West London 2 Ealing 6
: Created:15 Jan 2010 , byOur new boy performed with pride in Wednesday's match in division one of the Middlesex league but it was our old boys who won us the match.
Of recent years we have visited West London, our nearest neighbours with the confidence that our players could match them and the results have been gratifingly excellent. Despite a tough fight from our Chiswick opponents on 13th January and some particularly close games in the middle order, once again we emerged triumphant at the town hall. However when the return fixture takes place at the Harvester we know that having been found wanting on our home games against them we amust lift ourselves to hold back their challenge on 6th April 2010.
The performance of our bottom three boards was outstanding this week. First Sainbayar Tserendorj returned to top form with a good win on board eight and Tony Wells added to our advantage with a fine victory with the black pieces on seven. Later on Martin Smith emphasised our domination of the lower orders when he got on top of his opponent in the latter stages of the middlegame. Meanwhile Veljko Stanisic achieved a solid draw against experienced John Bass so we had a big lead. in the match. Alan Perkins showed admirable patience against Andy Hayler's Modern Benoni Defence and after thematically occupying c4 with a knight broke through with an attack down the the f file. Game over for West London.
Peter Sowray has been a great friend to Ealing chess club over many a long year and his annual chess talk at the club has become a highlight on our calendar. He kindly agreed to make his debut for us after learning of the senility and declining powers of our captain. Peter assures me that he had the worst of the early play from his Sicilian Najdorf Defence but eventually he reached an endgame where it was slightly easier to play the black pieces than the white. An unexpected but spiteful two move combination won his opponent's queen or resulted in checkmate.
In our only reverse of the evening Simon Randall in time trouble grabbed a hot pawn with his bishop which was on active service in enemy territory. He was rocked back by Colum Jeziersky's exchange sacrifice on g7 and in a war torn region Simon's minor pieces suffered collateral damage. The last word belongs to Adrian Ociepka who has been in resplendent form in recent times. Concentration and endurance are two of Adrian's major weapons and although his position looked a little dubious early on, he recovered to make a valuable draw.