Ealing B			Harrow C
1	Simon Healeas	1822	1-0	Amit Midha	1734
2	Tony Braine	1677	1-0	Surjit Dhemrait	1590
3	Alastair Johnstone	1613	0-1	James Lyons	1586
4	Subas Subbaraj	1566	½-½	Haobo Yang	1454
5	Trevor Bates	1551	½-½	David Walker	1203
			3-2

Ealing B closed out their 2024-25 campaign with another win to cement a second place finish in Division 2.

To be honest, it should have been a much more comfortable victory but both Trevor and myself managed to throw away wins,

In my game, I had built up an essentially winning attack but, unable to find the killer blow and worrying that I might cede a draw from a three-time repetition, I suffered an egregious brain fade. While under no particular time pressure, I decided advancing a pawn was a good idea completely overlooking the fact that one of rooks was en prise!

Trevor also suffered, like his captain, “an egregious brain fade.” In an exciting game where he dominated play, Trevor had a clearly won position, up the exchange and a few pawns at move fifty when both players were then down to a minute or two on the clocks. With the ten second increment the game continued for a further 15-20 moves during which Trevor overlooked a fork where his Rook would have won an additional Bishop or Knight, another oversight where his opponent won a Rook for nothing following a fork on his King, and an almost lucky escape when Trevor forced a draw by repetition. Happily, a draw in this game – the last to finish – was enough to win the match. A loss would have drawn the match. Unfortunately, the moves after move 52 were not recorded by either player.

Subas was white in the Albin gambit of the classical Italian opening. As Subas reports: “Except for a one point lead with my opponent making an inaccurate 20th move and my own inaccurate follow-up on move 21 reducing the advantage, my moves in the main were evenly matched by my opponent response. In move 29 with my opponent going for a queen exchange the outcome was fairly clear. I offered a draw and it was duly accepted.”

Simon: “As White, my opponent played the main line against the Caro-Kann (1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5). A pawn sacrifice (16.g4!) generated powerful kingside play, resulting in my spending much of the game defending. Eventually I was relieved to reach a bishops of same colour ending with me having the extra pawn It proved surprisingly straightforward to win. “

Tony: “I played white in, I found out later, a Hungarian defence,  –  the Italian game with ..Be7 on move 3. This seemed passive and to be attacked so I pushed d4,  building pressure in the centre. Black countered on the queenside which probably wasn’t best as I advanced d, e and f pawns forcing black’s pieces onto the back ranks. Eventually the pressure won a pawn then a second one as queens were exchanged.  The endgame was a hard slog but, for once, I was patient, knowing my opponent as a tricky strong competitor to the end, and eventually converted the win.”