Having dragged myself up at the crack of dawn ( for me, since I retired anyway ) and been driven through the cold and fog of a Sunday morning in November, by Mahmoud, for a 10AM start in Newmarket then finding out I was black against a strong Danish IM may not have been my first choice 🙂
I guess the glass half full approach is that this was something of a free hit and I had nothing to lose, so …….
Cambridgeshire V Bedfordshire, Board 1, Newmarket on 08/11/2026
Martin Haubro IM,2492 V Steve Ledger
Think I’ll probably consider this a bonus half point rather than a missed opportunity.
Sadly, my efforts didn’t help Beds much as we got tonked 12-4 (Cambs are the National Minor Counties champions ).
Such are the double headered county matches that, having spent 3.5 hours plugging away against a near 2500 IM, I got 30 minutes to grab some lunch before it was back to the board, to face a 16 year old 2200, as Beds took on Norfolk. I was quite pleased when he offered me a draw after 12 moves and snapped his hand off before heading for a well deserved pint and some of Palace V Liverpool. When I returned, we seemed to be drifting to the usual defeat albeit whilst improving on the AM 12-4 scoreline but then a few games finished and we had a few points on the board and I decided to tot up the scoreline and found, to my surprise, that we were 7.5 – 5.5 down but seemed to have 3 winning positions in the remaining games.
It then ended up at 7.5 – 7.5 each with Rob Walker, who had filled in as last minute reserve, in a winning position which he duly converted for a relatively rare Beds victory over Norfolk 🙂
Steve Ledger, 11/11/2026.