For the final weekend of the Four Nations Chess League’s third division this season only three wins out of three would have been enough to secure Oxford 2 promotion — and not unexpectedly they fell short.

There were, however, some good individual performances by Oxford 2 players throughout the year. Not least by University player Chris Rawlinson whose only poor game was played in round nine and from which he bounced back with two wins, including the following fine thematic Closed Sicilian game played in round ten.

White: Chris Rawlinson Black: Alastair Irving 1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.g3 g6 4.Bg2 Bg7 5.d3 d6 6.Be3 Rb8 7.a4!? e6 8.Qd2 Nge7 This allows White to get on with his plan of swapping the dark-squared bishops. Black might have done better with either 8...a6 or 8...Nd4.

9.Bh6 0–0 10.h4 Nd4 Here, 10...f6 was worth considering; so as to meet 11.h5 with 11…g5. 11.Bxg7 Kxg7 12.h5 Rh8 13.h6+!? White switches from attack to positional mode with this move, hoping to exploit Black’s now entombed rook. Kf8 14.Nf3 Nxf3+ Giving up his well-placed knight when he could have supported it with 14...Nec6.

15.Bxf3 Bd7 16.d4! White seeks to open up the position to exploit his extra rook.

16…Qc7 17.0–0 Rg8 18.Rfd1 Nc6?! Black tries to solve his problems tactically but his scheme just falls short. 18...c4 was better; but White is still on top after 19.Nb5!

19.dxc5 Ne5 20.cxd6! Nxf3+ 21.Kg2 Nxd2 22.dxc7 Rc8 23.Rxd2 Rxc7 24.Nb5! Bxb5 25.axb5 Ke7 Of course 25...b6 26.Rd8+ was not any better.

26.Rxa7 Rd8 27.Rxd8 Kxd8 28.b6 Rxc2 29.Rxb7 Rxb2 30.Rxf7 Rxb6 31.Rxh7 e5 32.Ra7 1–0 Malcolm Pein, the Mr Fix-it of English chess, has secured an awesome line-up for December’s London Chess Classic.

To last year’s star line-up, which included Vladimir Kramnik, Magnus Carlsen and Hikaru Nakamura, can be added the name of the reigning World Champion Vishy Anand for this year’s event.

The Olympia Conference Centre will be the place to be for all chess fans from December 8 to 15.