MW 2/12, Thursday 15th October 2026
| Staines A | Ealing B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (b) | Jon Barnes | 1814 | 0.5-0.5 | Simon Healeas | 1869 |
| 2 (w) | Derek McGovern | 1787 | 0.5-0.5 | Raj Jhooti | 1757 |
| 3 (b) | David Bean | 1712 | 0-1 | Nimish Shah | 1705 |
| 4 (w) | Lee Neate | 1710 | 1-0 | Clive Lawrence | 1588 |
| 5 (b) | Alex McTavish | 1699 | 0.5-0.5 | Leslie Pringle | 1534 |
| 6 (w) | Kishan Zala | 1805P | 0.5-0.5 | Martin Loat | 1520 |
| 3-3 |
A first outing on the road was a decent showing to hold the well balanced Staines-folk, featuring four draws and one win apiece. The evening’s highlight would be Nimish earning his Ealing stripes with a debut win.
Leslie had a seesaw game that saw both sides squander advantages, leaving a draw a fair result. Leslie’s sharp middlegame awareness was nullified by his opponents plan of a mass piece exchange and an endgame fastrack. It was in this very endgame that he was let off the hook by Mr McTavish when it was -3 (adv for black), so escaping to a draw.
Simon: “I was White in a Stonewall Dutch (1.d4 f5 2.g3 Nf6 3.c4 c6 4.Nc3 e6 5.Bg2 d5). The opening yielded me a slight but enduring edge which unfortunately I couldn’t convert into anything meaningful. A little later Black pressed with the standard kingside attack of g5, g4, and h5. Somewhere in the middlegame I lost the thread whilst my opponent started to create threats, winning a pawn. With a distinct lack of pawn cover in front of his king, I decided to bail out with a perpetual check. Overall, it was a tough game which reminded me how difficult chess is.”
It’s somewhat of a fun fact that two of Ealing’s stalwarts were once of the former camp. Clive, being one, had a disappointing homecoming and fell to a miscalculation; the scourge of any carefully formulated plans. We have many times discussed the frustration that amasses from blowing promising positions with one slight error!
Martin did well to obtain a draw against a wildcard player (a high preliminary rating). Not bad after driving all the way from Portsmouth to make it!
Raj warned of early season rustiness, but did his part and held honours even for the team. His presence in the team is greatly appreciated after many strong showings last season.
Next up, another beatdown from our A team…