Monday 17th March 2025, MW 10/14
| EALING B | Surbiton B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (b) | Xavier Cowan | 1886 | 1-0 | Paul Dupré | 1941 |
| 2 (w) | Mark Winterbotham | 1847 | 0.5-0.5 | CM Nick Faulks | 1918 |
| 3 (b) | Matthew Georgiou | 1828 | 0.5-0.5 | Graham Alcock | 1891 |
| 4 (w) | Simon Healeas | 1812 | 1-0 | Paul Durrant | 1762 |
| 5 (b) | Guiseppe Joe Ramundo | 1509 | 0-1 | Malcolm Groom | 1702 |
| 6 (w) | Aleksei Garifov | 1375P | 0-1 | Dominic Tang | U |
| 3-3 |
The premise of tonight was any result other than a loss would confirm safety with 4 matches to spare.
Aleksei was the first to finish as he felt the force of an opponent with rating masked by youth. It was close throughout, but he then lost two crucial queenside pawns and was unable to recover from that.
We went 2-0 down when Joe also lost- I didn’t catch any of the events but the pressure was now on the rest of us to take back some ground.
Matthew continued playing in his strong vein of form and was solid throughout, as was his opposite number. A draw was agreed after neither felt there was anything to give over a couple of open files and symmetrical pawn structures.
Simon got us a key win with nicely executed attack in his favoured Catalan to bring us within a point at 1.5-2.5.
Mark had the biggest dilemma of the evening. With the score as it was, he was torn between playing on for a win or accepting the draw offer from the Surbiton captain Nick Faulks. Mark had survived early pressure and was beginning to assert himself in the game. The draw offer had come at that point where perhaps the tide could turn, but there was still enough activity for both sides for the game to remain in the balance. Meanwhile, I was about to go two exchanges up on the board adjacent. After about 5 minutes of frowning, a draw was agreed leaving me to just convert from here onward to draw us the match.
Did I convert? Yes. Was it undeserved? Probably. Most of my time scrambles do often have a swindley feeling to them. Paul had done well to generate counterplay and put me on the back foot despite his material disadvatange. I noticed he had set a perpetual check trap which, with me needing a win to tie the match, would’ve been disastrous. Unfortunately, I misjudged it and had to sack some pieces back to reach the position below.
I had a sequence of queen checks that could get me out of the trouble of Qxf7+, but I realised white could draw if he puts his king on the right squares to avoid me recapturing the knight on d4 with check, much to my horror. The game then fortunately continued 38… Qb4+ 39. Kc2 Qa4+ 40. Nb3 (ouch) Qa2+ 0-1. The rather tricky drawing line is 40. Kb1! Qd1+ 41. Ka2 Qa4+ 42. Kb1 and black can make no progress. Luckily for me, we were both in increment territory and white had the harder sequence of moves to find.
Mission accomplished! With safety secured, attention can turn to ending the season positively with an attempt to gain a mid-table finish as posed at the beginning of the season.