Ealing 3.5 Hounslow 2.5
: Created:26 Nov 2010 , by Alastair JohnstoneTwo divisions separate their first teams in the league but Hounslow put up a fine show at the Harvester to run Ealing very close in this round one contest for the Thames Valley cup.
| Board | EALING | Gd. | HOUNSLOW | Gd. | |
| 1 | Perkins, Alan H | 205 | 1-0 | Nurmohamed, Sajid | 169 |
| 2 | Ociepka, Adrian | 196 | 1-0 | White, David J | 156 |
| 3 | Randall, Simon | 180 | 1-0 | Fincham, Leon HJ | 159 |
| 4 | Tserendorj, Sainbayar | 165 | 0-1 | Staneland, Peter E | 150 |
| 5 | Grozdanic, Nevenko | 155 | 0.5-0.5 | Zurstiege, Frank | 140 |
| 6 | Stevic, Milinko | 138 | 0-1 | Miu, Marinel | 132 |
| 3.5-2.5 |
David Ebbett writes: We scored first on board two where Adrian Ociepka made the dynamic decision to make a capture away from the centre with his king’s bishop pawn thereby opening the bishop’s file but leaving an unguarded Black pawn on e6. When David White went after that pawn with Ng5, Adrian responded with …Nxd4 initiating tactical exchanges in his favour. A blunder a little later by David ended his resistance.
Alan Perkins’ opponent adopted one of those peek-a-boo defences where pieces shuffle around behind pawns that don’t advance beyond the third rank unless you count …h5 as a developing move. Alan built up a large centre and advanced on the queenside leaving his king in the centre to avoid giving Black a target. The strategy worked to perfection and White broke through with c5 to overwhelm his adversary both positionally and tactically. Black’s rooks never moved from their starting squares.
Not moving one’s rooks seems to be a deliberate ploy if you play your chess further west along the A315 because the same thing happened on board three where Ealing old boy, Leon Fincham faced our captain Simon Randall. After exchanges Simon established rooks on the sixth and seventh rank exploiting Leon’s uncastled king and separated rooks. The end came quickly.
During Simon’s game he grew anxious enough about events on the bottom three boards to enquire whether if the match scores were equal the tie would be decided on board count. However Nevenko Grozdanic spared us the unpleasant duty of claiming victory in a drawn match by getting half a point in his game. Hounslow performed excellently on all three lower boards and we had to give best to them on boards four and six.
Ealing proceed to the next round but Hounslow can be proud of their efforts.