Our captain Maks Gajowniczek reports on our two most recent Thames Valley A Team matches.

Richmond A v Kingston A match:

Board	Home player	Result	Away player	Rating difference (Δ)
one	IM Gavin Wall s2311K		0-1	David Henry Maycock s2336A		-25
two	Michael W Healey s2250A		1-0	Peter D Lalic s2314A		-64
three	Andrew Hebron s1992K		0-1	Silverio Abasolo –		–
four	Chris B Baker s1956K		0-1	Vladimir Li s2099P		-143
five	Maxim W Dunn s1909K		0-1	David J Rowson s2047K		-138
six	Maks Gajowniczek s1800K		0-1	Peter Andrews s2011K		-211
Mean rating	Home team: 2036.3		Away team: 2161.4	Δ = -125.1

Outgraded on all boards, and heavily outgraded on boards 3-6, the chances for a win overall didn’t look too hopeful. As we were already aware, Kingston as a club has definitely improved in strength since lockdown. All this being said, we tried our best and turned up with a strong team. We lost the coin toss, so it was white for us on evens.

The first result of the match was a loss by Gavin. I didn’t have a chance to look at his game, but apparently after post-analysis it turned out that Gavin resigned in a drawn position. Presumably Gavin was under some tactical pressure, where his opponent had sacrificed some material and there was a difficult to find defensive move that would have saved his position. A bit unlucky not to find this, I guess.

Meanwhile, on board 6, I was stuck in a Queen’s Gambit Accepted position gone fairly wrong for White. I had mixed up some opening moves and was just a pawn down in a dry position, so it looked likely my game would either be a loss or at most draw. On board 3, Andrew was defending in a Maroczy setup which tends to be quite drawish but still one-sided for winning chances for his opponent. Chris Baker on board 4 ventured a Closed Sicilian setup, Mike Healey was playing his usual unusual openings and I didn’t quite catch what Maxim was playing on Board 5.

On the whole our boards 3,4,6 we were cleanly outplayed. Maxim’s game on board 5 was apparently doubled-edged but also resulted in a loss. 

The man of the match definitely goes to Mike. Apprehensive about playing a strong CM before the match, things turned in Mike’s favour. In a double rook and knight vs double rook and bishop endgame, Mike had managed to get one of his pawns onto the seventh rank. The pawn at first looked surrounded, but it turned out it was severely cramping his opponent’s position and was not easily attackable by his opponent bishop of the other colour. Soon Mike found a tactic, with his opponent in time pressure, and went on to win a piece up.

In summary, for most of us painful losses that we’d rather forget, but congrats to Mike for his win against his IM opponent. My best wishes for him to get past the 2299 rating he got up to last season.

 Surbiton A v RichmondA match:

Board	Home player	Result	Away player	Rating difference (Δ)
one	David Scott s2094K		1/2-1/2	IM Gavin Wall s2311K		-217
two	Liam Bayly s1990K		0-1	Michael W Healey s2250A		-260
three	Paul D Dupré s1983A		1/2-1/2	Bertrand Barlow s1940A		+43
four	Angus S James s1972K		1/2-1/2	Jon M Eckert s1895A		+77
five	Nick W Faulks s1956A		0-1	Ian S Mcleod s1894K		+62
six	Graham P Alcock s1825A		0-1	Maks Gajowniczek s1800K		+25
Mean rating	Home team: 1970		Away team: 2015	Δ = -45
match result: 1.5 — 4.5

This match went very smoothly compared to the last two. Gavin on board 1 was playing a Leningrad Dutch. Mike on board 2 and Jon’s game on board 4 looked very similar for a while, both playing the closed Sicilian setup. Bertie on board 3 was playing some kind of Tarrasch defense in a Queen gambit opening, eventually simplifying into mutually isolated queen pawns. On board 5 and 6: Ian was playing a modern/ King’s Indian defense hybrid and I was playing against a benko gambit.

On boards 1,3,4 things looked level with equal material and all three of these games resulted in agreed-draws. 

Meanwhile on boards 2,5 and 6: Mike was a pawn up, and so was Ian although he looked like he was in a very defensive position almost hanging by a thread. In my game, after some tempo-wasting knight moves by my opponent, I found a way to squeeze my opponent with little counter-play. 

Eventually my opponent was two pawns and an exchange down still playing on, but resigning soon after. Ian, judging correctly that his opponent wasn’t very tactically minded, got his opponent to use all the time on his clock looking for advantage, but in the end initiating exchanges.  Ian then turned out to have the more active position a pawn up which he converted nicely to a win. Mike was last to finish having kept his extra pawn, now bishop and queen vs knight and queen endgame. He found a clean win by trading minor pieces and immediately after trading queens into a winning pawn ending.

A very solid undefeated result.

Well played team!