Happy New Year to all members and friends of Hendon Chess Club! We hope you enjoyed the Christmas break with your friends and families, and wish you all the best for 2025.
We got the New Year off to a flying start, with three away matches in the Middlesex League, and the January Blitz at our home venue last Thursday.
On Wednesday, Hendon 2 played an away match against West London. As I reported in October, West London have a very strong team this year, and on this occasion they were even stronger than when they visited us to play Hendon 3.
This match was notable for the fact that our opponents had three women with the WGM title on their top three boards – I don’t think I’ve ever seen that in the League before, let alone outside the top division!
Yao Lan, who played Board 1 for the England women’s team at the Budapest Olympiad in 2024, only made it to Board 2 in this Middlesex League Division 2 match, with Andreea-Cristiana Navrotescu of France on Board 1! We can only congratulate West London captain Andy Hayler on putting this fine team together. It’s always a pleasure to play at the Chiswick Town Hall, and the club has invested in some very nice wooden chess sets befitting this historic venue.
The match was predictably rather one-sided, but congratulations must go to David Ben-Nathan for winning on Board 5 to avoid a total whitewash! Nobody has scored better against West London at home so far this season, and I’d be surprised if anyone does!
| West London 1 | West London 1 | Hendon 2 | Hendon 2 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Navrotescu, Andreea-Cristiana (WGM) | 2377 | 1 - 0 | Eedle, Eric | 2028 | ||
| 2 | Yao, Lan (WGM) | 2335 | 1 - 0 | Macneil, Elliott | 1972 | ||
| 3 | Mirzoeva, Elmira (WGM) | 2303 | 1 - 0 | Rubeck, Jonathan | 1928 | ||
| 4 | Fegan, Chris | 2077 | 1 - 0 | Sartenaer, Jean-Claude | 1840 | ||
| 5 | Jezierski, Colum | 1962 | 0 - 1 | Ben-Nathan, David | 1766 | ||
| 6 | Burke, John | 1965 | 1 - 0 | Medworth, Andrew | 1742 | ||
| 5 - 1 | |||||||
On Thursday, we had two away matches at Harrow, with Hendon 1 and Hendon 4 in action. In the Hendon 1 match we faced another member of the England women’s Olympiad team, young superstar Bodhana Sivanandan, who has graduated from leading the Harrow Juniors team last season to leading the adult first team!
Thankfully on this occasion we were able to field IM Lorin D’Costa, whose win was added to two others by Rob Willmoth and Eric Eedle to secure a 4–2 victory. A great result for an away match!
| Harrow 1 | Harrow 1 | Hendon 1 | Hendon 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sivanandan, Bodhana | 2159 | 0 - 1 | D'Costa, Lorin | 2457 | ||
| 2 | Chan, Nevil | 1965 | 0 - 1 | Willmoth, Robert Frederick | 2224 | ||
| 3 | Dhemrait, Jagdeep | 1953 | ½ - ½ | Senior, Gary | 2072 | ||
| 4 | Kirupakaran, Vishnu | 1864 | 0 - 1 | Eedle, Eric | 2028 | ||
| 5 | Heidrich, Clive | 1748 | 1 - 0 | Rubeck, Jonathan | 1928 | ||
| 6 | Lyons, James | 1606 | ½ - ½ | Rogal, Christopher | 1705 | ||
| 2 - 4 | |||||||
In the Division 3 match between Harrow 2 and Hendon 4, we also emerged victorious, thanks to wins for Robert Alster, Vasileios Kollias, David Lewis and Djad Ben-Eshak. Another excellent victory, despite being out-rated on the majority of the boards!
| Harrow 2 | Harrow 2 | Hendon 4 | Hendon 4 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Midha, Amit | 1743 | ½ - ½ | Garcia, Tom | 1652 | ||
| 2 | Clenshaw, John | 1640 | 0 - 1 | Alster, Robert | 1646 | ||
| 3 | Papachristos, Maximillian | 1621 | 0 - 1 | Kollias, Vasileios | 1544 | ||
| 4 | Dhemrait, Surjit S | 1611 | 1 - 0 | Samuels, Benjamin | ~1400 | ||
| 5 | Yang, Haobo | 1522 | 0 - 1 | Lewis, David | 1371 | ||
| 6 | Goyal, Ankita | 0 - 1 | Ben-Eshak, Djad | 1354 | |||
| 1½ - 4½ | |||||||
Many thanks to everyone who played in our three away matches this week!
Last but by no means least, our monthly FIDE Blitz tournament was held at the Cumberland Club on Thursday. Avyukt Dasgupta won the event with 5½/6, with David Amior the top Hendon player in clear second with 4½/6, ahead of seven players in joint third with 4/6.
Full standings:
Full results available here.
Many thanks to all who participated, and to Adam and Lance for running the tournament!
What a start to 2025! There’s plenty more to come, with our first home League matches happening next week.
My thanks to Hendon 1 captain Eric Eedle and Hendon 4 captain Chris Rogal for contributions to this report.