On Thursday 23rd January West London ventured to Harrow to play in the Hillingdon League Division 1. Harrow is a strong team in-depth, and this year they have been playing the nine-year-old prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan on top board. We struggled to get a team: one player dropped out a couple of days before, one due to a family emergency and another on the day to a similar issue. We were therefore grateful to Charlie Sturt, Graham Chase and Gursh Gill for making themselves available at short notice. Harrow also had a late dropout, their usual 1900+ board five so they were a little weaker than they had planned on the bottom board.
My game finished first, a 1. e4 b6 opening where I missed an opportunity for a more lively game with an h4 thrust, and the game fizzled out to a draw. Charlie had a very good draw against a much higher-rated opponent. At this point of the match, Graham was at least equal, Lan Yao was clearly better and Elmira’s endgame looked balanced but complex. Sadly Graham lost on time, but Yan Lao played a series of powerful moves, winning the exchange and then further precise moves to win another pawn and then yet more material, winning. Elmira’s game was tricky to the end but resulted in a draw. So a respectable drawn match in the end, and a good result for us given the difficulties we had in fielding a team.
| Harrow-A | Colour | Grading | Result | West London | Grading |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bodhana Sivanandan | Black | 2159 | 0-1 | Lan Yao | 2340 |
| Steven Coles | White | 2095 | ½-½ | Elmira Mirzoeva | 2303 |
| Nevil Chan | Black | 1965 | ½-½ | Andy Hayler | 1925 |
| Jagdeep Dhemrait | White | 1953 | ½-½ | Charles Sturt | 1738 |
| Max Papachristos | Black | 1610 | 1-0 | Graham Chase | 1640 |
| Mean grade | 1959 | 1989 | |||
| Median grade | 1965 | 1925 | |||
| Score | 2½-2½ |
In the match last night between West London and Harrow A, the top board game was Lan Yao v Bodhana Sivanandan. This was a high-class encounter between the current British Women's champion Lan Yao and the nine-year-old chess prodigy Bodhana Sivanandan, who is the strongest nine-year-old in the world (female or male) at FIDE 2055 (ECF 2159). The game, with some notes, is below. Enjoy the smooth win from Lan Yao.
Board 1: L.Yao (2340) vs B.Sivanandan (2159)