Oxford's lower teams kicked off the 2022-23 season with these results:
- Oxford 3 won both rounds, 6-0 against Cambridge Y2 and 5-1 against She Plays To Win Lionesses;
- Oxford 4 lost 2-4 against Guildford Young Guns, then beat Average Wood Pushers B 3½-2½.
Oxford 3's start puts us near the top of the tree, worthy of a "selfie" in your skip's estimation:
Now, your skip has heard a rumour that CSC / Kingston 1 have found Division 4 "too easy" (ok, not really) and they are being parachuted into Division 3W where they will replace the defaulted Wessex A. Thus Oxford 3 are top of Division 4! Yippee!
Honourable Mentions
are due for Edgar & Phil N who enjoyed 2/2 weekends, with three of our regulars racking up 1½: Graham, Steve, Neil. Steve's 1½ is worth far more to Ox4 than it was, for it was his influence that found us Ox4's board 5 late in the day and his presence, rather than a default, meant Ox4 won the Sunday match.
Oxford 3
Saturday's meeting with Cambridge Y2 was a massacre, literally "men v boys (+ one girl)", and we need say no more about that one.
Sunday was a tougher assignment against one of the teams in the new, well-drilled She Plays To Win franchise coached by IM Lorin d'Costa (who is also a GM-level coach: it's always fun watching him engage young players in chess discussion). The 5-1 final match score slightly flatters Oxford 3, as SPTW-L could well have doubled their game-points tally. Edgar's efficient win
reminded skip of his 1996 4NCL win in a similar Open Sicilian line that he played then, and never since! Why not? Skip doesn't know. No, it wasn't Oxford he was playing for - we are only established since ~2003. More likely Witney.
Oxford 4
Saturday: Last season, Oxford 1 played Guildford Young Guns in Division 1. That was when they had oodles of IMs, FMs and even a GM but they have decided to start afresh from the bottom with juniors. Thus lowly Oxford 4 had a fighting chance against "real" Young Guns and we were not far off taking the points. A few more favourable results were needed, mind you. Graham found B+a+b v N - right bishop for the a-pawn - far harder to win than it sounds; Ewan had various chances to hold his pawn-down position but perhaps played for more? - and we will not talk of board 6. Suffice to say that particular PGN is correct, for both skip and Neil watched the end live!
Sunday: Oxford 4 ran into familiar oppo from your skip's viewpoint. Ex-Oxford skipper Aidan Rawlinson is newly-appointed into a high position in Average Wood Pushers, a Manchester-based squad who have entered two teams A & B with the objective in B of getting players FIDE-rated games. This is not dissimilar to Oxford 4, really, so this was a ratings-points match.
Steve had a heart-stopping moment on board 4: a queen for R+B up, his opp found the scary 38. ... Rg3 with 39. ... Rh3# in mind. OK, we could stop it with 39. QxBd6 Rh3+ 40. Qh2 RxQh2+ 41. Kh2 and skip anxiously looked for where the White b-pawn was, he couldn't see it past the clock. That pawn needed to stop 41. ... Ba4 to win the White rook thanks to the d2 pawn. Phew, it was on b3 not b2. Anyway, skip was panicking needlessly, for White's e6-pawn would keep the bishop quiet.
New young UKR recruit Taisiya impressed, demolishing her opponent with a nice B+N mate, while new recruit Barry flattened his oppo.
Fireworks Weekend
It was Fireworks night on Saturday and Dave Curran had read the memo. He lost on Saturday, going under in a hail of fireworks from his Young Gun opponent
... but then he unleashed a fusillade of fireworks of his own on Sunday in a Caro-Kann (yes, really) to hunt down the SPTW-L White king on h6. It's remarkable how quickly the initiative swung from White to Black at move 16. ... Bxg2, investing a piece for two pawns. White was in retreat-mode thereafter and the attempt to wrest the initiative back with 24. Qe4 (threatening mate in one) was rudely met with a further exchange sacrifice 24. ... Rxd3. Game of the weekend, without a doubt, perhaps across the whole weekend not just Oxford 4NCL.
Your skip amused himself by calculating 33. ... Ng5 34. Qxh2 Nf7# but sadly that spectacularity just loses the knight, 34. Kxg5. Oh well.
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