Poole The Other One v Ringwood B

So near and yet so far! The grading difference between the teams required Poole to win 5.5 to 0.5 which they duly did. Boards 5 and 6 finished reasonably quickly with wins for Poole. I tried sacking a piece against Nick but he defended well and I never looked to have enough for it. That left boards 2 through 4. When I looked in between giving Nick pieces, they all looked competitive games. Rob on two and out graded by a whopping 440 points was under pressure but holding well. On boards 3 and 4, Liam and Julian looked to be doing a little better. However, playing strong players isn't easy and Dave managed to win board 4 for Poole by, as he put it "one tempi". Of the games left, John on 3 had by now won a piece and was mopping up professionally despite time trouble. Mike, the consummate team player, then took the opportunity to guarantee the match by making Rob an offer he couldn't really refuse resulting in a draw to guarantee the match for Poole.

Always a pleasure to play at Poole, who were worthy winners of yet another trophy!

The evening reminded me of when two armies fight and one is slaughtered by the other, with only one person spared. The spared person is given the task of going back to his leader to tell him what happened to his army.... ....I was that spared person. Thank you.