Recent Blitz and League results

By Andrew Medworth, Hendon Club Captain
Saturday 15 October, 2022

The Middlesex League is now underway, with two weeks of matches having taken place either side of our October blitz!

The League season kicked off on 29th September with Hendon 3 against Hendon Barnet Knights, which the junior team won by a large margin, Hendon 3 only gaining a single draw on top board.

Hendon 3 Hendon 3 Hendon Barnet Knights Hendon Barnet Knights
1
Amior, David
1884 ½ - ½
Borces, Randolf
2019
2
Pepe, Salvatore
1700 0 - 1
Bakacsi, Zsolt
1778
3
Ainscow, Faye
1621 0 - 1
Thatte, Nandinee
1600
4
Christidis, Athanasios
1533 0 - 1
Pang, Ethan
1583
5
Engelaityte, Evelina
1421 0 - 1
Michener, Max
1469
6
Dharan, Arjun Aditya
1366 0 - 1
Stus, Orest
1281
½ - 5½

It has to be said, though, that the match wasn’t as comfortable for the Knights as the scoreline made it look, with several games quite closely contested until the final stages.

The following week, our monthly FIDE Blitz took place, with a decent turnout of 28 players. Congratulations to Zafar Iqbal who won the tournament with a perfect score! Congratulations also to David Amior, who won the prize for top Hendon player with 4½/6 in third place.

Full standings:

  • 1: Zafar Iqbal (6/6)
  • 2: Kumar Advait Keerthi (5/6)
  • 3: David Amior (4½/6)
  • 4-7: Jonathan Rubeck, Harry Streeter, Martin Wylde, Domenico Napolitano (4/6)
  • 8-12: Mohammad Hossein Mozaffari, Gregory Mostyn, Anthony Bolchover, Orest Stus, Keerthi Kumar Manavalan (3½/6)
  • 13-17: Mark Hutchinson, Salvatore Pepe, Jean-Claude Sartenaer, Joshua Spybey, Davi Diniz Afonso (3/6)
  • 18-20: William Walshe, Jamie Corish, Damien Sobolevski (2½/6)
  • 21-24: Faye Ainscow, Maximo Pollack, Shahroch Bakhtar, Arun Mahtani (2/6)
  • 25: Alex Baroukh (1½/6)
  • 26-28: Felix Wedberg, Gul Kapur, Kristian Wedberg (1/6)

Full results available here.

Finally, to bring you completely up to date, on Thursday we had our first double match night of the season, with Hendon 1 facing traditional arch-rivals Hackney, and Hendon Barnet Knights hosting Kings Head 3.

We had to reshuffle the Hendon 1 lineup at the last minute when one player dropped out. Thanks to Barnet Knights for lending us Randolf Borces who slotted in for us on Board 3! The match was fairly close on paper, but Hackey seemed to have the edge, outgrading us on five out of six boards.

However, Jonathan won on Board 6 where we were the ratings favourite, and talented junior Nishchal Thatte pulled off a win on Board 2 as well. With Eugenia scoring a half point on Board 4 and Rob somehow drawing a terrible-looking rook ending on top board, we managed to tie an exciting match!

Hendon 1 Hendon 1 Hackney Hackney
1
Willmoth, Robert F
2219 ½ - ½
Bates, Richard A
2423
2
Thatte, Nishchal
2105 1 - 0
Eames, Robert S
2181
3
Borces, Randolf
2016 0 - 1
Serbanescu, Diana
2112
4
Karas, Eugenia
1854 ½ - ½
Robinson, Adam
1929
5
Amior, David
1895 0 - 1
Ciesielski, Marceli
1904
6
Rubeck, Jonathan
1880 1 - 0
Jones, Zebedee
1628
3 - 3

Meanwhile, I stepped in on Board 2 for Barnet Knights to make up the numbers. I played an awful game, losing with White in 27 moves, but thankfully the rest of the team was in better shape, and picked up enough points to win 4–2.

Hendon Barnet Knights Hendon Barnet Knights Kings Head 3 Kings Head 3
1
Bakacsi, Zsolt
1778 1 - 0
Tomkin, Neil D
1732
2
Medworth, Andrew
1805 0 - 1
Balatoni, Richard A
1685
3
Veselow, Zoe
1719 1 - 0
Grant-Ross, Peter
1694
4
Thatte, Nandinee
1621 0 - 1
Parfett, Gerald F
1626
5
Pang, Ethan
1583 1 - 0
Bonn, Doug M
1574
6
Stus, Orest
1576 1 - 0
Morton, Alistair T
1562
4 - 2

Many thanks to all who played! We look forward to the rest of the League season: there are plenty more matches to come, with 13 to go before Christmas!