NCL: Excellent Win Against Loughton 1

An excellent win for Ilford as we were outgraded on all five boards

North Circular Chess League Division B

Monday 13^th February 2017, Redbridge Social Centre.

ILFORD 3-2 LOUGHTON I

1. 172 NEVILLE H TWITCHELL 1-0 KEVIN BOWMER 179

2. 153 ANTHONY KENT ½ BILL STIRLING (b) 175

3. 148 SYD KALINSKY 0-1 DAVID FAULKNER 158

4. 124 UMAR YUNIS 1-0 K GROCE 139

5. 116 LEONARDO STEFANONI ½ SIMON MOTH 139

We are now equal top with Chingford, but with matches in hand on them (but we can be also caught by both Barking and Wanstead). Still the only unbeaten team in the division: played 9, Won 6, Drawn 3. Quite a decent unbeaten run.

Neville Twitchell played a sharp line of the Sicilian Kalashnikov as Black on top board. He had some initiative, but Bowmer made a bad mistake suddenly dropping a bishop for a pawn (Bxb? in picture below). Anthony Kent got a good opening from the Reversed Leningrad, but did not capitalize on black’s weak opening and took a reasonable draw against Stirling. Syd Kalinsky allowed Faulkner to control the centre with his Rooks, and then got his Bishop trapped by white’s advancing king-side pawns with no chances of counter play. Leonardo and Simon Moth played into a level minor pieces and three pawns level endgame from a French defense. Both Kent and Stefanoni had given away over 22 grading points but still held their opponents to a draw. So 2 – 2 with one game to finish.

The result hinged on Groce v Yunis, as Groce set up a strong kingside attack. But neatly breaking it up by first exchanging one Rook each, Umar then forked Groce’s Queen and remaining Rook with a pawn. Groce sacrificed it in the hope of perpetual Queen checks but, even though very short of time, Umar cleaned up the endgame still a Rook up.

For potential new members who might wish to join, we now have use of an additional comfortable playing area for coaching of juniors or special matches. So no problems about lack of space or too much noise hindering concentration- problems we’ve worried about for a long time.

(based on edited notes by Jef Page)

Board 1 Boards 5 and 4 Boards 2 and 3