An exciting draw between Hendon A and Ealing A tonight
: Created:15 Feb 2008 , byThis one went down to the wire with spectators standing around the last board to finish in a two-deep circle. Hendon won the game to draw level in the match.
Bd Ealing 1 Gd. Hendon 1 Gd. 1 Randall, Simon 176 = Eden, Tomer 183 2 Ociepka, Adrian 170 + Grujicic, S 190 3 Stanisic, Veljko 168 = Raoof, Adam N 178 4 Tserendorj, Sainbayar 169 - Senior, Gary 176 5 Ebbett, David 170 + Ellis, Daniel 161 6 Lamb, H Michael 146 - Hjort, Helge 159 7 Winterbotham, Mark 140 - Encio, Liviu 145 8 Zusin, George 132 + Ben-Nathan, David 145
Veljko Stanisic gave us a solid start with a draw against Hendon captain, Adam Raoof and I was able to back him up with a win on board five with my favourite Sicilian Defence. For a long time Ealing maintained the lead on the scoreboard but over the board the struggle was swinging Hendon's way and an in-depth adjudication after two hours play, would have given our opponents a win by at least two points.
We lost on board seven but Simon Randall, ever resourceful recovered from a pawn down to draw at the top of our order. Two points each with four games to go but splendid news was coming from board eight where George Zusin in only his second match of the season had caught his opponent in a truly devious trap that in due course netted him a piece.
Sainbayar Tserendorj has been on fire in recent weeks but a promising position went pear-shaped and he entered a minor piece ending two pawns adrift and despite his usual fight to the death, he lost. However Ealing had a really good break when after a fluctuating struggle Adrian Ociepka won on time and when George brought home his win, Ealing could not lose.
Helge Hjort has been a regular in Sainbayar's monthly quick-play tournaments in Acton and undoubtedly this helped him to win the deciding game for Hendon which levelled the score.
So Ealing A advance to five points from the nine matches completed so far in division one of the Middlesex league. The team's five remaining fixtures see them playing West London away and home, visiting bottom placed Metropolitan, coping with a trip up the north face of the Eiger away at high-flyers King's Head and enduring a closing home encounter with second placed Hackney.
However Ealing have a new strategy because we are envisaging the ground-breaking strategy of taking one game at a time. Hold the back pages!