The Hurricanes won their round 6 match in the London Online Chess League against Hackney Horrible, but the Spitfires and Harriers went down to defeats against teams from Lewisham and East Ham respectively.
| Hackney Horrible | Hackney Horrible | Hendon Hurricanes | Hendon Hurricanes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tobias Baumann | 2005 | 0 - 1 | Sacha Brozel | 2260 | ||
| 2 | Lukasz Domanski | 2002 | 0 - 1 | Rob Willmoth | 2200 | ||
| 3 | Salim Kriman | 1998 | 1 - 0 | David Amior | 1900 | ||
| 4 | Paul Conway | 1855 | ½ - ½ | Chris Rogal | 1803 | ||
| 1½ - 2½ | |||||||
In the Queens Division, the Hurricanes faced Hackney Horrible for the first time in the LOCL, in a “Battle of the H’s”!
The first game to finish was Board 3, where David Amior was a pawn up with a very good position, but went wrong and lost heavy material, resigning soon afterwards.
However, Board 2 saw Rob Willmoth make a welcome return to the team, which he celebrated with a fine win against his former club! Rob obtained a great position with a protected passed pawn, and his opponent then self-destructed, allowing a decisive seventh-rank penetration.
On Board 1, Sacha appeared to be in some trouble, a piece down, but he managed to obtain compensation in the form of his opponent’s exposed king, and the Hackney player blundered, dropping his queen, and resigning.
Chris Rogal also seemed to have a worse position a pawn down, though it looked like he’d managed to pull off a miracle when his opponent went the wrong way with his king, and allowed Chris to win his queenside pawns. Chris missed the chance to win us the match in style, and only drew, but this was still sufficient for victory.
Congratulations to the team! There was luck on both sides, but the balance of it just about tipped in our favour.
The round 6 games in the Queens Division are currently available here.
| Lewisham A | Lewisham A | Hendon Spitfires | Hendon Spitfires | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marcin Jablonski | 2012 | ½ - ½ | Anton Drel | ~1800 | ||
| 2 | Tim Gluckman | 1885 | 1 - 0 | DEFAULT | |||
| 3 | H Gokhan Kizilay | 1705 | 1 - 0 | Nick Murphy | 1750 | ||
| 4 | Iain Hunt | 1233 | 0 - 1 | Amirabbas Mehrafarin | 1734 | ||
| 2½ - 1½ | |||||||
The Spitfires match got off to a bad start when our Board 2 didn’t turn up and I was unable to contact either him or our reserve. Obviously we hope all is well with them both; I think this might be our first actual default loss in the LOCL.
On Board 1, Anton seemed to have got a promising ending with a rook and two pawns against two knights, but he decided to take a draw in a position which was probably holdable for his opponent.
On Board 4, Amirabbas maintained his 100% record and equalized the match when his opponent dropped material to a tactic.
The match thus all came down to Board 3. Nick had a nice position a pawn up for much of it, and although his opponent missed some drawing chances, Nick never looked in any danger, until right at the end, when he made a fateful decision to trade rooks. The resulting king-and-pawn ending was just lost, and Nick had to resign. Chess can be cruel!
A close match, and one in which we’d have had very good chances of getting something, if not for the default.
The round 6 games in the Rooks Division are currently available here.
| Hendon Harriers | Hendon Harriers | East Ham Beagles | East Ham Beagles | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | James Baxter | 1700 | 0 - 1 | Laith Hayali | 1765 | ||
| 2 | Gul Kapur | 1533 | 0 - 1 | Roland Glotzer | 1735 | ||
| 3 | Julie Oh | 1485 | 0 - 1 | Stephen Berkley | 1683 | ||
| 4 | David Lewis | 1465 | ½ - ½ | Dogancan Nazaroglu | 1600 | ||
| ½ - 3½ | |||||||
In the Harriers match, we were somewhat outgunned against the East Ham Beagles.
On Board 1, James’s king was torn to shreds, as he neglected to castle and then politely opened up the centre for his opponent to attack him through the middle!
Gul missed a tactic in the opening and emerged an exchange down. He seemed to be clinging on bravely for a while, but then hung his bishop (possibly to a mouse slip) which made further resistance impossible.
On Board 3, Julie kicked off a very enterprising attack against her higher-graded opponent, sacrificing a knight on f6. It wasn’t quite sound, but Julie’s opponent didn’t dare to take the piece, and a complex sequence followed, with both sides missing chances. Unfortunately, eventually Julie’s opponent was able to manoeuvre his knight to the key f5 square, and then took the piece on f6, and won with the extra material. A brave try by Julie!
Thankfully, on Board 4, David was able to prevent the whitewash. It was a chaotic game, with David coming out of the opening with a bad position. On move 18 it appeared he was dead lost, as White had been able to win a crucial pawn on a7. However, extraordinarily, White then took an adequately-defended pawn on d6, losing a piece on the spot and turning the tables completely! He then doubled down on his mistake by sacrificing a further exchange, leaving David a full rook to the good!
White did have compensation in the form of Black’s open king, and in the end was able to get a draw by threefold repetition, though if David had blocked the check on the long diagonal with …Qe4, his extra rook should have told, even with the f7 pawn dropping. Still, it wouldn’t have made much difference to the final scoreline, which ended in a comprehensive win for East Ham.
The round 6 games in the Bishops Division are currently available here.
Many thanks to everyone who played this week! We’re now past the half-way point in season 3.
You can find a list of all stories about season 3 of the London Online Chess League here.