On Thursday, two Hendon teams visited the MindSports Centre to face opposition from Hammersmith. While our junior team lost 4–2, Hendon 3 pulled off a fantastic victory against the odds!
On the same evening, at the Cumberland Club, we held one of our irregular FIDE Rapid tournaments. This was won jointly by our very own Peter Hazell, and by visitor Felix Johnson, who both scored a perfect 4/4.
Hammersmith away is always a tough fixture to recruit players for, and this occasion was especially challenging, with two matches taking place on the same night as a home individual event. This clash was unfortunate, but unavoidable given that we now have five League teams, and that so many Middlesex clubs now have their home matches on Thursdays.
Despite multiple players pulling out at late notice, thanks to a Herculean effort by the captains we managed to get two full teams out. That said, I didn’t hold out much hope of good results, since many of our higher-rated players were absent.
On paper, Hendon Barnet Knights had the easier task, since their opponents defaulted on Board 6 and they had a rating advantage on the top two boards. Unfortunately, we only drew those two games, while Hammersmith won on Boards 3–5 where they out-rated us.
| Hammersmith 4 | Hammersmith 4 | Hendon Barnet Knights Juniors | Hendon Barnet Knights Juniors | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chandrasekaran, Rahulan | 1609 | ½ - ½ | Bakacsi, Zsolt | 1822 | ||
| 2 | Mazzaracchio, Gianmaria | 1603 | ½ - ½ | Priampolsky, Yitzchok | 1671 | ||
| 3 | Bote, Elena | 1544 | 1 - 0 | Samuels, Benjamin | 1513 | ||
| 4 | Royce, Anastasija | 1513 | 1 - 0 | Lewis, David | 1373 | ||
| 5 | Townsend, Max | 1295 | 1 - 0 | Kuckian, Pranav | 1283 | ||
| 6 | DEFAULT | 0 - 1 | WALKOVER | ||||
| 4 - 2 | |||||||
By constrast, Hendon 3 faced an uphill battle, out-rated on all boards by an average of 118 points. However, they pulled off a superb upset win, as Chris, Sundip and unrated debutant Tony Hulstrom all won, and Tom and Stephen drew against tough opposition as well.
| Hammersmith 2 | Hammersmith 2 | Hendon 3 | Hendon 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ganguly, Aryaman | 1931 | 1 - 0 | Babariya, Rahil | 1768 | ||
| 2 | Sarfas, Robin | 1769 | 0 - 1 | Rogal, Christopher | 1702 | ||
| 3 | Cuff, Andrew M | 1756 | ½ - ½ | Garcia, Tom | 1651 | ||
| 4 | Abbott, John | 1748 | ½ - ½ | Pride, Stephen | 1649 | ||
| 5 | Stones, Jake AKE | 1714 | 0 - 1 | Tailor, Sundip | 1560 | ||
| 6 | Kwabiah, C Kenneth | 1567 | 0 - 1 | Hulstrom, Tony | |||
| 2 - 4 | |||||||
This is not where I’d have predicted that Hendon 3 would score their first win of the season, but this is nonetheless the case, so congratulations to captain Sundip and the team!
Many thanks to all the players who made the trip to Hammersmith!
Meanwhile, at the Cumberland Club, Adam Raoof was running a FIDE Rapid tournament. This is a little different from our monthly Blitz: four rounds of 15+0. It’s proven to be a popular format, though we’ve only managed to schedule two of them this season, of which this was the first.
There was a great turnout of over 40 players. The event was won by two juniors, Peter Hazell (a Hendon member) and Felix Johnson, who both scored a perfect 4/4. Both can be very proud of their performances, as they overcame several strong opponents to take the title.
Events Director Adam Raoof writes:
Many thanks to Adam for running the tournament, and thanks to everyone who participated! Don’t miss the next edition on 24th July!
Full standings:
Full results available here.