Ilford win the London League Season 2 Knight Division!

13 May 2021

After the loss last week against London Business School, Ilford had dropped to second place in the Knights Division and in this weeks final match Ilford needed to win against Battersea Gambiteers and see the results go against Hackney Hungry to win the league. Ilford won, the London Business School did us a favour to beat Hackney Hungry so Ilford are Knights Division champions! Well played to the team of: Dlawar Hameed; Neville Twitchell; Anthony Kent; Jef Page and Tom Barton.

Neville had a sharp game in a Sicilian with opposite sides castling. His opponent’s attack had pieces pointing towards Neville’s king but they were ineffectual whereas Neville’s attack was conclusive. Anthony played Black in a Sicilian and his opponent gave up a piece on move 10 after which it was straightforward. Jef also had a pretty easy game. In a Pirc, he blocked off the centre and attacked on the queenside. With an already clear advantage his opponent dropped a rook. Tom’s game was last to finish and compared to the others this was a tense struggle. In a Sicilian his opponent blunted his offer of a Najdorf by trading off white squared bishops and going for a Maroczy bind type setup. After trading off in the centre Tom had a centre passed pawn but dropped a pawn to a neat tactic by his opponent. A tricky endgame saw a drawn position arise only for Tom’s opponent to inexplicably fail to move and lose on time.

Neville’s game from last week got star billing as the featured game in this week’s JoRoSaR broadcast on twitch.tv! See about 17 mins in: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1020180824

Neville’s game from this week is here: Farahmandpour v Twitchell

Full details of the final standings are on the LL website: https://www.londonchess.org.uk/main.php

Battersea Gambiteers                               Ilford A

1. Dieter McDougall     [W]       0 – 1     Tom Barton
2. Ehsan Farahmandpour [B]   0 – 1      Neville Twitchell
3. Marc Harvey             [W]        0 – 1     Anthony Kent
4. Gareth Hilton          [B]           0 – 1    Jef Page

Ilford will enter a team for the LL Online Season 3. The new season starts on Wednesday 2 June