Monday 22nd May 2017 North Circular Chess League Division B, Redbridge Social Centre
ILFORD 3½-1½ BARKING II (Barking had White on odd boards as the away team.)
NEVILLE TWITCHELL ½ COLIN RAMAGE w 158
ANTHONY KENT ½ KEN CLOW b 151
SYD KALINSKY ½ G ANSARI 140
JASON KLIMACH 1-0 TONY LOH 105
MARSHALL TUTU 1-0 ALEX BOWHILL 86
From Jef’s Notes
A good night for Ilford which keeps us top of Division B. We were always leading in the match and we did well to hold the three top boards and win the bottom two.
Alex Bowhill caught Tutu with a Knight fork of both of Marshall’s Rook’s which he’d overlooked, so winning a Rook for a Knight. But then Alex blundered his advantage away by losing a Bishop and worse, managed to get his King caught in a net and was checkmated by Marshall’s Queen & Bishop. This was followed up by Jason Klimach who held the advantage from the opening and having chased Loh’s King down to b3 (!), mated him with Rook, Knight & pawns. So 2-nil up and rolling.
On the top boards it wasn’t so easy. Kent’s white-side of a Reversed Leningrad Dutch (or Bird’s) Defence looked like glue and with few bits exchanged a draw was agreed. Kalinsky had to grapple with a ‘Fried Liver’ type of attack and counter-attacked strongly, but with Ansari defending adroitly Syd took a draw to seal the match win. On board 1, Twitchell won a pawn out of a Sicilian Morra Gambit Declined. But his pawn advantage was weak and as the endgame drew near, his position cost him a Bishop but fortunately Neville had won enough pawns to stop Colin Ramage gaining a win.
With one match to go we lead the division. Win our last match, against Loughton on 5th June and we are champions and promoted!
Ilford Chess Club 