MW 5/14, Monday 1st December 2025
| Hounslow A | Ealing B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (b) | Mateusz Dydak | 2004 | 0.5-0.5 | Xavier Cowan | 1902 |
| 2 (w) | Sesh Vaddadi | 1967 | 0.5-0.5 | Simon Healeas | 1841 |
| 3 (b) | David White | 1749 | 0.5-0.5 | Matthew Georgiou | 1822 |
| 4 (w) | Leon Fincham | 1705 | 0-1 | Raj Jhooti | 1770 |
| 5 (b) | JJ Padam | 1711 | 0-1 | Jan Corpus | 1638 |
| 6 (w) | Herby Ferris | 1645 | 1-0 | Aleksei Gorbonosov | 1400 |
| 2.5-3.5 |
The Ealing Boys didn’t mess around and claimed a 3rd away win from a possible 4 on a miserable wet night in Hounslow.
Simon states “As Black, I played the Petroff in which my opponent secured a stable and enduring edge in return for my easy piece development. By the late middle-game with level material and a balanced position, I offered a draw which was accepted.”
With Matthew drawing, the heads turned towards the bottom boards.
Aleksei had a tough time defending a kingside attack and succumbed, but we got success with Jan soon after to level the match (to my disbelief when I saw his position earlier!).
Jan: “We started with Vienna, with e4 and f4. And after both castled king side, I start attacking the king which led to the h file open, I lined up my rook and queen in H file but he made a counter play with his q to a2 and rook already in d2. After several moves I ended up down 2 material and was about to resign but he blundered his queen with Q – b2 with my queen on d4 and king on e5. Really got lucky on that one!”
My opponent and I had locked horns three times prior, and unusually for me all three occasions featured draws. I rarely draw (once every 30 games if I had to provide an estimate), so the fact I had drawn every game with Mr Dydak was rather bizarre. And unbelievably, it was drawn once more. I promise it’s not done on purpose; I was trying to win with my extra pawn but it was met with excellent defence. At this point in the match, Raj appeared to be winning so it was not worth me pursuing anything more at risk of the team result.
Meanwhile, Raj was playing a very intriguing game against Leon Fincham who is still a very capable player after many years in the game. After bettering a tactical melee, it took the rest of the evening to whittle down to a R vs N endgame and finally earn a win with an extra pawn on the a-file. Another superb display from Raj despite the pressure of the guillotine time format and match position.