Last night, Hendon 2 defeated Kings Head 2 to finish their title-winning season in victory!
The circumstances of this match were somewhat convoluted. Technically, Kings Head were the home side, and the match was originally scheduled for 23rd April at their home venue, the MindSports Centre in Hammersmith. However, due to the Tube drivers’ strike, we were unable to raise a team that night. At the time, we were neck-and-neck with Ealing at the top of Division 2, and I was afraid that defaulting would cost us the title.
Kings Head captain Alex Bourke kindly agreed to reschedule the match, but given it was so late in the season, this was on condition that we provided the venue. We had no spare home sessions ourselves, so I booked a room in Netherhall House, a university hall of residence around 15 minutes’ walk from the Cumberland Club.
In the end, nothing was actually at stake in this match, as Ealing lost to Hammersmith 2 on 28th May, meaning we were already champions, as I reported last week. But we couldn’t have known that at the time we arranged this match, and I have no regrets about doing so!
Moving on to the match itself: since we had exactly three hours booked at an unfamiliar venue, I felt we had to play the old zero-increment time control of 60 minutes per player for the first 30 moves followed by 15 minutes for the rest of the game. Players used to be quite accustomed to playing this way before digital clocks became universal, but no longer, so I had to refresh everyone’s memories as to how the clocks work in this case!
We had an advantage from the start, as one of the Kings Head players didn’t turn up, leaving us 1–0 up. We hope everything is well with that player.
We fairly quickly increased our score from 1 to 2½, as David won on Board 5 and Armaan drew on Board 2. We needed just half a point more to avoid defeat and one to ensure victory. Jack drew on Board 6 and Saniru scored a fantastic win against a higher rated opponent on Board 1 to get us over the line!
That left Aviraj’s game against the Kings Head captain as the last one running. Aviraj was a piece up at one point in a rook and minor piece ending, but unfortunately he had too few pawns left for any serious winning chances. In the low time situation, his opponent decided to allow an immediate draw rather than risk pressing too hard.
| Kings Head 2 | Kings Head 2 | Hendon 2 | Hendon 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Davey, Mark | 2061 | 0 - 1 | Atulugamage, Saniru Lohan | 1951 | ||
| 2 | Mackenzie, Colin | 1963 | ½ - ½ | Nilim, Armaan | 1923 | ||
| 3 | DEFAULT | 0 - 1 | Funk, Alexander | 1831 | |||
| 4 | Bourke, Alex | 1765 | ½ - ½ | Bhaduri, Aviraj | 1907 | ||
| 5 | Grant-Ross, Peter | 1563 | 0 - 1 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1761 | ||
| 6 | Ainscow, Faye | 1522 | ½ - ½ | Booker, Jack | 1753 | ||
| 1½ - 4½ | |||||||
Thanks very much to everyone who played this evening, especially to those who helped get the venue ready and tidy up afterwards!
I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank captain Alex Bourke and the Kings Head players for sportingly rescheduling and playing this match.
There is still one more Middlesex League match to go, as Potters Bar have rescheduled the January match against Hendon 4 which was cancelled due to bad weather. The new date is 22nd June. But apart from that, the League is over for this season!