Last week witnessed the two Division 4 matches between the Richmond C and D teams. On Tuesday 24 October, the two teams met at the C team’s Twickenham Club venue. The D team looked slightly stronger on paper, and so it turned out. The top board game between Alex Shard (C) and Stuart Jeffreys (D) was drawn, and, on board 6, Ken Broadley (C) and Julian Bedale (D) also shared the point. The remaining games saw Masoud Molazadeh, Eamon Rashid-Farokhi and Huw Williams scoring for the D team, with George Dokic striking back for the C team.

The return encounter on Thursday 26 October was closely fought. The top board encounter, between Adrian Waldock (D) and Alex Shard (C), was drawn. The C team scored wins on boards 2-4, via Masoud Molazadeh, Omar Anbargi and Huw Williams, overturning a 20 point grading deficit, while boards 5 and 6 resulted in D team victories from Jim Anandajeyarajah and Ken Broadley.

So Richmond D came out ahead in both matches: an excellent start to the season.

On the same evening, Richmond B were in action again, this time heavily outgrading their opponents from Ealing B. It was perhaps disappointing that three of our players, in two cases with the white pieces, made no impression on their opponents and agreed fairly quick draws, but fortunately Bertie Barlow, Ian McLeod and Eamon Rashid-Farokhi all managed to defeat their opponents, giving Richmond B a comfortable 4½-1½ win to maintain their 100% record.