Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
Oxford 1 sit second in Pool A of Division 1 after four matches, Oxford 2 top their pool, Oxford 3 top Division 4s.
OK, all three of these are on “goal difference”, but hey. This could easily be our most successful season ever – however, caution is advised. We have only played four matches of eleven, Oxford 1 have yet to play the big guns Guildford 1 (round 5) and White Rose (round 7) while Oxford 2 could yet drop into the Div 3s relegation pool. For now, though, skip basks in the status of our top three teams and very much hopes they can maintain their fine form. Still, to paraphrase the Ox2 board 1 after his “miracle save” today v Fermented Sharks [watch out for that one in the PGN]: ridiculous.
The results for Weekend Two were:
- Oxford 1 defeated both 3Cs 1 4½-3½ and Spirit of Atticus A 5-3;
- Oxford 2 defeated both Sussex Martlets 2 4½-1½ and Fermented Sharks 3½-2½;
- Oxford 3 defeated both The Pitstop 5-1 and Barnet Knights 3 4-2;
- Oxford 4 defeated Iceni 3 5½-½ but lost (gasp) to Watford 1-4 (default-related scoreline).
We’ll start at the top. That match win over 3Cs 1 is massive and means Oxford 1 have one foot in the Championship Pool. We might have two feet in it already if other results fall perfectly in rounds 5 & 6; for example, a 4-4 draw with Barbican 4NCL 2 in round 6 should suffice. Even if we don’t make it, pessimistic skip reckons we’re likely to have 6/6 match points going into the Relegation Pool.. Always a good position to start from.
Similarly, Ox2 are almost in the Div 3s Promotion Pool: a win over the Rookies in round 5 would be enough to get us over that particular line, and we’d then start that Pool in earnest with round 6 v CSC 1.
On Saturday, events at Wokefield Park could not have gone better. No-one lost and Ox2, 3 and 4 recorded a total score of +12, =6, -0. To quote the Ox2 board 1 again: “ridiculous”. Skip particularly enjoyed Jason’s partial re-enactment of Karpov v Korchnoi 1974 game 2; Jason clearly knew it backwards (confirmed postmortem), but his young opponent wasn’t as well versed in the old classics as we were. In the bar afterwards, we admired Jason’s subtle Qd5 move – Qh6+ was so tempting but leads nowhere. Watch out for that in the PGN.
Oxford 4 were very close indeed to achieving a perfect 6-0 on Saturday; in theory, they could have done so, but Tony turned down the chance to go into Q+2 v Q. To be fair to him, (a) it wasn’t that obvious how to get there – we only worked it out in the bar later with silicon assistance – and (b) Q+2 v Q might still have ended in a draw anyway.
Justin T, Asif and both Coles were our top performers with 2/2 over the weekend, with Chris W, Tom, Pavel, Jason, Eldar, Phil N, Justin H, Dugg, Rod and Kev (ten players!) all managing 1½. Justin has 4/4 for the season; skip makes a mental note to get him some titled oppo so that he can push for a GM norm. Oh look, there’s one coming up in round 5. Heck, there are eight of them. Ooo-er.