On Monday, 25 November we welcomed Hendon to the Actonians for a first division Middlesex match. In the fortunate position of out-rating our opponents on all boards, Ealing started the match as favourites to win.
Our top two boards gave us a solid start by both drawing in 20 moves. Alan writes: “I was White, reaching by transposition a variation of the Semi-Slav in which I remember achieving a nice win in 1987. He surprised me with the dodgy-looking 10…f5 and 11…e5, striking in the centre, but creating weaknesses and delaying development. After a long think I found a strong response and on move 14 we reached a critical position. I could have won a pawn with a winning position if I had found a neat tactic, but didn’t. On my database the position occurs in 59 games and 46 of the white players found the correct move, the most famous of them being Korchnoi in a 1998 game. As the game progressed I had a small advantage but couldn’t see how to make progress. I accepted his draw offer, each having queen, rook, bishop and 6 pawns.”
Andrew played the black side of a French Tarrasch with 3…c5; White swapping queens to get a slight edge before splitting the point.
Reflecting on his game, Mark states: “I got the advantage in the opening (a Philidor exchange) and by move 24 was +2.7 until I successfully found the route to defeat with a horrible blunder which led to mate or exchanging queen for just a knight, so resigned on move 25.”
It was good to see Martin returning to the team after a short absence. He comments: “I was Black in a Chigorin Defence and, as expected, ceded the centre in exchange for active piece play. White castled short and put his queen in front of his kingside pawns which gave me an opportunity to castle long and advance on the kingside with initiative. White tried to develop a queenside attack, but my kingside attack arrived first and was enough to win.”
On board four Jonathan resisted the temptation to get sucked in and play as quickly as his opponent. He reviews his game thus: “My opponent banged out his moves as though we were playing online blitz. The effect was that I was quickly 30 minutes down on the clock, and the exchange and a pawn up on the board. I managed to swap off queens, and then one piece after another. He resigned in a lost endgame.”
My game was the last to finish. Despite having missed an earlier opportunity to gain a winning advantage with 23.a6, I entered the ending an exchange up which was duly converted.
So, we won the match 4-2 with the rating differential been made to count.
| Ealing A | Rating | Result | Hendon A | Rating |
| FM Andrew Harley | 2169 | ½-½ | Gary Senior | 2078 |
| Alan Perkins | 2152 | ½-½ | Eric Eedle | 2018 |
| Martin Smith | 2135 | 1 – 0 | Meet Shah | 1957 |
| Jonathan White | 1997 | 1 – 0 | Jonathan Rubeck | 1899 |
| Mark Winterbotham | 1883 | 0 – 1 | Jeane-Claude Sartenaer | 1818 |
| Simon Healeas | 1851 | 1 – 0 | Sundip Tailor | 1562 |
| 4 – 2 |