Hi Guys

We flexed our muscles and beat Guildford 2 6-2 on Monday, and were certainly winning both games we lost until the time scramble arrived!

Result:

Guildford 2 Redhill 1

1 Alan Punnett 187 0-1 Neil McDonald 217 Q

2 Alain Dekker 171 0-1 Cliff Chandler 205 Q

3 Phil Stimpson 161 0-1 Alan Hanreck 199 U

4 Julien Shepley 165 0-1 Gordon Meyer 196 Q

5 Dave Hill 164 0-1 Chris Howell 181 Q

6 Doug Bennett 162 0-1 Mark Rich 180 Q

7 Mike Smart 163 1-0 Tony Ashby 169 Q

8 H Trevor Jones 134 1-0 Kevin Thurlow 171 Q

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2-6

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It was great to see us at full strength for an away match, and the top boards played some greatly entertaining games, with an enduring attack from Neil matched by speculative but ultimately successful sacrifices from Cliff and Alan and a crushing middle-game pawn storm from Gordon.

Tigran Petrosian (MR suggested Harry Houdini) was alive and well and playing board 5 for us and yes, I was getting crushed but it wasn't as easy for my opponent as it looked! One oversight turned the tables decisively.

Mark needed no such help and was a thoroughly convincing winner on 6 while we had what might have been decisive advantages on 7 and 8 before both Tony and Kevin blundered in the time scrambles. Even a piece and a pawn down, Kevin still missed a clear draw with a nice zwischenzug check followed by a stalemate trick, but went for the stalemate trick one move too early and got mated - unlucky!

Next match Monday 15th January v Guildford 1 who will obviously be trying very hard to get a very strong team out after this result! I appreciate that many of you will not be able to confirm until after Christmas, but Cliff is a doubt so we may need Chino and perhaps Martin could stand by.