Bd.	Ealing B	Gd.		Uxbridge B	Gd.
1	Xavier Cowan	1885	0-1	Gagan Bablu	2025
2	Jack Sheard	1860	1-0	Karanvir Singh	1811
3	Hristo Colov	1846	0-1	Daniel Knight	1845
4	Simon Healeas	1840	0-1	Gregory Barseguyan	1701
5	Alastair Johnstone	1590	½-½	Shlok Parakh	1707
			1½-3½

On a disappointing evening for the team, Ealing B fell to defeat against to an impressive Uxbridge B team who seem determined to secure the promotion place for DIv.2 this season.

Despite our fielding our strongest line-up of the season we simply couldn’t keep pace with the away team who have some fast-improving juniors in their ranks.

Three of the games finished quite early. According to Xavier his game was “interesting and very tactical. My opening play was a bit rugged resulting in slow development and an offside queen on a7 away from the battle. My opponent exploited this with an attack on my king removing the key f6 knight. I thought I had done enough to defend and had good counterplay to keep the position unbalanced and complex but I missed a nasty but subtle queen move which created an unanswerable threat of mate in 2 and, just like that, the game was over.”

Hristo also came unstuck on board 3 and Simon followed on 3. As simon explains: “As White against the Tarrasch (1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 c5 3.e3 d5 4.c4), the opening played out along conventional lines. However, I then chose the wrong plan, allowing an unpleasant pin on my king’s knight which led to the loss of the g-pawn. Clawing my way back into the game, equality was finally achieved by the late middlegame. I thought the draw was in sight but the weakness of my king position, largely because of the earlier loss of the g-pawn, meant I could not defend against two simultaneous mating threats. Much credit to my opponent who  pushed hard throughout for the win.

In my own game, I avoided punishment for some non-optimal early moves defending in an Alapin to reach an equal middlegame. In the endgame I had a R +3P v R+2P but, although Carlsen may have been able to convert the miniscule edge to a win I could not. As my opponent was running on fumes, I carried on playing until the 68th move when the draw was the only available outcome.

Last to finish was Jack who achieved our only win of the night on his debut for the team. In his own words: “In my game, White played a Reti-Benoni, and offered a Benko-style pawn sacrifice, only to end up in a positional bind himself. An extraneous bishop clogged White’s attack, and Black built queenside pressure, then moved to the centre. As the clocks ticked down, White, trussed up and desperate, hurled a pawn into the fire, then a knight, and finally a rook, freeing the position and exposing Black’s king. A time-trouble blunder saved White, who came out an exchange and two pawns up. With both sides on increment, White had to navigate a series of queen checks chasing his king up the board – but he escaped the threats, forced the queens off, and Black gracefully resigned.”

It looks as though our hopes for promotion can now be put to bed but we can still hope for a strong finish in our remaining matches.