Harrow Juniors came to the Chiswick Town Hall on Wednesday 16th October to play us in the Middlesex League. Harrow was expected to have Tanmay Chopra 2429 and Manmay Chopra 2220 on the top two boards with nine-year-old prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan on board 3. This would have been quite a formidable team, but the Chopra brothers pulled out on the day of the match, so the Harrow team was consequently much weaker than expected. As Woody Allen once said, “80% of success in life is showing up.”
So we heavily out-graded our opponents, but with junior players the gradings can be misleading. We had a couple of major game upsets last season against seemingly very out-graded juniors. So, to the games.
My game finished quickly in 21 moves with my opponent making some basic tactical errors, losing a piece early and soon succumbing to a mating attack, so we were 1-0 up at that stage.
John Burke was White against a Caro Kann and played the main line advance 3.e5 …. John’s opponent played very quickly and at one point the respective times left were 1 hour 12 minutes v 13 minutes. John found a sharp continuation that won a pawn temporarily and swapped off queens, so relieving the time pressure. However the position was still tricky with passed pawns on both sides, and Black’s was faster. 1-1 at this stage.
Colum was Black against an offbeat Sicilian with 3.Bc4 … . He opted for a sharp kingside attack with … h5 and … g5 and a complex position ensued. He manoeuvred Rh4 and a blunder by his opponent allowed Rf4 trapping the white Queen on f5. 2-1 to us now.
Andreea was black on board 2 and played a Kings Indian defence. She had a passed pawn on b4. She gradually increased pressure, pieces were swapped off and a key extra c4 pawn was about to fall when White tried a desperate tactic that didn’t work. 3-1 and the match was at least safe.
Chris Fegan was white and started sharply with 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.c4!? … , sacrificing the e4 pawn for some initiative in development. The game progressed in a fairly wild manner and a sharp position ensued. Chris was a pawn down but as compensation his opponent’s king was stranded on e7 with all the heavy pieces still on the board. The game was extremely complex and can be seen below. 4-1 leaving one game.
Eldar was white against Bodhana on board 1 m (these two drew in their game last season). After a Slav style Queens gambit both sides castled queenside. Eldar had more space with a connected passed e-pawn, but almost all the pieces were still on the board. As the time moved on Eldar built up pressure against a weak f5 pawn via a clever knight manoeuvre and won this, leaving him with an extra connected passed pawn. He then made an exchange sacrifice for yet another pawn, giving him connected passed pawns on the e to g files. Bodhana tried some back rank tactics but Eldar defended coolly and eventually queens came off and the three pawns were just too much. One was lost, but one queened, and then it was just a few moves until a mating net appeared. 5-1.
In the end, West London had a fairly comfortable win on paper, but it didn’t feel like it for much of the evening.
The match score:
| West London | Colour | Grading | Result | Harrow Juniors | Grading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eldar Gasanov | White | 2531 | 1-0 | Bodhana Sivanandan | 2200 |
| Andreea Navrotescu | Black | 2387 | 1-0 | Arthur Cann | 1670 |
| Chris Fegan | White | 2074 | 1-0 | Darsh Santosh Kumar | 1539 |
| Colum Jezierski | Black | 1973 | 1-0 | Aryan Chaudhary | 1414 |
| John Burke | White | 1965 | 0-1 | Niranjan Ramesh | 1130 |
| Andy Hayler | Black | 1965 | 1-0 | Kiiaan Agrawal | 1257 |
| Average grade | 2149 | 1535 | |||
| Score | 5-1 |
Board 3: C.Fegan (2074) vs Darsh Santosh Kumar (1539)
Board 4: A.Chaudhary (1414) vs C.Jezierski (1973)