Up to joint second in Essex

UPMINSTER II  3½ – 4½   ILFORD
Toss won by Ilford- White on odd boards
Essex Division 2 – 30 April 2019
Match report – Jef Page

157               LES CRANE 0-1  TOM BARTON 166
174          STEVE KELSEY 0-1  NEVILLE TWITCHELL 168
151        AIDAN CORISH   ½  TONY KENT  153
156 ROBERT IANNETTA 1-0 JASON KLIMACH 136
141        STEVE ABBOTT   ½  SYD KALINSKY 138
140          M RAHAMAN   ½  JEF PAGE 132
134  PAUL ROSENFELD   ½  LAVANAN AINKARAN 131
126       J HANNAFORD    ½  HOWARD BERLIN 118

A good win for Ilford in a very tense match. It shows what we can do when we put a full team out even against a slightly stronger graded team.

The match stated quietly with 4 quick draws, the wildest of them being Abbott v Kalinsky with bits on all sorts of unusual squares. Steve asked Syd for a daw but Syd, not hearing Steve’s enquiry, returned the offer & they quickly agreed to halve the game. I soon followed suit as did an equally careful Tony Kent and Howard Berlin, none of us wanting to make a blunder. It was good to have Howard back for us again after a long absence.

Syd played his famed Kalinsky Gambit* which I shall explain later.                                                                                                                                                               Halving the bottom boards was good strategy as we had plusses on 3 of the other 4 boards. Our only loser was Jason Klimach as Robert Iannetta crashed into Jason’s kingside making castling and his piece development impossible and Robert easily won an undeveloped Bishop. But on the top boards Tom’s control of the centre was solid, and going a Bishop up Tom won well against Les Crane whilst Neville won an exchange of Rook for Bishop against Kelsey’s open, undefended King. Lavanan had the edge over Hannaford but couldn’t quite convert his Rook and Pawn endgame advantage but took a well-earned draw to win us the match.

A very good outing for Ilford.  This result sees us leap back to 2^nd place over Upminster:  Brentwood 12 match points, Ilford 10, Upminster 10. Loughton 8, Barking 6, (played all 10), Wanstead 6- played 9, 1 match in hand and so can overtake Barking.

*The Kalinsky Gambit. The usual move sequence is knocking a cup of coffee all over the board and your opponent. But this was a new, to me, advanced variation. As I was making a cup of tea well away from the board Syd knocked the scalding water all over me. I’ll have to give this more analysis.