The Chestrels' good start to the year came to an abrupt end away to the Tiger Cubs, as we were well beaten.

Sadly, defaulting on boards two and five left us without much hope in this match.

Ally Forrester quickly set about trying to help us upset the odds, continuing his good run of form by outplaying his opponent to achieve a winning endgame.

The next game to finish was Isaac Browning's, where a dubious piece sacrifice had left him in an apparently hopeless position, with just two pawns for a knight, and no compensation. However, his opponent erred by taking a seemingly free pawn, only to realise that now white would have a perpetual, as black would lose back the piece if he didn't repeat the position.

Lee Bishop's game was a real rollercoaster, with chances ebbing and flowing between the two sides. However, in the end, black came out ahead, after a hallucination by Lee in his calculation sadly left him down the exchange twice over, with all hope gone.

Captain Chris Hampton also had chances to win, but wasn't able to convert his positional advantage into anything concrete. In mutual time trouble, Chris blinked first, blundering a pawn, then the exchange, leaving him in a totally lost position.

This was a very disappointing match, but the show moves on to the home game against Musselburgh on February 18th.