Last Thursday, Hendon 2 scored a fine 4–2 win away against Harrow 1. Read on for a full report, including an interactive replay of Elliott Macneil’s excellent draw on top board against junior sensation WIM Bodhana Sivanandan!
Harrow 1 are an enigmatic side, having been promoted to Division 1 and then demoted back to Division 2 again in successive seasons.
They have several strong regulars, including Nevil Chan, Jagdeep Dhemrait, and now 10-year-old Bodhana Sivanandan, who continues to make the news as she became the youngest female player ever to defeat a Grandmaster at the 2025 British Championship and gained the WIM title. However, they often seem to field quite low-rated players on lower boards, even at home.
In some ways, this was our opponents’ first “proper” match of the season: they had beaten Hammersmith 2 at home, but only with the help of two defaults, and they had then bizarrely lost 4½–1½ to the Harrow second team. So it was anyone’s guess what sort of team we would face this evening.
In the end, they fielded a characteristically lop-sided line-up, with WIM Sivanandan (rated 2284) on top board, followed by three players in the 1900s, and then two players in the 1400s on Boards 5 and 6 – a rating difference of almost 900 points between the top and bottom boards (as opposed to a much more normal 255 points for us)!
However, this left the match in an unusual kind of balance, as we out-rated our opponents heavily on the bottom two boards and slightly on Board 2, while they out-rated us significantly on the other three boards. Amazingly, the average ratings of the two teams differed by just 19 points (in our favour).
The match started well for us, as Vasileios won next to me on Board 5, and our own junior representative Aviraj overcame the rating disadvantage to defeat Nevil Chan on Board 3. Frustratingly, I only managed to draw my own game on bottom board, despite having a significantly better position throughout.
On Board 4, Harrow captain Jagdeep Dhemrait had a significant advantage, which he duly converted. However, Jonathan was material ahead on Board 2, and if he won, we would be assured of victory, whatever happened on top board.
That Board 2 game was a roller-coaster: Jonathan was a piece up, which he traded for a three-pawn advantage, but to my horror, over the next few moves he lost a couple of pawns, eventually ending up in a double rook ending with two pawns against one (g+h versus h) which I was almost sure should be drawn with best play. However, in the time scramble Jonathan’s opponent blundered his pawn, and Jonathan marched his duo to victory!
While the Board 1 clash was ultimately irrelevant to the match result, any game involving Harrow’s wunderkind always attracts an audience! However, Elliott wasn’t intimidated by his opponent’s reputation, and played a really excellent game, equalising out of the opening and tempting WIM Sivanandan into sinking her knight into a hole on f5; unfortunately for her, the piece proved a liability rather than an asset, and was eventually traded off, Elliott winning a pawn in the process.
For the remainder of the game, Elliott was comfortably better, and the repetition of moves at the end was more a function of mutual time pressure than a complete dissipation of Black’s advantage. For the full game, annotated by Elliott, please see below.
Congratulations to Elliott on this excellent result! Hold on to that scoresheet, as it may be a collector’s item one day if this remarkable young lady continues to make strides in the game at her current pace!
| Harrow 1 | Harrow 1 | Hendon 2 | Hendon 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sivanandan, Bodhana | 2284 | ½ - ½ | Macneil, Elliott CM | 1995 | ||
| 2 | Sharp, Thomas M | 1928 | 0 - 1 | Rubeck, Jonathan | 1993 | ||
| 3 | Chan, Nevil | 1974 | 0 - 1 | Bhaduri, Aviraj | 1800 | ||
| 4 | Dhemrait, Jagdeep | 1942 | 1 - 0 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1773 | ||
| 5 | McKenna, Phil | 1410 | 0 - 1 | Kollias, Vasileios | 1750 | ||
| 6 | Sartain, Patrick P | 1401 | ½ - ½ | Medworth, Andrew | 1740 | ||
| 2 - 4 | |||||||
Many thanks to all the players for turning out and achieving this excellent result!