A lot has happened since our last results update – six Middlesex League matches and the April Blitz – so I thought I’d do a quick round-up of what’s been happening.
On 26th March, Hendon 3 visited the Chiswick Town Hall to face runaway Division 2 leaders West London.
As I’ve written previously, West London are fielding absurdly strong teams this year. In this context, Hendon 3 captain Sundip Tailor very sensibly reached out to his counterpart in advance to share the rating range of our team, and thereby persuaded him to leave out some of the very strongest players at his disposal.
Even so, the team was out-rated by over 500 Elo points on average, and on top of that, lost a point by default due to a late withdrawal. In these circumstances, the team’s 4–2 defeat is actually an excellent result, with a very fine win for Vasileios Kollias on Board 2 and draws for Gul Kapur and Ronak Bansal.
| West London 1 | West London 1 | Hendon 3 | Hendon 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yao, Lan | 2355 | 1 - 0 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1783 | ||
| 2 | Burke, John | 2000 | 0 - 1 | Kollias, Vasileios | 1674 | ||
| 3 | Bass, John W | 1952 | 1 - 0 | Tailor, Sundip | 1567 | ||
| 4 | Jezierski, Colum | 1921 | ½ - ½ | Kapur, Gul | 1473 | ||
| 5 | Hayler, Andrew | 1947 | ½ - ½ | Bansal, Ronak | 1080 | ||
| 6 | WALKOVER | 1 - 0 | DEFAULT | ||||
| 4 - 2 | |||||||
The Division 2 table looks pretty ludicrous at the time of writing, with West London at the top on 13 match points out of 13, and Kings Head 2 in second place with just 5½, less than half their total!
Speaking of Kings Head 2, the following day, Hendon 2 faced them at home. This match was more balanced, but we were still out-rated by 134 points on average. Again, the team did very well, with Rahil and Peter winning on Boards 5 and 6 and Armaan and Robert holding higher-rated opponents on the top two boards to achieve a 3–3 match tie.
| Hendon 2 | Hendon 2 | Kings Head 2 | Kings Head 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nilim, Armaan | 1897 | ½ - ½ | Fleming, Nigel | 2069 | ||
| 2 | Alster, Robert | 1875 | ½ - ½ | Mackenzie, Colin | 2026 | ||
| 3 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1783 | 0 - 1 | Herring, Sam AC | 2012 | ||
| 4 | McLean, Rory | 1768 | 0 - 1 | Inzani, MPL | 1984 | ||
| 5 | Babariya, Rahil | 1759 | 1 - 0 | Bourke, Alex | 1833 | ||
| 6 | Hazell, Peter | 1750 | 1 - 0 | Chantrell, Paul | 1709 | ||
| 3 - 3 | |||||||
Next, Hendon 4 made the long trip to Ealing on 31st March. Here the outcome wasn’t quite so good: the teams were fairly balanced on paper, but our opponents edged us out 3½–2½. Interestingly, every game was won by Black except for a draw on Board 6… but unfortunately we were White on the odd-numbered boards!
| Ealing 2 | Ealing 2 | Hendon 4 | Hendon 4 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sevi, Yoel | 1763 | 1 - 0 | McLean, Rory | 1768 | ||
| 2 | Tan, Kayden | 1598 | 0 - 1 | Rogal, Christopher | 1707 | ||
| 3 | Lawrence, Clive | 1583 | 1 - 0 | Sriram, Gautam | 1679 | ||
| 4 | Johnstone, Alistair | 1592 | 0 - 1 | Kollias, Vasileios | 1674 | ||
| 5 | Pringle, Leslie | 1587 | 1 - 0 | Gordon, Marcus | 1397 | ||
| 6 | Cacciola, Salvatore | 1563 | ½ - ½ | Katzel, Yehuda | 1331 | ||
| 3½ - 2½ | |||||||
On 3rd April, our monthly blitz tournament took place at the Cumberland Club. I’ve long wanted to see more Hendon members winning this event, and it seems this season I’m getting my wish! This time young Lion Lebedev took clear first place with 5½/6, and three more Hendon members (Mohammad Hossein Mozaffari, David Amior and Jonathan Rubeck) in second! Congratulations to them!
Full standings:
Full results available here.
Turning attention back to the League, on 8th April our junior team Hendon Barnet Knights visited Muswell Hill, scoring an excellent 4½–1½ win despite defaulting a board!
| Muswell Hill 2 | Muswell Hill 2 | Hendon Barnet Knights Juniors | Hendon Barnet Knights Juniors | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ceder, Fredrik | 1975 | 0 - 1 | Bablu, Gagan | 2014 | ||
| 2 | Bush, Jason | 1645 | ½ - ½ | Horan, George | 1952 | ||
| 3 | Brougham, Simon B | 1639 | 0 - 1 | Hill, Callum | 1670 | ||
| 4 | Guinness, N | 1601 | 0 - 1 | Ben-Eshak, Djad | 1468 | ||
| 5 | Virk, Amar | 1478 | 0 - 1 | Gordon, Marcus | 1408 | ||
| 6 | WALKOVER | 1 - 0 | DEFAULT | ||||
| 1½ - 4½ | |||||||
To bring you fully up to date, on Thursday we had a pair of home matches, with Hendon 1 and Hendon 4 in action against Muswell Hill 1 and Harrow 2 respectively.
Unfortunately Hendon 1 were somewhat under strength, which is not ideal when facing the Division 1 leaders; out-rated by an average of 200 Elo points, we were only able to score a single draw, with Armaan Nilim very creditably holding an opponent rated 239 points higher.
| Hendon 1 | Hendon 1 | Muswell Hill 1 | Muswell Hill 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Willmoth, Robert Frederick | 2248 | 0 - 1 | Badacsonyi, Stanley | 2437 | ||
| 2 | Senior, Gary | 2078 | 0 - 1 | Healey, M | 2268 | ||
| 3 | Amior, David | 1957 | 0 - 1 | Makepeace, Philip J | 2185 | ||
| 4 | Nilim, Armaan | 1888 | ½ - ½ | Wilks, Simon | 2127 | ||
| 5 | Rubeck, Jonathan | 1881 | 0 - 1 | Ethelontis, Alexandros N | 2112 | ||
| 6 | Rogal, Christopher | 1704 | 0 - 1 | Dilek, Alper | 1827 | ||
| ½ - 5½ | |||||||
Hendon 4 scored a 3–3 tie despite being out-rated on 5 of the 6 boards, with the wins being scored by Gul, Stanley and David.
| Hendon 4 | Hendon 4 | Harrow 2 | Harrow 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ramchandani, Kunal | 1605 | 0 - 1 | Padarthy, Joshua | 1868 | ||
| 2 | Barbier-Ramaiah, Riya | 1525 | 0 - 1 | Clenshaw, John | 1620 | ||
| 3 | Kapur, Gul | 1470 | 1 - 0 | Dhemrait, Surjit S | 1597 | ||
| 4 | Clarke, Antoine | 1450 | 0 - 1 | Lyons, James | 1592 | ||
| 5 | Jacobs, Stanley | 1422 | 1 - 0 | Yang, Haobo | 1484 | ||
| 6 | Lewis, David | 1394 | 1 - 0 | Anderson, Ashley R | 1092 | ||
| 3 - 3 | |||||||
Thanks very much to everyone who played in all these events, and to the captains and arbiters for their efforts in organising them!