All, these were our results from Round 9 just concluded.
Games are available for perusal here.
Skip had overlooked that Ox1‘s tiny tiny chance of getting into the top two was zero: Wood Green Monarchs had the pleasure of a free pass tonight. Ho hum. Ox3‘s slim play-off chances went kaput as well with a loss to high-flying Hatch-End A. Now we’ll have to look cautiously over our shoulder and try to avoid relegation to Div 5. Tie-breaks will need to be calculated carefully by your skip when he sees the Round Nine tables.
The theme for the evening seemed to be pieces getting stuck. Happily oppo pieces, not Oxford pieces, curiously all getting stuck on their respective QN5 {b4 / b5 for modernists} (Arya, Nakul & Tashika’s oppo).
James returned to action with a bang, uncorking a beauty of a tactic to pick off Black’s offside queen. David must have been disappointed Black resigned when he did, for he had the most enormous position. Odd stat: all of our board 1s finished before any of our other boards by 20:30.
Move Of The Evening: Ian’s 44. … Rg3. Sadly in a losing cause, but what a move!