South Norwood 2 v Richmond (Centenary Trophy)

On By gentlesoldierIn Uncategorized

Our first Surrey match of the season was in the Centenary Trophy (Division 4: our Surrey teams at present are designed to give more opportunities for our newer members), entailing a visit to far-off South Norwood, which, I understand, is reputed to be somewhere the other side of Croydon.

We found ourselves facing higher rated and, on the higher boards, very experienced opponents. Their top board was joint British U21 Champion in 1963 and Surrey Champion in 1979 and 1984.

Here’s what happened.

  1. Ron Harris (1825) ½:½ Pablo Soriano (-)
  2. Martin Cath (1833) 1:0 David Heaton (1555)
  3. Barry Miles (1668) 0:1 Levente Lencses (1525)
  4. Ken Chamberlain (1660) 0:1 Yann Sydow (-)
  5. Kaddu Mukasa (1660) 0:1 Ron Bilkhu (-)
  6. Ibrahim Abouchakra (1578) 1:0 Julian Bedale (1098)

Julian reports:

Pablo’s game was down to just a Rook each at the end + a Pawn for him – however he got trapped by the opposing King into a corner, so it ended up as a draw.  He felt he made a wrong Pawn move at the end due to time pressure, which would have got him a win. Yann was the last to finish, with a two Pawn advantage. Ron got a very good win against a considerably higher ranked opponent, & was the first player to finish, despite having much less time remaining on the clock than his opponent.Very good results by our 4 new/newish members.

It was noticeable that :

1) SN were on paper much stronger than us (ave 200+ per player)

2) They play a lot of rapidplay chess there, so were way ahead on time in every match except Yann’s.
Also, we weren’t too keen on the timeplay rules in SL, which seemed to involve a lot of increments & was unnecessarily complicated.

Yet another excellent result in what has been a great season so far, with some outstanding performances from our newer members, with a special mention for Ron.

Congratulations to everyone!

In other news, Richmond E suffered a narrow defeat against Surbiton D in Division X of the Thames Valley League.

  1. Richard Sleep (1615) 0:1 David Razzell (1673)
  2. Barry Sutton (1600) 1:0 David Morant (1450)
  3. Dan Donohoe (1533) ½:½ Phil Goodings (-)
  4. Ken Broadley (1075) 0:1 AN Other (-)

I don’t as yet have the name of Surbiton’s Board 4. I’ll update when I find out.

Finally, thanks to everyone who came along to the Adelaide in Teddington on Tuesday. We hope to be able to announce our venue for the rest of the season at some point next week.