Ealing B			West London
1	Alastair Johnstone	1590	0-1	Eldar Gasanov	2539
2	Clive Lawrence	1582	0-1	Andrea Navrotescu	2376
3	Daniel Lester	1547	0-1	Colum Jezierski	1975
4	Oscar Brown	1492	0-1	Andy Hayler	1918
5	Michael J Smith	1297	0-1	Russell Campbell	1799
			0-5

A much weakened Ealing B played hosts to West London in the Hillingdon KO in a proper David and Goliath clash. On this occasion however, the sling did not carry the day and we fell to a 5-0 defeat. I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in a more one-sided contest in my life. To be fair West London left a few of their other GMs at home but the rating difference here was still overwhelming.

Placed giddily at the top of the order I faced my first ever GM, the recently crowned UK Blitz champion, Eldar Gasanov. Let’s just say I stood fine out of the opening, a solid if unspectacular Four Knights Sicilian but after one inaccurate move my position incrementally weakened leading to an early resignation. No real fireworks just remorselessly accurate play. It was instructive to see how patiently he played taking time to check his options on every move even after my final fatal mistake. Death by slow strangulation.

Clive put up a decent fight on Board two against his WGM opponent but he succumbed at more or less the same time as myself. Daniel and Oscar also fell early but not without resistance. Michael was last to fall, holding parity until late in the middlegame when an unfortunate blunder sealed his fate.

Despite the defeat we live on in the Plate competition which of course we won last year. Details of who we face are not yet available.