And so another 4NCL season begins in division two. The new league structure coming in for 2008-9 means there are four promotion spots into the top flight, with no relegations. In light of our recent near-miss, fighting against the big boys next year should be the least of our aims.

The summer saw our usual dip into the transfer market, trying to find cover for the irreplaceable Merim, Olena and Dave Scott, who have moved to pastures new. This has involved boosting our X chromosome count by recruiting Sophie Tidman and Heather Lang, to add to our existing female contingent of Lateefah and Maria. Most importantly though, a gaggle of new young blood (Matthew Daggitt, Georgs Vikanis, Marcus Harvey and James Foster) has joined our ranks. Whilst these signings may not raise our chances of winning the league, building our third team around talented local youngsters gives them a chance to play some “serious” chess (provided they avoid playing Sean…) and is undoubtedly an investment for our teams’ future.

Sat v Poisoned Pawns

The build-up to our first match of the season was an interesting one. Eight of us had recently been away on our near-annual chess holiday, this time choosing to sample copius amounts of tapas and sangria at an open in Barcelona. Mike played some blinding chess and came away with a thoroughly-deserved IM norm. Our perennial top board Ben, despite scoring the same 6/10, did it against much weaker opposition, including his picking up just one point in rounds 2-6 against players averaging just over 2050. The threats of his giving up chess were soon to follow, but fortunately my refusal to return his subs for this season convinced him to carry on playing 4NCL, if nothing else.

On the basis of his recent form, Mike was thrust as far up the board order as possible. Ben kept his board one slot by virtue of the 80 point rule. Things may be different once the October rating list is released – it's not clear Ben will even have a higher rating than soon-to-be-2300 Mike. And Mike, unlike two of our other unmentionable squad members isn't “too cool for school” when it comes to claiming the FM title…

As it turned out, normal order was restored and Barcelona Ben was banished to the history books, beating Steve Swanson's hedgehog in fairly typical Ben fashion – winning without, it seemed, really doing anything of note.

Mike had what looked like rather a miserable game, never really getting anything for his Benko pawn. It was entirely the opposite of what we saw from him in Barcelona, where Mike regularly tempted strong opposition into saccing material before squashing any ideas of compensation they might have.

Matt took his usual approach to 4NCL: turn up, win, go home, this time in his pet line in the Panov. Personally I think the line doesn't offer much (as Matt himself admitted after the game), but he stole a pawn, then another, then won the ensuing ending. I think him and Ben are on a mission to prove that, unlike what the rest of us might believe, chess is in fact very easy.

Aidan “did an Aidan”. For those of you unfamiliar with his current style of play, this involves playing black, playing a solid opening, knowing the theory and easily holding a draw. Occasionally his opponents lose their patience and do something un-solid when Aidan instead wins.

Dave won a Sicilian by playing d2-d4xc5-c6 and a2xb3-b4-b5, the marriage of pawns proving unstoppable. Dave seems to have really picked up the pace in recent times, and I reckon that by this time next year he'll have breached the magical 2300 barrier. You heard it here first…

Tom “did a Kieran”. For those of you unfamiliar with my current style of play, this involves dropping pieces for no compensation with alarming regularity.

Eckersley-Waites - Dignam
13 Qg4?? Qxd4 0-1

Oops. Tom was a star performer last year, so we'll let him off for this minor lapse. To make him feel better, here's the master at work with three big blunders from the 4NCL last season (yes, three in the same season, I know…), in increasing order of stupidity.

Alfred - Smallbone (rd 11)
16... Rxb2?? 17 Rc8 1-0

Punnett - Smallbone (rd 6)
45... Ke6??? 46 Re7+ (1-0, 74)

Adams - Smallbone (rd 2)
30... Rb8???? 31 Bxb8 1-0

With Lateefah picking up a broken-down-car related default, the remaining game of the day was mine, a rare excursion into the world of hardcore theory. Well sort of. My preparations for the game against Dan Rosen went so far as to have a look through our most recent 4ncl encounter, one I managed to win cutely in 25 moves. He recreated the first fifteen moves of that game; slowly, as though they were all new to him. Just as I started to imagine we might make a carbon copy, he noticed a deep stench of deja vu in he air and bailed into an alternative (albeit still rubbish) line. I proceeded to slowly ruin my position, miss a bankrank mate, then hold a bad ending. Luckily for the team, the match was fairly comfortably ours despite this topsy-turvy game.

Sun v White Rose

Last season, White Rose outgunned us on paper, but we managed to turn them over with a strong performance from the middle order. This season they turned up with a slightly stronger team, us with a slightly weaker team and it proved too much. It was a match we never really looked like competing for and, save Aidan's board, all the results were justified.

Ben held his strong opponent without breaking sweat. His IM opponent played like he'd never seen a chess-board before, using most of his time up whilst the move-numbers were still in single figures (Saturday night on the tiles anyone?!). In the end, queens and other bits came off and both players were satisfied with the outcome.

Mike had another bad day at the office. It was one of those Kings Indians that I trouble to understand: minor pieces distributed randomly around the board from moves 10 to 30. A bit of mental arithmetic at move 32 showed that Mike had one less of them, so 0-1.

Dave S played like a 2300.

Tom “did a Tom”. For those of you unfamiliar with his usual style of play, this involves showing comtempt for material whilst launching pieces towards his opponents king. This strategem is particularly honed toward White-side-of-Sicilian bashes and, whilst the computer might think otherwise, for the crowd the result was never in doubt.

Aidan had a most miserable game. This was a Svesh (an opening I understand even less than the Kings Indian) and another random-piece-distribution moment occured in the centre of the board. Aidan's opponent lost an exchange and a bit, and our lad seemed well on the road to victory. But then White's knights started hopping to squares pulled out of a hat, one eventually landing on e3, forking Black's rook on g4 and bishop on f1…

Dave H's game wasn't much fun. His queen went for an early morning stroll, only to end up playing a rugby game where she was the ball [I need to do some work on my metaphors]. All over in 15 moves, though Dave struggled on for 30.

Finally, Lateefah was up against it, carrying a 250 rating point deficit into the game. Her opponent showed little mercy and took advantage of her awkward piece placement to snaffle the point before she'd had time to castle.

All in all. One out of two, ain't so bad. Next time round we're up against Guildford 3 and South Wales Dragons (third and fourth, respectively, in the table). Major objectives being:

1. Win both matches
2. Find a new roving reporter…

Kieran