Ealing II 3.5 Metropolitan I 4.5
: Created:27 Mar 2009 , by Alastair JohnstoneEaling 2 suffer a second narrow defeat to table-topping Met I.
| Middlesex League Div. 2 | Thursday 26th March 2009 | ||||
Bd | Ealing 2 | Gd. | Metropolitan 1 | Gd. | |
1 | Shalabayev, Syrym | 148 | 0-1 | Dickson, George | 166 |
2 | Sanchez, Miguel | 142 | 0.5-0.5 | Calvert, D Ian | 162 |
3 | Harvey, John T | 126 | 0-1 | Vachtfeidl, Petr | 167 |
4 | Zusin, George | 132 | 0.5-0.5 | Doye, Peter C | 158 |
5 | Shalabayev, Salim | 125e | 1-0 | McGuinness, Andrew | 146 |
6 | Johnstone, Alastair G | 122 | 0.5-0.5 | Kitchen, John F | 142 |
7 | Pack, James | 117 | 0-1 | Bishop, Geoffrey L | 127 |
8 | Jhooti, Raj | 115e | 1-0 | Cooke, Charlie | 126 |
Avg Gd | 128 | 3.5-4.5 | 149 | ||
Close, but not quite close enough. Despite, a valiant rearguard, Ealing II could not prevent promotion-bound Met I from completing the double.
Although missing a number of the team's stronger players and conceding a substantial grading deficit on all boards, Ealing put up stern resistance, indeed, for a brief moment or two, Ealing held a lead.
Having accepted an early draw offer, I was freed to witness events as they unfolded. My attention had already been alerted to the fireworks taking place on the adjacent board, indeed both John Kitchen and myself seemed more interested in following Salim's sparkling tactics than on the somewhat turgid play in our own game. Wielding more pins than a Hong Kong tailor, Salim built a fine attack culminating in the winning of a piece and the rest, as they say, was simply a matter of technique. So, two boards down and Ealing held the lead!
It was not to last long however, as both John Harvey and Syrym were both thrown back on the defensive with the Black pieces and fell to determined sieges from their opponents. A short while later and James Pack also found his uncastled King surrounded by the enemy army in the middle of the board with terminal consequences. Suddenly, Met I were in sight of the winning post
There was cause for more hope on the remaining baords, however. Miguel Sanchez has been playing some solid chess lately and another robust performance gleaned a draw on Board 2.
But the player of the match award must go to Raj Jhooti who won a pawn in the middlegame and found a tremendous tactic to decide matters just as his opponent threatened to build some dangerous counterplay. Raj thereby maintains his 100% performance record for Ealing II.
In the final game, George Zusin had for some time being mounting the battlements to keep his opponent at bay and, in a difficult minor piece ending, with knight and bishop against the bishop pair, George defended with great accuracy to achieve an honourable draw.