On Thursday, Hendon 1 and Hendon 3 were in action at the Cumberland Club, facing Albany and Metropolitan respectively.
Hendon 1 won their match 4–2, making it three wins in a row, while the Hendon 3 match finished in a 3–3 tie.
We had high hopes of a win for Hendon 1 this evening, as we fielded a strong team and out-rated our opponents on every board. However, the match didn’t get off to the best start, as Albany won on Board 1 to take the lead, and later won on Board 2 as well. Thankfully, we made a clean sweep of the other boards!
The match had a tense finish, as Elliott Macneil reached a queen ending several pawns up against the Albany captain, though he had less than a minute on his clock against two minutes for his opponent. Thankfully he was able to hold his nerve and convert the ending to secure a 4–2 win.
Congratulations to the team!
| Hendon 1 | Hendon 1 | Albany 1 | Albany 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Willmoth, Robert Frederick | 2224 | 0 - 1 | Dunn, Maxim W | 2159 | ||
| 2 | Sanitt, Ethan | 2135 | 0 - 1 | Sagues, Vincent | 2031 | ||
| 3 | Lebedev, Lion | 2117 | 1 - 0 | Stern, Robert C | 1955 | ||
| 4 | Senior, Gary | 2072 | 1 - 0 | Okosieme, Iozeph | 1950 | ||
| 5 | Macneil, Elliott | 1972 | 1 - 0 | Todd, Chris J | 1873 | ||
| 6 | Rubeck, Jonathan | 1928 | 1 - 0 | Winlaw, Joe | 1580 | ||
| 4 - 2 | |||||||
Hendon 3 went into their match as underdogs, with Metropolitan having higher ratings on every board. However, the team out-performed, with several players (including Armaan Nilim on Board 1) achieving draws against strong opponents and David Ben-Nathan scoring an excellent win on Board 3.
In the end, we were slightly unfortunate not to win the match, as we were winning in at least one of the games which eventually finished in a draw.
| Hendon 3 | Hendon 3 | Metropolitan 1 | Metropolitan 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nilim, Armaan | 1870 | ½ - ½ | Squibbs, A | 2006 | ||
| 2 | Funk, Alexander | 1807 | 0 - 1 | Law, Jeremy | 1938 | ||
| 3 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1766 | 1 - 0 | Lepetun, Jan | 1855 | ||
| 4 | Pepe, Salvatore | 1674 | ½ - ½ | McGuinness, Andrew | 1855 | ||
| 5 | Alster, Robert | 1698 | ½ - ½ | Kitchen, John F | 1748 | ||
| 6 | Tailor, Sundip | 1567 | ½ - ½ | Kelly, Ronan | 1625 | ||
| 3 - 3 | |||||||
Congratulations to Sundip and the team for this above-par result. With that, Hendon 3 have remarkably tied four of their seven matches so far!
Many thanks to everyone who played!
January is a busy month for home matches, with Hendon 1 and Hendon 4 in action next Thursday against teams from Harrow and Hammersmith.