Played 18 January
Making use of a Tuesday with only a 4 board Essex Minor match in the calendar, Krishna Raikundalia devised and ran a very different kind of handicap tournament from that with which our members are familiar. The handicap was that the stronger player had to play an assigned gambit and the greater the rating differential the more unsound the gambit (though not always as risky).
During the course of the evening the following gambits featured: Beliavski; Blackburn; Blackmar-Diemar; Boden-Keinitski; Danish; Englund; Geller/Tolush; Goring; Halloween; Henning-Schara; Irish; Jerome; Locock; Matinovski or Hoschnnap; and Stafford.
Pairings were by Vega on the small screen though colour alternation sometimes came second to gambit allocation in this 7 round G8 Swiss tournament. 12 players participated during the course of the event, with class holding out (despite the gambits played) with Ashley Freeman winning on 6½. His only ½ point dropped was to second place Philip Staniland.