Ealing II 4 Metropolitan I 4
: Created:29 Jan 2010 , by Alastair JohnstoneIn the return match with Metropolitan, Ealing II battled to a 4-4 draw in Div.2 of the Middlesex League.
| Middlesex League, Div.2 | 28th January 2010 | ||||
Bd | Gd | Ealing II | Metropolitan I | Gd | |
1 | 182 | Wells, Tony D | 1-0 | Dickson, George | 183 |
2 | Grozdanic, Nevenko | 0-1 | Calvert, D Ian | 172 | |
3 | Stevic, Malinko | 0.5-0.5 | Vachtfeidl, Petr | 174 | |
4 | 151 | Healeas, Simon | 0.5-0.5 | McGuinness, Andrew | 163 |
5 | 157 | Harvey, John T | 0-1 | Perez-Caballo, M | |
6 | 147 | Winterbotham, Mark | 0.5-0.5 | Kitchen, John F | 151 |
 7 | 148 | Gibbons, C Dale | 1-0 | Stewart, Noel M | 145 |
8 | 136 | Jhooti, Rajinder | 0.5-0.5 | Parker, R | |
4-4 | |||||
Simon Healeas writes:
The first result was John Harvey who had a severe lapse of concentration and managed to lose out of the opening. Tony Wells then had a sparkling win ontop board. Playing the White side of a Vienna with 3.g3, his highly-rated opponent came under strong positional pressure and lost. On board 6, John Kitchen, Metropolitan's captain, offered Mark a draw on move 15 which given the position was level, Mark accepted. Dale had an impressive win on the White side of the Alekhine after the early exchange on d6. The turning point in his game came on move 23 when he played the rather clever Be5! trapping the opponent's rook and winning the exchange. Nevenko had a difficult game against 1.b3 but put up strong resistance and eventually lost after about 60 moves. Whilst playing on autopilot, I managed to lose a pawn in the Sicilian after a mere 8 moves. Anyway, sufficient piece activity in the middle game laid the foundation for a draw.
So at 3-3, there were two games in play. In a complex position, Malinko's flag fell before his opponent's but the win was not claimed. Within seconds, the other flag fell and the point was consequently split. In the final game, Raj suffered from the opening - the black side of the Trompowsky with an early Bxf6 - and never really recovered. Nevertheless he dug deep, as they say on Sky, and kept on finding decent moves. And in an ending two pawns down, he somehow managed to hang on and get a draw. The match therefore ended with honours shared which, against a reputable club's first team, is immensely pleasing.