Last Tuesday, a friendly match took place between Hendon and Muswell Hill. This is the first of two friendly under-1800 matches between the two clubs, which I organised to boost the match-play opportunities available to our lower-rated players. Despite losing a point to a default, I’m pleased to report that we ran out 7–3 winners!
| Muswell Hill | Muswell Hill | Hendon | Hendon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Brougham, Simon B | 1668 | 1 - 0 | Pepe, Salvatore | 1705 | ||
| 2 | Guinness, N | 1650 | 0 - 1 | Nilim, Armaan | 1621 | ||
| 3 | England, Mark C | 1612 | 0 - 1 | Moosdeen Mui, Daniel | 1561 | ||
| 4 | Blackham, Nicholas | 1561 | 0 - 1 | Michener, Max | 1538 | ||
| 5 | WALKOVER | 1 - 0 | DEFAULT | ||||
| 6 | Staton, Jed | 1492 | 0 - 1 | Tailor, Sundip | 1455 | ||
| 7 | Virk, Amar | 1450 | 1 - 0 | Jacobs, Stanley Geoffrey | 1421 | ||
| 8 | Lewis, David | 1384 | 0 - 1 | Pollack, Maximo | 1344 | ||
| 9 | Stoll, David M | 1099 | 0 - 1 | Sriram, Gautam | 1315 | ||
| 10 | O'Brien, Mark | ~1000 | 0 - 1 | Ben-Eshak, Djad | 1069 | ||
| 3 - 7 | |||||||
I organised these matches because the Middlesex League Division 3 schedule is in a poor state this season, with a number of fixtures (all involving one particular club, which will remain nameless here) not having been properly scheduled, despite my best efforts. Hendon 3 have just nine scheduled League matches, of which the last was already played at the end of February.
To try to make up for this, Simon Brougham of Muswell Hill was kind enough to agree to a pair of rated friendlies.
The great thing about rated friendlies is that we aren’t limited to a specific board count, so we can expand the match according to who is available. This led to the match being played over ten boards, with Hendon lending David Lewis to Muswell Hill to even up the numbers (this would also be unacceptable for a league match, but it is fine for a friendly!).
This match seems to have been enjoyed by all, and we look forward to the return fixture at Hendon on Wednesday 24th April.
My thanks to everyone for playing, to David Lewis for captaining on the night, and to Simon Brougham of Muswell Hill for hosting!