Return D3 match against Thurrock

Essex D3 match – Thurrock 2 v Ilford 2 – Wednesday 4 January 2023.
5 board match, G80 + 10
Tom Barton, captain.

With none of the juniors playing we had a stronger team for this return match against Thurrock. Average grades of 1435 to 1599 suggested we should win the match but not without resistance.

A quick win for Muhammad with his opponent blundering his queen in the middle-game saw us an early point up. Jef made it two up with a checkmate against his junior opponent. They had gone for opposite side castling in a Caro-Kann that had morphed into a Sicilian type setup when Jef’s opponent strayed. See the diagram for the final moves:

24 g6? – from here Jef (Black to move) grabbed the mate in two.

Taha was a passed pawn down which if his opponent could liquidate the queen and rooks would be winning so a difficult position and that pressure told and he lost.

Adhar started mopping up pawns in his game and Biel reached a very interesting middle-game. Adhar won to secure the match. Biel’s game was see-sawing but eventually he went pawns up and also won – a bit of a grind with opportunities missed to conclude the game more quickly. So the final score was a 4-1 win to start 2023.

1      1522      Baig, Huzaifa                     0 – 1               Page, Jeffrey      1644
2 (B)       1550      Waszkielewicz, Mariusz 1 – 0               Undre, Taha       1575
3      1589      Lawrence, Drew               0 – 1               Jaiswal, Adhar    1556
4 (B)       1411      Sandu, Silviu                      0 – 1               Obiols, Biel         1618
5      1100 Waszkielewicz, Oscar      0 – 1               Faheem, Muhammad     1600L