In a crucial match against last season’s champions Ealing, our 1st team came out comfortable 6½-1½ winners. With 3 matches remaining, the Lions thus keep their position as front-runners in Division 1 of the Middlesex League.
| Hendon 1 | Hendon 1 | Ealing A | Ealing A | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | D'Costa, Lorin AR | 229 | 1 - 0 | Perkins, Alan H | 194 | ||
| 2 | Summerscale, Aaron P | 220 | 1 - 0 | Stanisic, Velko | 188 | ||
| 3 | Buchicchio, Giampaolo | 2284F | 1 - 0 | Ociepka, Adrian | 183 | ||
| 4 | Mures, Cristian | 199 | 1 - 0 | Randall, Simon | 183 | ||
| 5 | Eden, Tomer | 195 | 1 - 0 | Ebbett, David | 184 | ||
| 6 | Raoof, Adam N | 185 | ½ - ½ | Smith, Martin | 180 | ||
| 7 | Ellis, Daniel | 179 | 1 - 0 | Tserendorj, Sainbayar | 174 | ||
| 8 | du Buf, Paul | - | 0 - 1 | Lamb, H Michael | 171 | ||
| 6½ - 1½ | |||||||
Match report by Dan Ellis
The Lions’ roar echoed through the Middlesex League Division 1 last night with a resounding win over Ealing. Their prey – the league championship – is now within their sights having been carefully stalked from the start of the season. One false move though and it will slip away like a hyena laughing in the wind.
Lorin D’Costa reached an instructive endgame position with four bishops on board and a couple of rooks. Ultimately the dominant position of his rook on the 7th rank proved good enough, and Lorin was able to decisively penetrate with his king in to the belly of black’s queenside pawn structure.
Aaron Summerscale seemed to simply outcalculate his opponent with black when the game reached its critical moment in the middle game. It was the cheeky mating threats that proved white’s undoing as he lost a couple of pawns and was unable to prevent black rooks getting through and then doubling on first the 7th rank and then the 8th.
‘The Don’ Buchicchio as he is swiftly becoming known (by Dan! – ed) provided another cool – seemingly effortless – performance on the next board. He surprised his opponent after 1.e4 e5 with 2. Ne2 and it seems his opponent failed to find the best response and actually played in to white’s hands after going into a line with Bb4. Some neat tactics at the end picked up the exchange and ensured the win.
Cristian played creatively as usual, putting his opponent on the back foot after his move 2…d5!, putting the question to white’s unsuspecting e-pawn. The game looked fairly equal but the wily Mures found a way (as usual) to sneak the win from thin air.
Tomer cruised to victory in customary positional style, patiently outmanoeuvring his opponent and eventually reaching a decisive material advantage.
Adam reached a comfortable and active position with black but did not have a clear advantage when a draw was agreed against his tough opponent. Captain Marvellous held on to his unbeaten record for the season (8.5/11) and was looking very solid as usual.
I managed to win my game against a tough defensively-minded opponent. I did this by following the advice of Emmanuel Lasker in his book Common Sense in Chess: occupy the centre, develop the knights, then the bishops, then castle and connect the rooks, then play a middlegame, then win. I think this is good advice by any standards. So it proved, as my centralised pieces were more active and eventually crashed through against an uncastled black king after a late pawn break with c4.
On board 8, Paul slipped to an unlucky loss in a tight tactical struggle with chances for both sides. Playing black for the 8th time in a row, Paul was unable to assume the initiative that he enjoys playing with so much.
The final score then was 6½-1½. A sparkling win, and a match in which it was a pleasure to participate.