Stoneleigh Trophy, Update!

The format of the Stoneleigh Trophy encourages chess violence: Two teams of four players face other twice in one evening - once with black, once with white - and in each game the time limit is half an hour each. And so it proved on Monday night, when a Streatham & Brixton Chess Club team faced Crystal Palace down at their venue on the edge of London. The final score was 5-3 to us, with only two games drawn out of the eight.

Hero of the evening was Martin on board 2, who scored 100% against Anthony Andrews - an opponent who has a rapid ECF of 178, no less. Martin's second game with black was particularly exciting to watch from the neighbouring board. "I suspect my opponent smelt the blood of revenge after 9 e6 and 10 Ng5, and I got a strong whiff of it too!" emails Martin in retrospect, and indeed with his King 'developed' on c6 things looked rather tricky. But at this speed limit, the tables can turn at the drop of a hat. Here's the game.