After two tough matches Richmond B finally opened their account against Staines A, one of the weaker teams in Division 2.

Huw Williams reports:

“Some interesting games on the top 3 boards with solid draws. Raghu had a good win, followed by a draw for Masoud, who had been a piece down for a while. The two youngsters Lewis and Sophie had a good game with Lewis going onto to win (This was Sophie’s first game [in the TV League]) and Paul had a fairly quick win after being a pawn down early on.”

	Richmond B		Staines A
1	Bertie Barlow 167	½:½	Derek McGovern 165
2	Andrew Hebron 161	½:½	Jack Sheard 153
3	Sampson Low 155	½:½	Shahannah Schmid 148
4	Raghu Kamath 157	1:0	Paul Seymour 130
5	Masoud Molazadeh 126	½:½	Stephen George 137
6	Lewis Low 94	1:0	Sophie Wang 93
7	Paul Evans –	1:0	Martin Conlon 50
		5:2

Well played everyone!

It was good to encounter a team with two female players. The theme of this year’s London Chess Conference (in 3 weeks time) is “Chess and Female Empowerment”. That reminds me: I must book my ticket while they’re still available.