Monday 13th October 2025, MW 1/14
| Wimbledon B | Ealing B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (b) | Owen Phillips | 1918 | 0-1 | Duncan Grassie | 1993 |
| 2 (w) | Sean Ingle | 1879 | 1-0 | Xavier Cowan | 1911 |
| 3 (b) | Gordon Rennie | 1804 | 0-1 | Alejandro Lopez-Martinez | 1861 |
| 4 (w) | John Polanyk | 1774 | 0.5-0.5 | Mark Winterbotham | 1821 |
| 5 (b) | Stephen Carpenter | 1744 | 0-1 | Simon Healeas | 1810 |
| 6 (w) | Omar Selim | 1505 | 0.5-0.5 | Joe Ramundo | 1561 |
| 2-4 |
The gong has sounded for another Thames Valley League season, a brutal 14 round slugfest. Last season was a success, but we started slowly with 3 straight losses. I was hoping for an improvement this time round and my wishes were certainly answered by the team.
The only casualty of the night on our end would end up being me as I arrived embarrassingly late for the game due to having been mislead by SWR on delays. My opponent had kindly waited for me and was keen on playing- I was certain that I wouldn’t even make it before the default time, such was the predicament with the train. We proceeded to conjure up an interesting game with a lot of complex tactics for both of us to navigate. My opponent however calmly sidestepped them and dealt a critical blow to my material count. A poor showing as my calculation of these tactics was utterly skewed- I was lucky not to lose sooner.
Joe then added half a point to our tally, closely followed by Alejandro who added a slick win to his recent portfolio.
Mark then followed with a solid draw: “I was black, played my usual insipid opening against e4, but by move 22 had equalised. With lots of pieces still on the board, a draw was agreed rather than entering a time scramble.”
Simon reports on his win that put the team in pole position: “As White, the opening afforded me a spatial advantage which yielded a small but enduring edge. After much manoeuvring and probing, this finally translated into the winning of a pawn on move 33 at which point we were both running into time trouble. With my opponent and I playing on increment, I managed to win a rook and minor piece endgame.”
“Managed to win” humbly skips the intense struggle Simon navigated on his quest to victory. He found his opponent’s knight a real bother with it winning some pawns off him and kicking his king around. Nonetheless, he calmly reassessed and figured out a method to control the knight manoeuvres whilst pushing his extra pawns through. It’s not easy to regain your grip after slipping on a slope, but who said it was easy to win a game of chess? Well done Simon.
Duncan wrapped up the win for us on his Ealing debut with a win of his own. He reflects: “Black was weakened a bit by his kingside advances (10…g5?!) but it took quite a lot to make it work and in particular I was pleased with the Queen manoeuvres from moves 21-27 to generate some weaknesses which the rook was able to exploit. I could have won a pawn on move 16 with Bxe4 and Nxh5 I believe”. Indeed he could’ve done with minimal risk against the king- the knight can retreat safely and hold the fort on g3.
A strong lineup for an away game does the business and so we go again next week against their A outfit. Let’s see what we can get out of it…