Post by Nick on Jan 20, 2011 14:04:47 GMT
Well, it's been a few days and the stress of the Saturday match has just about subsided. This was a match that I was definitely looking forward to as our teamsheet was as strong as I can remember. However, things did not run entirely smoothly...
The tribulations began when I arrived at the venue at 1 o'clock, I was informed by the barman that there was no booking in the diary for the chess and that another meeting was taking place upstairs. Further, the meeting upstairs was due to go on until 4 pm. When we looked through the diary, it turned out that there were no bookings at all in the diary for Middlesex chess matches in 2011. My heart naturally sank somewhat at that point.
A quick conversation with the people meeting upstairs yielded no joy - they were staying put. The only option was to play in the public bar downstairs. Definitely very, very far from ideal, but given to the distance people had travelled, I put the option to the Kent captain to see if he was willing to play. He said that he'd offer a walkover to each of his players, but he wanted to go ahead with the match. This was definitely very good of him.
Anyway, the pieces, boards and clocks were retrieved and the tables set up. All apart from one - no 16th set of pieces could be found, so I had to default my game. 1-0 down in no time at all.
Eventually we got underway, 15 minutes late and things were going relatively smoothly. The bar was pretty quiet and glancing at several of the boards seemed to show we had some promising positions.
A couple of hours passed and some games had finished, but the noise in the bar was building. Fortunately by this point the meeting upstairs was completed and most of the remaining games migrated to the relative quiet of the first floor. Some games stayed downstairs and, towards 6pm, those remaining were surrounded by an astrology meeting that was taking place as well as Camden's finest enjoying the start of a night out. Quite how Ray Harper managed to retain any concentration at all in the hubbub whilst facing a tricky passed pawn ending is beyond me.
Anyway as far as the actual chess went, it was rather disappointing. Faced with the less than ideal circumstances of the match as well as some tough Kent opponents, we went down 10-6. The individual results are on sccu.ndo.co.uk/match3.htm.
I was pretty impressed that everyone agreed to play in the first place and gave the games their all. Special mention should go to our sole winner John Torrance who played a nice game and also had much the better of the all-important post-game analysis.
Anyway, our next match is against Herts on the 12th February, so I'll be in touch about this match shortly. It's an away match in Harpenden, so at least we won't have to suffer the Exmouth Arms again. I hope that you all still feel motivated to play for the team, in spite of the experience last weekend. I think the search for a new venue is underway, so fingers crossed for that.
The tribulations began when I arrived at the venue at 1 o'clock, I was informed by the barman that there was no booking in the diary for the chess and that another meeting was taking place upstairs. Further, the meeting upstairs was due to go on until 4 pm. When we looked through the diary, it turned out that there were no bookings at all in the diary for Middlesex chess matches in 2011. My heart naturally sank somewhat at that point.
A quick conversation with the people meeting upstairs yielded no joy - they were staying put. The only option was to play in the public bar downstairs. Definitely very, very far from ideal, but given to the distance people had travelled, I put the option to the Kent captain to see if he was willing to play. He said that he'd offer a walkover to each of his players, but he wanted to go ahead with the match. This was definitely very good of him.
Anyway, the pieces, boards and clocks were retrieved and the tables set up. All apart from one - no 16th set of pieces could be found, so I had to default my game. 1-0 down in no time at all.
Eventually we got underway, 15 minutes late and things were going relatively smoothly. The bar was pretty quiet and glancing at several of the boards seemed to show we had some promising positions.
A couple of hours passed and some games had finished, but the noise in the bar was building. Fortunately by this point the meeting upstairs was completed and most of the remaining games migrated to the relative quiet of the first floor. Some games stayed downstairs and, towards 6pm, those remaining were surrounded by an astrology meeting that was taking place as well as Camden's finest enjoying the start of a night out. Quite how Ray Harper managed to retain any concentration at all in the hubbub whilst facing a tricky passed pawn ending is beyond me.
Anyway as far as the actual chess went, it was rather disappointing. Faced with the less than ideal circumstances of the match as well as some tough Kent opponents, we went down 10-6. The individual results are on sccu.ndo.co.uk/match3.htm.
I was pretty impressed that everyone agreed to play in the first place and gave the games their all. Special mention should go to our sole winner John Torrance who played a nice game and also had much the better of the all-important post-game analysis.
Anyway, our next match is against Herts on the 12th February, so I'll be in touch about this match shortly. It's an away match in Harpenden, so at least we won't have to suffer the Exmouth Arms again. I hope that you all still feel motivated to play for the team, in spite of the experience last weekend. I think the search for a new venue is underway, so fingers crossed for that.