leave, then you have failed. In my view then, we simply had to stay up, and that meant beating Clifton B. The third team still at risk, Horfield B, was playing on the same night, and at the start of play the foot of the table looked like this:

...
7. Clifton B - Pld 16, Pts 12, GPts 47
8. Horfield B - Pld 16, Pts 12, GPts 43
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9. University A - Pld 16, Pts 10, GPts 40
10. Clifton C - Pld 17, Pts 1, GPts 19.5

Wins are worth 2 match points, so if we didn't win it was all over bar the shouting. We had one of our stronger players missing, and I was worried beforehand, but I did think that we should be able to win whoever Clifton B put out. Whether we would was another matter! 212f-219, 193-175, 164-169, 147-148, 177-167, 130-153 looked good for us with two horribly undergraded players, but we just had to play. I was on board 3, which gave me white against Jody Johnson (169). In our last game, I was seriously unimpressed with his unabashedly practical style of play, and frustrated not to convert an overwhelming position. But I am stronger now, and I had white. He tried the same formula again, and never got a look in:

 If we had been able to play like this all season, we would have been challenging at the other end of the table! 5.5-0.5 (WDWWWW) was probably the best result we have achieved whilst I've been playing for the team, and our late blooming gave us renewed hope of survival.

 My game continued the theme of the victory over Tello - it was achieved without having to do anything special, with a conviction that gives me more confidence that I am no longer a 160s player. It helped that I knew what to expect from Johnson this time, although I didn't think I would be given a pawn for essentially nothing on move 3. It's odd that my positional play, once a massive weakness, is now one of my biggest strengths - to the extent that I am developing a Botvinnik-esque tunnel vision, and missing all the quick wins in order to grind it out slowly (8. Ng5, 19. Nc4, 22. Bg5, 28. Kh2). It is working at the moment, but it does require you to keep a total grip on the position - objectively, this is not the best way to play chess. Ultimately though, I did keep a total grip, which is something I usually find extremely difficult.

 It was only after we threw away a draw against Downend in our previous match that I started to think for the first time that the lights were going out. For a few fleeting minutes after this result, I thought we were going to live after all - such a huge win helped our game-points tiebreak a lot. But it wasn't long until I discovered that Horfield B had managed an unlikely victory over Downend (that still gave the visitors their coveted league title by what turned out to be one game point.) Clifton B had a very winnable final match, and Horfield B were still two points ahead. Realistically, we would have to win our final match against the strong Bath team. The following morning, I heard that our 193 ex-captain couldn't play. That was it - now I knew we were doomed.

 Still, what could we do except try? There was also the small matter of it being my swansong for the team, and I was going to go out with a bang if I had anything to do with it.