The new season of the 4NCL started on Saturday, the 14th of November. Cheddleton, fresh from the success at the European Club Cup, continued its winning ways, winning both opening matches.

The Paris attacks on the Friday meant that our female player couldn’t travel from Paris to London and we started both matches with a loss on board 8. Still, we were strong enough to compensate for that setback and win comfortably – on the Saturday we played The Spirut of Atticus and won 5-2 (with one draw, made by me) and on the Sunday we played Oxford, usually a tricky team, but we won by a large margin 4-1 with 3 draws.

My play was also in line with the perfomances at the ECC – I drew with white against an FM rated 2244 and won with black against an FM rated 2341. I was winning in the first game, but missed it and then had no more chances.

Counting my summer tournament in Crete, my Sunday win was a 5th one in a row with black! My opponent was a young FM who started the game in a quiet manner and then decided to go berserk.

A satisfying start of the new season and hopefully we will manage to mount a title challenge this year!