A difficult week for us. Two matches, ten boards and ten losses, but for different reasons.

On Monday our Thames Valley A team visited Maidenhead A, who were at full strength. Except that it was actually our B team as none of our nominated A team players were available.

Bertie and I both lost horribly. Jon put up more resistance, but also went down fairly quickly. Maks and Sampson staged good fights against their higher rated opponents, while Alastair came very close to drawing with a very strong GM.

Here’s the game: click on any move for a pop-up window.

We’re missing Gavin terribly in more ways than one, and really need to recruit some 2200+ strength, or even 2000+ strength players for our first team squads. If you know anyone who might be interested, do put them in touch with us!

On Tuesday we played our first Fred Manning Trophy (under 1600) match of the season, at home to Wimbledon.

We used this match to give some much needed matchplay experience to some of our newer members, who, I hope, appreciated the opportunity.

Thanks to all who played in these matches, to our captains, and to Alastair for sending me his game.