Newark suffered defeat to local neighbours Grantham by a narrow 3-2 margin in Notts League Division One.
The first game to finish saw Richard Myers lose his queen in a complicated position in the middle game. The material gained was insufficient compensation to generate any counter-play.
An early pawn advance by Grantham player Francis Bower created a very open game against Graham Ladds, who managed to contain the position, taking a draw after 21 moves.
Newark suffered a second loss when Keith Aiton got a knight trapped in an advanced position and the piece could not retreat to a safe square.
Alex Combie pressed hard in the endgame against Andy Hebert, but could not convert his pawn advantage in a rook and pawn ending and had to be content with a draw.
The last game to finish gave Newark their only win in the match when David Coates defeated former Newark player Paul Cumbers. In a very interesting game, Paul could not make headway with his king side attack, and later in the game David gained a passed pawn in play on the queen side. This gave him a winning advantage as both players started to get short of time.
At the half way stage of the season the team have gained 3 wins from their 7 matches, leaving Newark 1 fifth in the first division.