"Those who say they understand chess, understand nothing" -- Robert HUBNER

Maidenhead A 2 - Ealing A 6

: Created:15 Nov 2011 , by

Very few sides win at Maidenhead and whenever Ealing are successful against our West of London rivals it portends a good season.

This season our playing strength is in theory exactly the same in the higher teams as our all-conquering sides of 2010-11 but for various reasons in practice Ealing has struggled to turn out its strongest sides. Family commitments, careers and house moves take precedence over chess of course but Ealing always honours its players and hopes that one day they will return to the colours.

In the meantime we have to work extra hard to get our teams into action and I was very grateful to the guys and a girl who made the trip to Maidenhead. At the exchange of team rosters and gradings it was revealed that each side had the same average so a good contest was in prospect.

Ealing took an early lead when Rick McMichael had a good win on board two and Veljko Stanisic added a solid draw. Maidenhead's captain, Paul Janota who is a very pleasant guy had the better position out of the opening but blundered when short of time against me. This was balanced by a loss on board seven where an oversight by Alastair Johnstone was nicely exploited by Maidenhead stalwart, Nigel Dennis.

The best was yet to come because the remaining four Ealing players really put down the hammer during the rest of the session. The most exciting performance came from Dominika Ociepka on bottom board because after achieving a positional advantage in a rook, bishop against knight and bishop middle/endgame she played move after move of precision chess to record a magnificent victory. On board one Alan Perkins was very patient as he took advantage of small weaknesses in his foe's postion.

Adrian Ociepka was grit personified as he manouevred against his opponent. Time played a part as Adrian gradually but surely got on top. A Magnus Carlsen-type win. To complete the story Simon Healeas agreed an honourable draw with his adversary today. Simon had a tremendous attack down the h-file but stupendous defence just held the game.