Stockport B 3.5 - 2.5 ECA

We made the trip to the Ladybrook last night protecting our 100% record but just got edged out under the bright floodlights.

Andy Coe (142)  1 - 0  John
This was the last match to finish and as it happened decided the match.  John seemed to be doing OK but unfortunately it petered out into a lost R+P endgame

Gareth Griffiths (142)  0 - 1  Keven
Kev seems to be enjoying playing with black these days and with his swashbuckling French he offered a couple of pawns in return for open files for his heavy pieces to plough in for a nice win.

Jeff Mason (137)  1 - 0  Jim
The in form Jim came across a player who used to be graded much higher and took this right to the wire in a game that could have gone either way.

Peter Taylor (129)  0 - 1  Paul
Against a London system I took the poisoned b pawn early on and managed to withstand a threatening kingside attack before I was able to gain more material and go on to win in a tense game.

Ian Anderson (115)  1/2  Nick
Against the tricky Sniper system Nick was able to equalize and claim a fairly quick draw.

John Kelly (98)  1 - 0  Tudor 
After about half an hour of this game Tudor noticed that his clock was moving but his opponent's wasn't.  This may have unsettled Tudor a bit and wasn't able to find his usual form against an albeit tricky opponent.

So that was our first loss of the season but we're still sitting pretty at the top of the tree going into the Christmas break.