Ealing 2.5 - Hendon 5.5

In the Snakes and Ladders world that is league chess, Ealing slithered down too many snakes and failed to take advantage of a few handily placed ladders. We got off to bad start when despite my warning to all participants to turn off their mobile phones, our board eight's phone rang long, loud and shrill after half an hour's play. They claimed and with no redeeming features on or off the board, I made no objection.

Ealing lost on board four but in my game there were plentiful opportunities to recover some of the lost ground. The Hendon website notes the good possibility 18.e4 but at the time I was too busy pretending to be Mikhael Botvinnik engaged in deep strategic thought to even consider the move. My good pal, Fritz was scathing in analysis afterwards about my inability to spot 21.Nc5 and several more chances went begging before my opponent, Adam Raoof skilfully rearranged his forces to make life as difficult as possible for me. With my fuel gauge showing nearly empty I offered a draw which was promptly accepted.

Veljko Stanisic facing a well-graded opponent, did a good job for us on board three by sucking the life out of the position and a draw was pretty well inevitable. Tony Wells wheeled out the ancient but still potent Wilkes-Barre Defence to the Two Knights Attack and played some very accurate moves before a White mistake lost him the exchange. Tony finished off in fine style so Ealing were back in the match.

Regretfully on board two, things were not going so well and grandmaster Aaron Summerscale (board two in the Middlesex league!) successfully beat back Alan Perkins' attack to secure at least a draw for Hendon. On board one John Quinn is often at his best when combatting highly rated opponents and he built up a great attack but the fly-in-the-ointment was John's uncastled king and although very short of time Lorin d'Costa found a series of good moves to force the draw.

Board seven was a tragedy from Ealing's point of view. Sainbayar Tserendorj missed a golden opportunity to severely embarrass his foe's king when he missed an intermediate rook check. The king escaped to the other side of the board but in the subsequent quickplay finish Sainbayar sure-footedly won another pawn although because his king lacked good cover, the queen and pawns endgame was difficult to win. Both players ran dangerously short of time but horror of horrors when he picked up his queen to interrupt a check, Sainbayar found that the only legal move lost him his queen.