Our D team visited Wimbledon D last night, and, after a close match suffered their first loss of the season.

Our recent promotion of social chess has led to a welcome influx of new members, and we’re going to be using the D team to give them their first opportunity for match chess. It was great to see Michael playing his first match for us, while Max, in his third appearance, recorded a draw against an experienced opponent. Well done, Michael and Max. Congratulations also to Eamon and Omar on their excellent victories.

	Ealing C		Richmond D
1	Michael Williams 133	0:1	Eamon Rashid-Farokhi 142
2	Andrew Blackburn 128	1:0	Masoud Molazadeh 137
3	Paul Carter –	0:1	Omar Anbagi 107
4	Pawel Slonczuk 120	1:0	Michael Majkuth –
5	Alex Brett 110	½:½	Max Brindley
6	Mario Avendano 108	1:0	Julian Bedale 62
		2½:3½

One curiosity: as Wimbledon had White on the odd numbered boards, you’ll be able to work out that Black scored 5½/6 in this match.

If you’re following the Tata Steel Masters (which you should be) you’ll have seen that, in the first three rounds there have been six black wins and only one white win. The question has been posed on Twitter: is black the new white?