All three Guildford teams won on Monday night.

In the Surrey League Alexander Cup semi-final, Guildford beat Coulsdon 6–4 in an exciting which was in balance until near the end of the session. This was largely due to the Guildford juniors Adam Sefton, Zac Welling and Seb Twisk, who scored 2.5/3 between them. In the final, on a date to be arranged, we meet the winners of the other semi-final between Epsom and Kingston.

An interesting point arose in the Surrey League Division 2 match (Beaumont Cup) between Guildford 2 and South Norwood 1. On board 3, the Guildford player's flag fell – but neither player said anything. The South Norwood player resigned. He then noticed his opponent's flag fall and claimed a win on time. We had to consult the FIDE Laws of Chess. These state:
1. Resignation ends the game immediately (Article 5.1.2)
2. A player must make all his moves in the time allotted for the game (Article 6.3.1)
3. A flag is considered to have fallen when either player makes a valid claim to that effect (Article 6.8)
4. A player loses if he does not make all his prescribed moves in the allotted time, unless his opponent has already resigned (Article 6.9).

In this case, resignation preceded the win on time claim, so that had no effect. This affected the match result as it meant that Guildford 2 won 4–3 instead of losing 4–3.

Victory also for Guildford E in the Surrey Border League Division 5, who beat Bracknell A by 3–2 despite being outrated by nearly 150 points a board.

Mixed fortunes for Guildford teams in league competitions this week.

In the Surrey Border League Division 2 on Monday, Guildford B drew with Crowthorne B 2.5–2.5. Apparently one of the Guildford players was short of time and was no longer required to record the moves, having less than 5 minutes on his clock, and a Guildford spectator recorded the moves on his behalf. This prompted some discussion among the Crowthorne players at the A team match later in the week. The FIDE Laws of Chess do not make specific provision on whether such recording is allowed. But in other places the Laws clearly emphasise the importance of recording the moves, so this action by a spectator seemed to us to be within the spirit of the rules.

In the Surrey Border League Division 1 on Wednesday, Guildford A beat Crowthorne A 3.5–1.5. Another good win for Gwilym Price, who defeated FM Paul Cooksey (2316) on board 1. See the Games page where Gwilym has annotated this game. Mixed fortunes also for two of the other Crowthorne players, who won against their Guildford B opponents but lost against Guildford A two days later.

We fared worse in the Surrey League on Monday. In Division 3 (Ellam Trophy), Guildford 3 lost 0.5–5.5 to last year's runner's up Richmond. And in the Fred Manning Trophy, Guildford lost 1–3 to Wimbledon B.

Anyway. Early doors. Thanks to all our players for turning out this week.

Guildford teams came off second best in their encounters with Epsom last Monday.

In the Surrey League Division 1 (Surrey Trophy), Guildford 1 lost 3.5–4.5 to Epsom 1. The teams were evenly-matched in rating terms. We had to default bottom board following a late withdrawal and that made the difference. Our best result was Gwilym Price's win over Graeme Buckley on the black side of a Sicilian on top board.

If we had been playing home rather than away, we could easily have found an 8th player to complete the team. Away matches are always harder to select for. We were unable to fill the gap despite trying 15 players in the 24 hours before the match.

Home advantage did not help Guildford 4, who lost 1.5–3.5 to Epsom 4 in the Surrey League Division 4 (Epsom Trophy). Surprisingly, we did better on the lower boards despite being clearly out-rated.