Congratulations to Richmond E for being the first of our teams to score a point in 2019 after a narrow victory at Staines. Well played Barry and Ken for beating higher graded opponents, and also Dan, who drew with a higher graded opponent.

But there was something controversial about George’s game. First, though, the results.

	Staines B		Richmond E
1	Richard Dulley 126	½:½	Dan Donohoe 104
2	Usman Butt 109	0:1	Barry Sutton 97
3	Shahanah Schmid –	1:0	George Dokic 90
4	Martin Conlon 59	0:1	Ken Broadley 47
		1½:2½

As it happens, I know the Staines board 3, who runs a fantastic monthly girls’ group at Richmond Junior Club where her young son is also a member. I know she’s a WFM from Switzerland who currently lives near Staines, and has a FIDE rating of 2069 (that’s about 180 in British currency). I can only assume Staines made no attempt to find out her strength before selecting her for the team. I also note that this isn’t the first time something like this has happened in one of our matches this season.

I’m not sure what the league can do about it, though. It’s hard to legislate against incompetence.