The season opened with a tough away fixture against Barking in North Circular League Division A.
Ilford lost the toss and were Black on Odd boards and we lost this 1-5.
Board Rating Barking 1 V Ilford 1 Rating
1 2042 (2042) Goldberg, Jeff AB 0 – 1 B Ghose, Rahul 2000 (2000)
2 2022 (2022) Ismailov, RomanG 1 – 0 G Subramanian, Venkatesh 1895 (1895)
3 1981 (1979) Jaszkiwskyj, PeterG 1 – 0 B Kent, Anthony R 1751 (1751)
4 1969 (1969) Mathompat, RajyeshwarN 1 – 0 B Page, Jeffrey 1645 (1645)
5 1866 (1866) Ramage, Colin RG 1 – 0 B Afuang, Noah 1519 (1519)
6 1823 (1837) Robinson, James MG 1 – 0 N Hajnal, Aron 1306 (1306)
(Edited from Rahul Ghose’s notes). It was difficult getting players for this match as most of the adults were unable to play. We had 3 juniors come in for the game, Noah, Aron and Ritisha (who was on reserve). Noah and Aron filled in for boards 5 & 6 who both put up a great fight with their much higher rated opponents. Noah appeared to be better on the board during my brief visit near his board and Aron was holding steady for quite a bit of time. However they both lost and the adults fell soon after. It was a much tougher fight than the score suggests as I believe Tony was better throughout the game versus Peter. Venkatesh missed a few tricks but was doing quite well. Jef too seemed to be holding on. I was throughout my game with Jef Goldberg but it had quite the finish with me getting a 2nd queen promotion. See below!
On Board 3 below, Black should have played 12…e5 winning material.
