On Monday, 12 October we travelled to the Greene Man pub in central London for our opening match of the Middlesex season. Our opponents, Albany, are now conveniently based at a new private and spacious venue next to Great Portland Street station. On paper they started clear favourites to win the match, as they out-rated us on all boards.

My game was the first to finish. As Black, my opponent transposed his Closed Catalan into a Stonewall Dutch with 10…f5. Following White’s thematic 16.e4, the game remained even before the point was split in an uneventful 22-move encounter.

Unfortunately there now followed 4 defeats in a row. On top board, Andrew, writes: “Thomas Rendle played an unusual move order with a French Burn Fort Knox combo (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 dxe4 5.Nxe4 Bd7) in the opening. I spent too much time deciding how to counter it, which was to cost me later. I got a good enough position, but then after some inaccuracies on both sides, I ended up practically forcing him to sacrifice an exchange for a pawn for him not to be worse. However, I had underestimated his compensation and allowed him to get a knight on d4, harassing my king with his rook and bishop, while my two rooks and bishop had less space to manoeuvre. Far behind on the clock, my position was getting very tricky to hold, and I fell to a snap mate in two at the end.”

In a similar vein, Jack too does not have good news to report. He notes: “In an offbeat Philidor, my opponent, as White, declined an endgame but then closed the centre, blocking his own bishop. I advanced on the flanks, sacrificing the b-pawn to mobilise pieces. However, White sacrificed the exchange to turn Black’s activity into precarity. Black did not find the secret passage to safety and lost a piece, then a second, forcing resignation.”

Duncan, as Black, for the first time faced the unusual 1.Nc3. In his own words: “I decided to counter it by expanding on the queenside and swapped two minor pieces for rook and c-pawn. This did not turn out well against an opponent who clearly had played this structure before. After queens were exchanged, a final valiant effort was attempted by trading off his remaining white queenside pawns for a knight in order to get my a and b-pawn rolling but against a strong opponent, this was thwarted.”

It is always pleasing to have Tony in the team but he faced a difficult night. He observes: “On the white side of a French McCutcheon, I played a sharp line where White offers up two pawns in exchange for making Black’s white-squared bishop even worse than normal in the French, plus a strong attack on the kingside. Sadly, my opponent didn’t venture into this territory and tried instead to undermine my central pawn structure. Computer analysis showed that I was worse for much of the middlegame.  However, one duff move by my opponent allowed me back into the game with a sharp attack against his uncastled king. Everything looked very promising, with my opponent showing palpable signs of stress in time trouble. But in the middle of a sharp line, he found an excellent defender-deflecting intermezzo that prevented a recapture. A piece down, I played on hoping to exploit his still-undeveloped queenside bishop and rook, but they eventually escaped and the game was lost.”

The final game to finish was Jonathan’s in which he demonstrated the danger he poses to strong opposition, even when being acutely short of time. He states: “Much of my game was steady and equal. Playing the black side of a Leningrad Dutch, I was able to swap off some pieces and find good squares for others, including an outpost for my knight on c5. Both of us castled queenside; his plan was to sacrifice the exchange on c5. Unfortunately I missed a brief opportunity to win a piece for free, despite having seen the idea several moves before. This allowed him to develop an attack, and I soon had to give up my queen to survive. The one reason for me to carry on playing was that his king was boxed in and a rook check could be fatal. And so it came to pass: he chased my king around with queen and knight as we played on the increment until I finally found a safe square at his end of the board; he then lost on time trying to work out whether he could prevent one of my two rooks from delivering the mate.”

So, a comfortable win for Albany. Not the start to the season we wished for but, nevertheless, good to be playing first division chess again.

Albany	Rating	Result	Ealing One	Rating
IM Tom Rendle	2442	1-0	FM Andrew Harley	2145
Adilson Mata	2144	0-1	Jonathan White	2002
Marcus Osborne	2137	1-0	Tony Wells	1984
Ben Keohane	2091	1-0	Duncan Grassie	1942
Vincent Sagues	2042	0.5-0.5	Simon Healeas	1864
Robert Stern	1997	1-0	Jack Sheard	1861
		4.5-1.5