After Surbiton won this event last season (photo from last year blatantly shown again above!) here is a report on this season's campaign by captain Olli Gill.

"Surbiton came third in the 2020 London Regional Qualifier on 1st December 2018. It was a much stronger field than last season, with some teams fielding International Masters, so we did well to score four wins from our five matches. My thanks to the rest of the team, all of whom pulled together for a solid result. Our main task was qualifying for the 2020 National Final again, which we did comfortably. The qualifier crosstable is below. Our team was comprised of: Mark Josse, Chris Briscoe, Jasper Tambini and Oliver Gill.

The National Final was on Saturday 2 February 2019, at Birmingham University as last year. Our board order was as follows:

1. Steven Jones

2. Chris Briscoe

3. Jasper Tambini

4. Oliver Gill

We came 5th overall, only losing to the teams that ultimately ended up coming first and second. One point of note - the winners (Imperial University), featuring three International Masters, not only won all of their matches in the Final, but only dropped half a game point in the whole tournament. That was on their top board, against none other than Steven Jones (in some esoteric line of the Caro Kann), so a cracking effort by Steven to ruin what otherwise would have been a perfect score!"