We visited Richmond D club for a match with the team members on 19th March, 2024. We lost to them with the score of 2.5 to 3.5. Looking at the ratings of the opponents (apart from the last board’s unrated player) the games were evenly matched and the match result could have gone either way. The last board opponent now as I publish this post has a partial rating of 1754.
| Board | Richmond D | Rating | Score | Ealing C (Away Match) | Rating |
| 1 (B) | Alex Shard | 1746 | 1-0 | Matthew Georgiou | 1752 |
| 2 (W) | Barry Sutton | 1630 | 1-0 | Martin Loat | 1643 |
| 3 (B) | Dan Donohoe | 1505 | 0-1 | Tony Braine | 1629 |
| 4 (W) | Laurie Catling | 1360 | 0.5-0.5 | Trevor Bates | 1534 |
| 5 (B) | George Dokic | 1313 | 0-1 | David Websdale | 1418 |
| 6 (W) | Tom Brand | unrated | 1-0 | Paul Johnson | 1406 |
Trevor was first to finish with a drawn game. Paul played against an a strong player (unrated on the day of the match). His game appeared fairly even until the end game, but with the opponent’s rook making an early inroad into Paul’s side of the board it seemed to play a vital part in the end game with Paul losing the game. Matthew and Martin lost their games respectively in the top two boards. Both had lost positions in the end games with advancing pawns and were struggling with time management.
Well done to David and Tony on their wins. Tony had a knight well placed in h7, well protected after what appeared to be a pawn storm on the opponent’s king side. This severely restricted the opponent’s movement of the king. The final flourish was Tony’s Queen delivering a two move checkmate. In the middle game David playing white had pinned the opponent’s f7 pawn protecting the Black’s castled king with a diagonally aligned Queen and Bishop. David’s subsequent delivery was his knight placed on g6 forking Black’s Queen and Rook, which led to him winning the rook. The game went downhill from there for his opponent.