MW 2/14, Monday 20th October 2025
| Wimbledon A | Ealing B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (b) | Russell Picot | 2211 | 1-0 | Tony Wells | 2016 |
| 2 (w) | Marcus Baker | 1978 | 0-1 | Xavier Cowan | 1911 |
| 3 (b) | Neil Cannon | 1949 | 0-1 | Rajinder Jhooti | 1761 |
| 4 (w) | Sean Ingle | 1882 | 1-0 | Joe Ramundo | 1562 |
| 5 (b) | John Deacon | 1866 | 1-0 | Neville Rowden | 1320 |
| 6 (w) | Gordon Rennie | 1793 | 1-0 | Aleksei Gorbonosov | 1418P |
| 4-2 |
The week after defeating one batch of Wombles, we then had to deal with the bigger brother. We kept it respectable and can move on with spirits still high.
Joe had recently started learning more classical openings and played the black side of the Slav today. However, some tactical problems arose on the queenside: the unfamiliarity with the position didn’t help him find a way to recover.
Raj: “Due to Diwali and Bhandi Chhor Diwas celebrations my strategy was to play quick, get into a repetitive position, offer a draw and leave for the celebratory invite. In the match, I managed to complete all my moves in 16 minutes, my opponent had a minute or so left. The game started as the Sicilian Dragon with me playing white, transposed to the Yugoslavian attack. On move 17 my opponent took my Knight on c3 with his R on c8. With his Q on a5 and bishops also pointing towards my king, castled queen side, I knew I had to be careful with my own attack on the king side. I held back on some of the preferred moves, which after analysis, were slightly better.” Play through his game below:
Aleksei: “I had an equal position until move 20 and then blundered (my opponent trapping my rook) for no reason”.
Neville: “Fortunately, I didn’t know the rating of my opponent before the game had started (sometimes it’s best not to know) but, with a 538 difference, I may have given up the ghost earlier on and gone home. However, it was a tight game and I had the feeling I could have won, especially as my opponent was running out of time when I still had 35 minutes on the clock. The critical move in the game was ironically after Black had made a blunder on move 16. White didn’t see this as a blunder and subsequently made an incredibly stupid move directly afterwards. White should have taken Black’s Bishop with the Queen (as Xavier had correctly seen when observing the game) which would have placed both of Black’s Rooks en prise. If White hadn’t blundered at this point, I think I would have had a spectacular victory and we would have taken a draw against a very strong Wimbledon team.”
Tony put up a good fight and chucked pawns at his opponent in an effort to open his king and generate counterplay, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough.
My game was an enormous slice of luck pie. I was up out of the opening but made the wrong choices thereafter and was outplayed entirely from that point. With myself on increments (shock) and my opponent operating pretty on 20 mins, I was waiting for the death knell. Instead, I got a free rook and the hand of resignation!
I was very impressed by the high standards upheld on all boards. Excellent work and everybody at some point caused issues for our respective higher rated opponents. Let us continue on our way with the return match against the Womble B’s who will no doubt be out for revenge.