Saving the best news until last, unfortunately our TVE team were unable to raise four players for their visit to Maidenhead C on Monday, so they had to concede the match.

We had two home matches on Tuesday. Our TVA team faced Wimbledon A: a draw seemed a fair result between two teams with almost identical mean ratings.

Maks reports:

Our teams were very evenly matched with only a 1-point difference between average team ratings 2096 against our 2097. I think this shows how strong Division 1 has become that teams with an average rating of 2100 are struggling to remain out of the bottom two. 

Nevertheless, a draw is a decent result and puts us tied for the bottom place for the moment. Looking at the league table it’s a bit of a race for 3rd 4th and 5th with any team that isn’t Hammersmith or Kingston catchable.

As for the actual match, Our lower boards finished sooner than our top boards. Andrew on Board 5 was a bit unlucky to be prepared against. His opponent knew what line of the Pirc Andrew might go for, from one of his teammates in a previous match. His game was very unbalanced with one side sacrificing a Queen and two pawns for three pieces. Andrew unfortunately went wrong and lost.

My own game (Maks) on board 6 was also not going much better. I found a move that was close to the worst move on the board, pinning a pawn against a Queen apart from it wasn’t actually a pin. So after straight out after just losing a knight, I was faced with either going into a hopeless endgame or sacrificing another piece. After this sacrifice, and also giving up an exchange soon after my opponent started to badly misplay. 4 pieces against 6 he allowed attack against his King. Soon he was faced with either giving up his queen or to succumb to a mating attack. A lucky win for myself. 

Apart from this, Maxim on board 4 managed to win in a much more sensible game. Gavin on board 1 also played well with the black pieces. He was under a bit of time pressure so couldn’t quite get a win, but was two pawns up. He fell in for a 3-fold repetition in a Queen and rook ending. Mike on board 2 played a very unbalanced game, in the white side of French. Several pawns were sacrificed for a piece, but then that piece had to be given back to stop an attack, meaning Mike was losing. Ashley also played an interesting game and it turned into a tense bishop and knight ending which Ashley handled well and managed to draw.

Congratulations to Maxim for his win, and also I’ll use my opponent’s after-game comment for my own game (Maks): “Well played  … I guess”

We also had a match in the Ellery Williams Trophy (rapidplay ratings: Board 1 not above 1900, others not above 1750) against Ashtead, who fielded Richmond TVL player Bertie Barlow on top board, and a player named Richmond on second board.

It’s only academic, but Ashtead were deducted a point for playing their boards 2 and 3 out of order, not for the first time this season, so we won 3-0 rather than 3-1. Congratulations to Viorel, Tom and Peter (and Bertie)!

This victory means that, although we have one match still to play, we’ve already won the competition! Well done everyone, especially Captain George!

Thanks to everyone for playing in Tuesday’s matches, and to the captains for selecting the teams.