Mixed fortunes on match night thirteen
By Hendon LOCL captain Andrew Medworth
Wednesday 27 January, 2021
Match night 13 in the London Online Chess League brought a famous victory for Hendon A against a very strong Streatham & Brixton A side!
Hendon B lost to Cavendish B.
| Streatham & Brixton A | Streatham & Brixton A | Hendon A | Hendon A | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Venkat Tiruchirapalli | 2328 | ½ - ½ | Rob Willmoth | 2200 | ||
| 2 | John Carlin | 2275 | 0 - 1 | Alex Leslie | 2088 | ||
| 3 | Graham Keane | 2193 | 0 - 1 | Savas Marin Stoica | 2043 | ||
| 4 | John Hodgson | 2103 | 0 - 1 | David Amior | 1900 | ||
| ½ - 3½ | |||||||
In our Open Division match, Board 1 kicked off in a bizarre fashion when Rob Willmoth’s opponent decided to play 1. a3 followed by 2. h4! Rob had an excellent position for most of the game, but got behind on the clock, and decided to offer his opponent a draw in a position where he still had the upper hand.
On Boards 2 and 3, our juniors Alex and Savas both achieved superb positional wins against strong opponents! Alex got a great position out of the opening when he managed to force through e2-e4 against his opponent’s Classical Dutch, and he showed great technique to simply crush the life out of an opponent of near-FM strength.
Savas also came out of the opening very well in a sharp London system, and traded advantages very effectively, landing an unassailable “octopus knight” on d3 against a shockingly bad dark-squared bishop. Savas penetrated on the b-file and forced his queenside pawns through to complete another very one-sided victory.
We’d already won the match, but David Amior ensured we romped home by winning a topsy-turvy encounter in the Jobava London System. The advantage changed hands a few times in a double-edged position, with both sides launching pawn storms on opposite sides of the board, but David’s opponent missed the best way to continue his attack, and David brought home the full point by closing out yet another rook ending!
With our opponents outgrading us on all boards by an average of 167 points, this is one of our results of the season! Alex and Savas are clearly now much stronger than their paper grades suggest, but nonetheless, this was a great win against a very strong team - congratulations to the players!
| Leslie,A | 1–0 | Carlin,J | |||||||||||||||||
 | London Online Chess League - Open2021 | | |||||||||||||||||
Unfortunately Hendon B were not able to overcome similar odds in the U1825 Division, going down 3-1 to Cavendish B.
| Hendon B | Hendon B | Cavendish B | Cavendish B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthony Kent | 1750 | ½ - ½ | Philip Gregory | 1915 | ||
| 2 | Gul Kapur | 1533 | ½ - ½ | Ricardo Velasco | 1765 | ||
| 3 | Tony Artman | 1400 | 0 - 1 | Ben Finn | 1578 | ||
| 4 | Dev Ranka | 1270 | 0 - 1 | Tim Cowen | |||
| 1 - 3 | |||||||
On Board 1, Anthony Kent drew with the strong Cavendish Board 1, having had a very good position; he could have won the game on another day.
Gul also achieved a very respectable draw on Board 2, having had a decent position for the vast majority of the game, though his opponent missed a very good chance in the final position, with both players low on time.
On Boards 3 and 4, Tony and Dev hung a piece each, and their opponents duly took advantage.
Thanks to both teams for playing! There are just two more match nights left of this season. Full schedule is here.
You can find a list of all stories about the London Online Chess League here.