Match Result
| Season | 19/20 |
| Date | Mon 25 Nov 2019 |
| Competition: | Thames Valley League Division 1 |
| Fixture | Ealing 'A' v Surbiton 'A' |
| Result | D: 4-4 |
Scorecard
| Board | Grade | Ealing 'A' | Surbiton 'A' | Grade | |
| 1 | Philip Makepeace | Gill, Oliver | 199 | ||
| 2 | Rajat Makkar | Scott, David A | 191 | ||
| 3 | John Quinn | Chaudhry, Altaf | 190 | ||
| 4 | Alan Perkins | James, Angus S | 176 | ||
| 5 | Mark Winterbotham | Stewart, Tony CM | 179 | ||
| 6 | Simon Healeas | Bayly, Liam | 152 | ||
| 7 | Alastair Johnstone | Hogarth, Mark J | 142 | ||
| 8 | Sami Goussous | Durrant, Paul EO | 147 | ||
| Total |
Captains Comment
As the score card shows, this was truly a game of two halves: excellence from the upper order, less so from the lower boards.
Rajat once again swatted away a strong opponent in next to no time. It was too quick for me to see any of the details but, based on his performances season-to-date, he is on-track for a rating of around 215 in the January lists.
Scores were soon levelled when I accepted my fate which had been well nigh inevitable after a crazy blunder in the opening left me a whole piece down. I seem to be back to my 'careless' ways.
Freed to watch the other games, I had the pleasure of watching Phil complete an accomplished attack on top board. It was instructive to see how Phil retained fuil control over his opponent's attempts to get counterplay while still ratcheting up the pressure himself.
John extended our lead when his opponent's flag dropped but this was largtely due to the problems John was setting.
But then Surbiton started to fight back. First Sami, in his debut appearance for the 1st team, lost the thread in the middlegame and came unstuck, then Mark entering a R+P endgame with level material alloed the enemy king to penetrate his position through the centre to decisive effect.
Simon also succumbed, unable to recover from a less than ideal response to his opponent's unfamiliar opening choice which had left his king stuck in the middle of the board with a hostile knight dominating proceeedings from an outpost on f6.
So suddenly we were 4-3 down and the match result hinged on the final game which went down to the wire before Alan finally found the right tactic to force through his passed pawn, to leavce the macth tied.