GLCC 5 v 4 Hackney with one adjournment (Peter Burgoyne is a pawn up in a rook ending). More details to follow.

Hackney won the first round of the National club
championship, in a tough match against Athenaeum.
Athenaeum took the lead after Robin Oakley went astray
from a level position. After a safe draw from Terry Donnelly
Frank Chin levelled the score, Charles Hughes held his game
and I managed to break into my opponents position taking the
match.Played 24/1/10.

Hackney Ath enaeum
1. Chin F 1 - 0 Stevenson J
2. Tasker M 1 - 0 Farkas D
3. Hughes C 0.5 - 0.5 McAleenan C
4. Donnelly T 0.5 - 0.5 Millward K

The annual very strong tournament at Wijk an Zee is running now.
Currently Shirov leading on 4/4, Carlsen Ivanchuk Nakamura on
3. Live games each day with commentary at www.chessbomb.com

A difficult night for the third team at Albany:

(Albany names first)

1. P Cassar 1 0 E Jones
2. D Cutmore 1 0 P Burgoyne
3. C Todd 1 0 P Alexander
4. R Cohen 1 0 C Ariti
5. J Fisher 0 1 S Tracey
6. A Costeloe 1 0 M Morgan
7. S Sonnis 1 0 M Gonzalez
8. D Austin 0.5 T Osolake

Our Under 120 team was beaten today at Gasingstoke in the National Club Under 120 first round. Good win for Gerald Howgate. We are now in the Plate.

Matthew Wilson 1-0 Mark Rivlin
John Shaddick 1-0 Dylan Perryman
Alan Willis 1-0 Paul Murphy
Joe French 0-1 Gerald Howgate

Basingstoke 3-1 Hackney

Well done to the team for this excellent win, 6.5 v 2.5 with one adjournment. Particular credit to Emyr & Peter for good wins, and to Terry whose solid draw against a strong opponent secured the match win. Special mention also to Pepe who fought his way back to an adjourned queen endgame only a pawn-down despite having lost a piece in the opening. Five wins out of five so far for this team.

1. F Chin -0.5- G Harvey
2. D Shaw 0-1 P Jaszkioskyj
3. P Vives - ADJ - D Jarmain
4. T Donnelly 0.5 W Stirling
5. E Lee 1-0 Default
6. Emyr Jones 1-0 J Roberts
7. E Rigby-Zeglache 0.5 M Cresswell

Not a good night for Hackney 3 as Drunken Knights showed why they are running away with Div 3 as they thumped us 6.5-0.5 with one adjournment (Shaun Tracey looking good). Special mention to Con Ariti who came away with a draw after we were massively outgraded on every board (on two boards by 30 points).
Keep smiling guys, we are still a good team!
And also DK gave us a really good spread as always!

If anyone fancy Sudoku puzzles check out Sudoku Jackpot. Yes, i was bored during christmas ;)

BBC4 showed a pretty good program on chess yesterday,
even with Ray Keene.
Mainly aimed at beginners but with lots of old footage.
Its at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006np8r for a
week.

Funny stuff at http://ippolit.wikispaces.com/. 'Ship' is program btw.
Lots more background on www.talkchess.com