Ilford arrived at the British Legion in London E4 in a variety of ways for our last match of 2016: by car, bus and London Overground. For once we outgraded our opponents on every board, which we made tell in our favour in the end, as they were weaker than expected with a few top players missing.
Neville deployed his favourite, sharp (top secret) Queen’s pawn opening and with Strachan erring, the game finished very quickly. Jef wasn’t far behind as Allison made a mess of defending against his King’s Gambit Accepted and at the close he was a Rook & two Knights ahead to a lone Bishop.
From here on it got harder as Tom’s Classical Dutch Defence was well held by Brian Spear neat opening line, and neither could Syd make any headway against Maynes. Our only loser was Anthony Kent who pushed too hard for a pawn breakthrough against the Scicilan, but his pawn structure wasn’t solid. Instead of keeping things tight, good counter-attacking pawn play by Rose saw him break through decisively with Queen and Rook for a deserved win.
NORTH CIRCULAR CHESS LEAGUE DIVISION B
British Legion, Chingford. 19.12.16
CHINGFORD 2 2-3 ILFORD
162 GAVIN STRACHAN 0-1 NEVILLE TWITCHELL 173 w
151 BRIAN SPEAR ½ TOM BARTON 166 b
141 PETER ROSE 1-0 ANTHONY KENT 153
137 RICHARD MAYNES ½ SYD KALINSKY 148
120 ANDREW ALLISON 0-1 JEF PAGE 130
Ilford Chess Club 