On Thursday, 16 October we travelled to the Cumberland Lawn Tennis Club to play Hendon’s second team. With one exception, they were more highly rated across all boards so started as favourites.
It was pleasing to welcome Natan to the team. Reflecting on his game, he comments: “Playing the black side of a Veresov, the position was effectively lost after move 10; from there I was mostly firefighting instead of improving my pieces. I miscalculated the exchange sac after a poorly-timed pawn push, and then got spooked by a potential knight fork which made me play passively. That said, the opposite-side castling made the game wild and fun. Overall, I was not satisfied with my standard of play and need to redeem myself!”
On board two, John’s Benko Gambit did not work out as planned and he found his king stranded in the centre. It was then subject to a strong attack which led to his resignation.
Our losing streak continued with my somewhat insipid performance. As Black, I faced the Botvinnik English which is characterised by an early e4 by White. The opening and early middlegame were fine but losing a central pawn led to me making a number of weak moves. Desperately resorting to tricks, my opponent wisely side-stepped them and finished off efficiently.
Alejandro is now firmly established in the team. He writes: “I played White in an Austrian attack. My opponent had some nice early pressure but we were equal for most of the game. In the end, we had seconds on our clock and one crucial blunder left my position in tatters.”
Thankfully Mark managed to get Ealing onto the scoreboard. He states: “As White I played the King’s Indian Attack against the e6-Sicilian. Sadly the attack never got going, while Black’s quick b5 and a5 led to a blocked queenside. My opponent made an error on move 31 and by the end I had a strong knight versus weak bishop. The engine shows it as clearly winning (+6) but with less than 30 seconds left for each player, a draw was agreed.”
The last to game to finish was Andrew’s. In his own words, “My game followed a modern “book” line in the French Winawer for 24 moves, reaching a wild position with a queen and rook each and exposed kings. Behind on the clock, I bailed out into a rook ending. My opponent missed a couple of chances to equalise. I won a pawn but missed two chances to prosecute my advantage, the game ending in R + P v R and a draw by the Philidor position.”
So, a heavy 5-1 defeat for Ealing against a likely promotion contender. Next up is Hendon’s third string against whom we are looking forward to doing much better.
| Hendon 2 | Rating | Result | Ealing 1 | Rating |
| Ethan Sanitt | 2169 | 0.5-0.5 | FM Andrew Harley | 2154 |
| Eric Eedle | 2013 | 1-0 | John Quinn | 2062 |
| Elliott Macneil | 1997 | 1-0 | Alejandro-Lopez Martinez | 1861 |
| David Amior | 1984 | 1-0 | Natan Acosta | 1914 |
| Avinash Reddy | 1941 | 0.5-0.5 | Mark Winterbotham | 1821 |
| Armaan Nilim | 1888 | 1-0 | Simon Healeas | 1810 |
| 5-1 |