Not relegated

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I believe that winning this match secured our place in Division 1 of the Hertfordshire league, which had previously been in some doubt.

My own contribution was the rather poor win given below. White must be better after 11. ... Bxh4, but with 20. Qf3 and 21. Kb1, he gives it all away.

20. Qf3 is understandable: Opponent simply missed that I could force the exchange of queens. 21. Kb1, though, is harder to explain - it just goes into the same ending with one pawn less than he could have had. Alas, it's hardly the first time this season that one of Opponent or Blogger has played a bad move.

Opponent took the best part of half an hour to resign in the final position, clear-cut though it is. (He had barely taken that long over whole of the rest of the game). Though we got on just fine in a fun post-mortem, I couldn't quite bring myself to ask what he'd been thinking about. Lots of players do seem to be reluctant to admit that it really is all over, and no doubt this buys them the occasional half point. My habit is to resign rather quickly; I usually believe that if an Opponent can reach a definitely winning position then he can also win it, so once I'm convinced that I'm lost I'd rather stop the pain.

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