Disappointing London League Loss

Dulwich 1 v Ilford 1, London League Div 2
6 – 4
27 November 2019
Report by Tom Barton

1	Ryan Randall	205	1 – 0	Julian Hudson	168
2	Andrew Pridding      (b)	198	1 – 0	Tom Barton	162
3	Haran Rasalingam	177	1 – 0	Anthony Kent	157
4	Peter Andrews	177	1 – 0	Venkatesh Subramanian	e150
5	Slobodan Svircevic	156	1 – 0	Aidan Corish	146
6	Gary Peebles-Brown	152	½ – ½	Andrew Medworth	146
7	Marlon Seton	142	½ – ½	Jason W Klimach	145
8	Norman Watson	80	0 – 1	Gideon Vecht	142
9	Default		0 – 1	Malcolm Gesthuysen	139
10	Default		0 – 1	Jef Page	128

We started the evening two points up after defaults from Dulwich but lost the match over the top five boards where we were out graded on average 183 to 157. I fell early in the sharp Mieses variation of the Scotch where I’d considered and discarded the correct move for a decent game. Anthony was slowly strangled for space and play, Venkatesh had his king stranded in the centre of the board but although he got through the pressure to a rook and pawn endgame he was pawns down and couldn’t hold. Aidan’s opponent had a slight edge but it looked drawish until Aidan dropped a pawn. Andrew worked hard for his draw , Jason drew and Gideon found a mating attack.

The game of the evening was by Julian on board one. He played really well and his opponent and Dulwich captain, Ryan Randall, struggled to find a way to break down Julian’s defence. An exciting endgame saw passed pawns created on both sides of the board and with the game being played on incremental time Julian found the right moves to keep up the tension until he gave up the exchange. In the final position Ryan decided to repeat a few moves and waited for time to be called at 10pm. Initial analysis on the night suggested a white win. In Ryan’s word the following day:

“As we suspected, Stockfish confirms it’s winning for white by 1 tempo. I should’ve found and played this at the time, but I was too exhausted to calculate. Tough game!”

And Julian duly resigned.