Up against a strong Mushrooms side, our Senior rapidplay team ended up comfortable 6½-1½ victors, retaining its position as league front-runners with four tense matches still to play.
| Hendon | Hendon | Mushrooms | Mushrooms | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior, Gary | 164 | 1 - 0 | O'Kelly, Rory MR | 181 | ||
| 2 | Ellis, Daniel | 148 | 1 - 0 | Liu, Tomin | 135s | ||
| 3 | Bennett, Michael K | - | 0 - 1 | Havard, Gwyn | 134s | ||
| 4 | Senior, Thomas | 124 | 1 - 0 | Wilson, David | - | ||
| 3 - 1 | |||||||
| Hendon | Hendon | Mushrooms | Mushrooms | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Senior, Gary | 164 | ½ - ½ | O'Kelly, Rory MR | 181 | ||
| 2 | Ellis, Daniel | 148 | 1 - 0 | Liu, Tomin | 135s | ||
| 3 | Bennett, Michael K | - | 1 - 0 | Havard, Gwyn | 134s | ||
| 4 | Senior, Thomas | 124 | 1 - 0 | Wilson, David | - | ||
| 3½ - ½ | |||||||
Report by Adam Raoof
Gary ‘Thieftaker’ Senior played a fine first round game, which we hope will make it into the columns of the Evening Standard despite the fact that he missed the crucial tactic to crown his eccentric opening play! A quick Qg4 in a Vienna is Gary’s speciality, but black played …Kf8!? – and his king was on the run for the rest of the game.
In the following position, can you find the move Gary missed to end the game quickly?
The second game was a Classical Dutch where Rory played a rash b4, and black’s a7-a5 popped open the queenside to his material advantage. Later, the advantage dissipated in a flurry of exchanges and a later blunder which levelled the position, and the point was shared.
Daniel Ellis simply bamboozled his opponent with his obscure opening play, first in a Philidor in which black’s gameplan was to simply wait for white to castle, then pile up all his pieces in an attack! That worked. The second game was far more complicated, as Liu took the pawn in an Alekhine-Chatard Attack French, but somehow Dan managed to get his bishop trapped on h7! Having to sacrifice it on g6 for pawns caused his opponent to go into paralysis, and time caught him up.
Mike Bennett would probably admit that his first game was a bit of a headache! White played a quick Bb5 against Gwyn’s Sicilian, but did not get time for f2-f4, and a quick g2-g4 allowed black to go Nc6-d4-f3+, yet black still had a tricky position, which only turned to his advantage after a few more errors. The second game was far more Bennettesque, being a good lesson on dark-square control – and how to lose it with white!
Thomas ‘The Pup’ Senior made a very welcome debut on board four with both sides of the Sicilian Dragon! The first game saw Thomas play the black side, and Rb8 (rather than Rc8) and b7-b5 in the mainline with opposite castled kings. The second game was another textbook demonstration of the strategy in the same line, but David Wilson preferred Rc8 and Na5-c4… and still got mated! By then he was probably feeling like changing his repertoire!