I’m delighted to report that on match night 5 of the London Online Chess League, for the first time, both Hendon teams won their matches!
In the Open division, Hendon A faced a side from Metropolitan Chess Club, calling themselves “MetroGiants”.
| Hendon A | Hendon A | MetroGiants | MetroGiants | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sacha Brozel | 2260 | 0 - 1 | Tanguy Deflesselle | 2193 | ||
| 2 | Rob Willmoth | 2200 | 1 - 0 | Ian Calvert | 2010 | ||
| 3 | Savas Marin Stoica | 2043 | 1 - 0 | Jeremy Law | 1968 | ||
| 4 | David Amior | 1900 | ½ - ½ | Jan Lepetun | 1840 | ||
| 2½ - 1½ | |||||||
Savas Stoica’s win on Board 3 was cancelled out when Sacha Brozel, making his LOCL debut, ran very short of time; just when it looked like he might have survived the worst of a bad endgame position, he blundered a rook with his flag hanging.
Thankfully, Rob Willmoth had an excellent position on Board 2, which he duly converted, meaning we could no longer lose the match. All eyes were therefore on David Amior’s Board 4 encounter. He had been worse for most of the game, but thankfully his opponent used up enough time on the clock that he eventually conceded the draw, giving us the match.
I suspect David’s opponent did not know the match situation, because if he had, playing on would definitely have been the right decision for his team. There is a lesson here: always have a second browser window open in the Tornelo lobby, so you can easily keep track of the match score!
In the U1825 division, Hendon B faced the Battersea Cats, who had a rather unusual strength distribution!
| Battersea Cats | Battersea Cats | Hendon B | Hendon B | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | WGM Dina Belenkaya | 2335 | 1 - 0 | Chris Rogal | 1803 | ||
| 2 | Steve Barry | 1690 | 0 - 1 | Anthony Kent | 1750 | ||
| 3 | Joel Morales | 1600 | 0 - 1 | Nick Murphy | 1750 | ||
| 4 | Gregg Hutchence | 1548 | 0 - 1 | Morris Jones | 1758 | ||
| 1 - 3 | |||||||
Chris Rogal had a tough task facing a strong WGM on Board 1, but since teams are limited in the average grade they are allowed in this division, having one strong player means the others have to be weaker, and indeed we outgraded our opponents on the remaining boards.
All games went according to grade. Chris was duly run over on Board 1, but this was more than compensated for by fine wins from Anthony Kent, Nick Murphy and Morris Jones on Boards 2-4.
My game of the round is this nice breakthrough by Savas Stoica in a rook ending: a very classy finish, showing just what a talent he is!
Many thanks to everyone for playing, and congratulations to both teams!
The next match is next Wednesday, 25th November. Full schedule may be found in our calendar.
You can find a list of all stories about the London Online Chess League here.