Ealing B ½ Hatch End B 4½
: Created:04 Mar 2016 , by Alastair JohnstoneHere's David's match report for the Hillingdon Plate match played Wednesday 2nd March.
On Wednesday we exited the Hillingdon plate KO competition by losing 0.5-4.5 to Hatch End A. The result is perhaps not surprising, given that we were at a disadvantage of 30 grading points on average. Nevertheless all games were closely fought and I received this compliment to the team from the opposing captain:
"Despite the rather flattering final result, I think your team should be congratulated on a fine performance. There were no easy games and all of them could easily have been draws. Thank you for hosting and well played!"
I found it necessary to give full attention to my own game and saw very little of the contest on other boards so the following match report is composed mainly from summaries submitted by team players.
On board four, Trevor was first to finish. He played a solid Torre Attack and got a good position out of the opening but, playing what he thought was an innocuous defensive pawn move, he allowed his opponent to sacrifice a Knight for a pawn to open up his King's position and he resigned after 30 moves.
Leslie, playing with black pieces on board three, faced the Trompowsky attack (d4, Nf6, Bg5); "I'd just done some homework on it but could not remember a thing!" His opponent rattled off moves, each time about 10 seconds. Leslie attacked his opponent's queenside castled king while his opponent followed suit on the kingside, but Leslie lost the race, found his pawns shattered and lost one in the fray. His queenside attack fizzled out and he had to bring his pieces back to fill up the holes in the kingside and centre. Clever tactics by Leslie won the pawn back but he could not cope with holding his isolated pawns, falling to a clever combination that lost the exchange. Leslie battled on till move 52 before conceding.
On top board Harvey had an evenly matched game. Approaching 10 pm with material equality and nearing an interesting looking endgame a Queen double attack tactic from his opponent abruptly ended the game in Hatch End's favour.
David on board five, playing with black, was faced with a stonewall attack. His kingside fianchetto defence was adequate but left a cramped position that took time to free. After forcing exchange of queens and minor pieces David's position improved and he went a pawn up. But with only about five minutes remaining on both clocks and David's brain not wired for quickplay chess his opponent accepted the offer of a draw.
Just prior to the final whistle Ben, on second board, appeared to have equality, but I turned my back for a few minutes only then to find Ben and his opponent reviewing the final moves that had resulted in Ben's loss.
That ends our presence in the KO competition. Our next league match will be on April 1st against Greenford A.