A busy week started on Tuesday with an important Ellam Trophy (Surrey Div 3) match against South Norwood. Our opponents were only able to field four players, and, with a quick win from Alastair (see below) we didn’t need to do much more to win. Adrian won a powerfully played game, while Raghu missed a mate in 2 before agreeing a draw. Maks was a piece down in the ending but got back into the game and might even have won before his opponent forced a draw.

Here’s the top board game. Click on any move for a pop-up window.

The league table shows that we have two matches to go, against the other two teams on 100%. We’ll need to field strong squads in these two matches if we want to gain promotion to the Beaumont Cup (Div 2) next season.

On the same evening our D team had a tough match against a strong Maidenhead team, going down, as expected, to a heavy defeat.

Well done to Tom B on his victory: his opponent was a member of RJCC many decades ago and, now living in Maidenhead, has just returned to competitive chess after a very long absence.

The following evening our London League team were in action against Hackney, a match featuring two evenly matched sides.

We managed a narrow victory, with wins from Declan, Chris and Maks – congratulations to them!

Remarkably we currently stand 2nd in the league, although we still have to play the stronger teams.T

The week concluded with our TVE team in the ‘fun’ Div X defending their unbeaten record against the dangerous but relatively inexperienced Staines B.

Excellent wins there from Mike RC, and from Oscar on his debut: I’m sure it will be the first of many.

Here’s the current league table.

A great week, then: thanks to all who played, and, especially, to our hard working match captains, without whom none of us would get any games!