Alan reports: "I played badly. I was White in an opening I know well. I got tangled up on the Queen-side, almost equalised and then touched the wrong piece. Ouch!"

Leon's summary: "White played the Polish opening 1.b4 and expanded quickly on the Queen-side. The pawns soon became locked and after some positional manoeuvring and a pawn break, White pushed a passed pawn that was costly to stop. There was some excitement after move 37 when both sides pushed passed pawns, but the race ended when both were captured one square from promotion. At move 51, Black's King was cut off from White's 2 v 1 pawn majority on the Queenside and Black resigned. Despite the outcome this was a very enjoyable game."

After a fairly balanced opening John offered an exchange of queens to neutralise Ed’s only apparent threat. To quote him, this proved to be a major misjudgement as the pawn structure in front of his King was broken up. Ed grabbed a pawn and after the pieces came off the board he was able to grind out a win with careful play.

Carolus' dad writes "Simon played the King's Gambit and Carolus accepted the pawn and managed to attack the c3 knight. Simon sacrificed his Queen’s rook and his light squared bishop to attack Carolus' King side. Carolus missed two opportunities to exchange Queens on Move 18 and 20 and resigned after blundering his Queen on move 24."

Gregory Sumner