A single bright star in a dark Tornelo sky
By Hendon LOCL captain Andrew Medworth
Wednesday 20 January, 2021
Both Hendon teams were comprehensively beaten in the LOCL this evening, with seven of eight games ending in defeat, our worst result of the season so far.
In the Open section, our A team fielded a strong lineup, but came up against one of the top teams in the division in the Charlton Chess Addicks, led by an FM on Board 1 and an average rating over 2200.
| Hendon A | Hendon A | Charlton Chess Addicks | Charlton Chess Addicks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sacha Brozel | 2260 | 0 - 1 | FM Conor Murphy | 2395 | ||
| 2 | Rob Willmoth | 2200 | 0 - 1 | Gary Clark | 2230 | ||
| 3 | Alex Leslie | 2088 | 1 - 0 | Nick Briggs | 2148 | ||
| 4 | Jason Covey | 1990 | 0 - 1 | John Wager | 2058 | ||
| 1 - 3 | |||||||
On Board 4, Jason Covey went wrong at the end of the opening, losing a central pawn, with his knight in a vicious pin on the d-file, giving his opponent a clear advantage which he rapidly converted.
On Board 2, Rob Willmoth went wrong at a similar stage of the game, losing material to a strong kingside attack, with his queenside pieces undeveloped. It looked like he escaped just one pawn down, but his king remained vulnerable with his opponent having the bishop pair, and he soon lost a further exchange and got mated.
On Board 3, Alex Leslie managed to stop the rot for us by coming out on the winning side of a topsy-turvy Queen’s Indian in which the advantage changed hands several times.
Board 1 went right down to the wire in a nailbiting time scramble. Sacha had been worse for much of the game, but his opponent went wrong with very little time on the clock; unfortunately, Sacha could not capitalise, and the position liquidated to a queen ending, which was objectively level, but both players were essentially playing on increment. The queens were swapped off, and the resulting pawn ending was drawn, but it required a little more accuracy from Sacha than from his opponent, who reeled in the full point.
Here are some interesting and instructive moments from the match.
| Leslie,A | 1–0 | Briggs,N | |||||||||||||||||
 | London Online Chess League - Open2021 |  | |||||||||||||||||
In the U1825 division, our match looked a bit more even on paper, though we were outgraded on three out of four boards.
| Wimbledon B | Wimbledon B | Hendon B | Hendon B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Hughes | 1945 | 1 - 0 | David Amior | 1900 | ||
| 2 | Mike Williams | 1788 | 1 - 0 | Chris Rogal | 1803 | ||
| 3 | Andrew Blackburn | 1645 | 1 - 0 | David Lewis | 1465 | ||
| 4 | Martin Lake | 1465 | 1 - 0 | Stanley Jacobs | 1390 | ||
| 4 - 0 | |||||||
The evening got off to the worst possible start, as Chris Rogal, on the only board where we had a grading advantage, gave away a knight on move 12 and a bishop on move 14, and resigned.
David Amior was much worse out of the opening on Board 1, and his opponent converted a major piece ending two pawns up. Stanley also had a worse ending on Board 4, a pawn down with his opponent’s rook more active. That game ended in defeat as well.
David Lewis’s game was last to finish. It looked like David had survived a very bad position, but he missed an opportunity to liquidate some kingside pawns, and ended up getting run over by a central pawn roller, meaning the match ended in a whitewash.
Many thanks to all who played! There are now just three rounds left of the LOCL season; full schedule here. A new season should start in early March; we’ll supply more details when we have them.
| Blackburn,A | 1–0 | Lewis,D | |||||||||||||||||
| London Online Chess League - U18252021 | | |||||||||||||||||
You can find a list of all stories about the London Online Chess League here.