Ealing B			Hatch End B
1	Xavier Cowan	1908	0-1	Eden Tomer	2167
2	Simon Healeas	1838	½-½	Paul Williams	1910
3	Matthew Georgiou	1810	1-0	Ken Muir	1773
4	Jason Obihara	1737	0-1	Alex Horwood	1597
5	Alastair Johnstone	1598	0-1	Mark Connor	1425
			1.5-3.5

Ealing B’s season came down to earth with a bump after this reverse.

My eyebrows raised when I saw the Hatch End team sheet, with 2167-rated Eden Tomer on board one, 250+ higher than Hatch End’s A team usual board one! Apparently this is compliant with the rules (which stipulate average team strength), but I strongly question whether it is consistent with the spirit of the rules.

Anyhow, we still started the game with a grading advantage on three of the boards.

First to finish was Matthew who continues his stellar form with a win on board three. “It was a Vienna Gambit with a fairly serious early error from my opponent early on (move 7.d4?). He later admitted that he missed 8…Qh4+ which causes him problems and gave me a strong lead. He played very quickly, which was a little off putting and I spent a lot of time in the opening which I wasn’t all that familiar with, I have to admit. My time seemed well spent though, given the error he made playing quickly. Here is a transcript of my game. “

However, parity was restored when Jason unexpectedly lost on board four.

Simon drew on board three. In his own words: “As White playing against the Queen’s Indian, I had the opportunity to get a slight edge with  14.Ne5 but instead chose the insipid Qc2. A level game ensued until a draw was agreed in an ending in which we each had a rook and 5 pawns. After the game, the computer showed that in the late middlegame Black could have won the exchange with a forcing combination – something we both missed.”

In my own game, I had established clear plus from the Black side of a Kings Indian before lapsing into a sequence of poor moves culminating in falling to a real sucker punch.

Xavier faced the CM on board one: “We got ourselves into an off-book Sicilian Grand Prix attack, which I attempted to slow down by playing a dubious h6-g5 pawn thrust. Nonetheless it ended up getting me a solid position and I thought I could push on from there, but he showed his ability by navigating his way out of a tricky middlegame to put me under pressure in the endgame. He admitted to me after the game that he was going to offer me a draw at one stage, but I played a slightly off colour move that changed his mind. In the end, he outplayed me in the rook endgame to hoover up some pawns for the win. Disappointing result, but ultimately I gave him a good game. “