Mixed fortunes for our teams this week, with a win, a draw and a loss to report, but all against higher rated opponents.

On Monday our Thames Valley C team returned to Ealing, this time to take on Ealing C, and were well beaten, although the match was tighter than the final score suggests.

1. Hristo Colov (1785) 1:0 Otto Weidner (1684)
2. Tony Braine (1610) 0:1 Jack Thompson (-)
3. Alastair Johnstone (1593) 1:0 George Milligan (1538)
4. Trevor Bates (1536) 1:0 Anurag Venkataramanan (-)
5. David English (1501) 1:0 Ron Bilkhu (1404)
6. Kayden Tan (-) 1:0 Ollie Taylor (-)

Another great win for Jack, who is improving very fast at the moment. Thanks to all who played, and to non-playing captain Mike. Richmond C must be one of the younger teams in the league, which is good to see, and they will all improve from the experience of facing stronger opposition.

On Tuesday our Thames Valley D team welcomed Staines to the Twickenham Club, with the match resulting in a draw.

1. Alex Shard (1739) 1:0 Default
2. Barry Sutton (1598) 1:0 Paul Seymour (1676)
3. George Dokic (1374) 0:1 Clive Lawrence (1608)
4. Laurie Catling (1366) ½:½ Siddarth Ramaraju (1538)
5. Seb Johnson (-) 0:1 Steve Payne (1537)
6. Jon Slinn (-) ½:½ Christopher Fennell (1288)

An excellent result for Barry against a very solid opponent, while Alex unfortunately didn’t get a game. Welcome to Jon, who shared the point in his first competitive game for Richmond.

The most important match of the week was our second London League match of the season, against Athenaeum. We were a long way short of full strength, and further weakened when Mark Josse was forced to drop out at short notice due to illness. We wish him a speedy recovery. Our strength on the top boards still saw us through to a narrow win in a match which could easily have gone either way.

1. Mark Gray (2253) 0:1 Gavin Wall (2311)
2. Alan Hanreck (2184) ½:½ David Maycock (2336)
3. Dimitar Mogilarov (2125) 0:1 Mike Healey (2250)
4. Philip Tozer (2123) 0:1 Caspar Bates (2133)
5. Stephen Marsland (2099) 1:0 John Bass (1961)
6. Chris Gant (1988) 1:0 Jon Eckert (1895)
7. Carl Hetherington (1997) 1:0 Sampson Low (1827)
8. John Walton (1810) 0:1 Pablo Soriano (1790)

Sampson and Pablo both made their London League debuts, with last-minute sub Pablo the star of the match, winning a pawn ending which could have gone either way (he had a more active king against his opponent’s extra pawn) against a player of many years’ experience.

Well done and thank you to everyone who played in this week’s matches.