| Board | Rating | Bedford A | V | Luton A | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2119 | Ledger, Stephen C | 1 – 0 | Hudson, Julian | 1998 |
| 2 | 2117 | Gardner, James | 0 – 1 | O’Brien, Thomas P | 1914 |
| 3 | 2046 | Arulnandhy, Ravi | 1 – 0 | Onyeji, Eustace | 0000 |
| 4 | 2035 | Collacott, Nick | 1 – 0 | Ozdemir, Kamil | 1661 |
| 5 | 2043 | Dairi, Ramsey | 1 – 0 | MacDonald, Thomas | 0000 |
| Total | 10360 | 4 – 1 | 5573 |
Bedford A opened their 2025-2026 Beds League campaign with a comfortable 4-1 win against Luton A.
I didn’t see a whole lot of the other games and, unusually, all the games were wrapped up by 22:00 but from what I could round up …
Nick was first to finish on board 4. Attempting to shake off the usual summer break rust he built up a nice space advantage on the Q-side, with his opponents b7 Bishop wedged in behind a wall of pawns. At the early key point, black could have battled back to equality but missed his opportunity and then, obligingly, walked straight into a none too subtle trap and, faced with considerable material loss, duly resigned.
Ravi, on bd 3, also claimed to be trying to shake off some off-season rust but seemed to win comfortably enough when his opponent missed a tactic and dropped a piece for not a whole lot of compensation.
Ramsey then wrapped up the points for us for on board 5 as he steadily outplayed his opponent and bought home the bacon.
I was fairly pleased with my own season opener, a fairly smooth and controlled win. See game below.
Luton did manage to avoid the whitewash when James let a very good position slip away in time trouble. See game below.
J.Hudson V S.Ledger
The previous two blacks I’ve had against Julian he tried 1. e4 and 1. Nf3 so what shall we try this time ……. I know, 1.g3 so :
J Gardner vs T O’Brien
Next up, Bedford A V Bedford B on 16th October 🙂
Steve Ledger, 12/10/2025.