Harrow C			Ealing B
1	Amit Midha	1781	½-½	Xavier Cowan	1866
2	Surjit Dhemrait	1618	0-1	Simon Healeas	1836
3	Default		0-1	Matthew Georgiou	1820
4	Addis Diazinon		1-0	Tony Braine	1719
5	David Walker	1233	0-1	Alastair Johnstone	1593
			1½-3½

Ealing B returned to winning ways with a solid performance against Harrow’s C team.

We started with a default win for Matthew on board 3. It later transpired that the defaulting player had been mustered into Harrow B’s line-up further up the hall! Despite there being numerous candidates, no attempt was made to field in a substitute.

In my own game, courtesy of a gifted piece, I had a straightforward task to double Ealing’s lead, mating on move 23.

Tony however encountered resistance on board 4. Playing the Scandinavian as Black, he was unable to staunch White’s rolling pawn attack and resigned when the coronation of a new queen became inevitable.

Simon accurately negotiated his way to a win that secured the match point, calmly advancing his king side pawns to set up irrefutable threats.

As usual, Xavier’s game went to the wire. Black defended well, resisting all attempts to make a break through. In the final stages, played on increments, accurate play was required to prevent Black from taking an advantage. Fortunately Xavier is strong under time pressure and he found the right moves before agreeing a draw.

The win takes us back to the top of the table level with Uxbridge B but we have played two games more. All our remaining matches are at home.