Match Report

West London vs Hammersmith

On Wednesday 2nd October West London Chess Club hosted Hammersmith in the Middlesex League. The opposition was missing a couple of their top players so the match was quite one-sided in grading terms, but in reality, the match was much closer than it might appear.

Shreyas played the Advance French and unsurprisingly outplayed his opponent convincingly; his was the first game to finish, so 1-0 at that stage.

Chris Fegan was black in a Sicilian Alapin where queens came off early. He outmanoeuvred his opponent in the endgame, provoking pawn weaknesses that led to pawn losses: 2-0.

John Bass was on the side of an open Sicilian and his opponent played a Bxb5 sacrifice that John declined. This cost him a pawn that he won back, and after some further play a draw was agreed: 2½-½.

Colum sacrificed a central pawn for a kingside pawn rush in a sharp opposite side castling Sicilian and ended up in a wild position where both kings looked to be in jeopardy. At a key moment, his opponent blundered and lost a rook: 3½-½.

Eldar was in a slow manoeuvring game as black against a Reti opening. As it got down to the last few minutes he launched a kingside attack that resulted in a sharp tactical exchange winning a rook: 4½-½.

Antanas was on the white side of an opposite side castling open Sicilian but was well behind on the clock in a sharp position. His opponent had a dangerous attack against his king but Antanas kept finding precise defensive moves in time trouble. Queens came off and a level-looking ending resulted, in which Antanas outplayed his opponent: 5½-½.

So in the end West London won comfortably, but it did not look like that for much of the match.

The final match score is:

Board 1: S.Royal (2635) vs C.Ward (2056)

Board 5: C.Jezierski (1973) vs K.Kwabiah (1577)