On a cold pre-Thanksgiving night, Ilford finally beat Loughton after years of misery (report based on Jef Page’s notes). Match time control: 80 minutes plus ten seconds per move.
Essex Division 2
Date: Wednesday 21 November 2018
Venue: Loughton Bowling Club
| Bd | Loughton I | 3½-4½ | Ilford | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 186A | Bowmer, Kevin (B) | ½-½ | Twitchell, Neville H  |
174B |
| 2 | 184C | Stirling, William J | ½-½ | Barton, Tom A | 166B |
| 3 | 157A | Faulkner, David J | 0-1 | Kent, Anthony R | 151A |
| 4 | 141B | Kershaw, Graham J | ½-½ | Kalinsky, Syd M | 141A |
| 5 | 142A | Van Tol, Martin | ½-½ | Gesthuysen, Malcolm | 139C |
| 6 | Stiffell, Lyn | 0-1 | Page, Jeffrey | 139B | |
| 7 | 138A | Moth, Simon C | ½-½ | Tutu, Marshall | 094D |
| 8 | 131B | Groce, Ken | 1-0 | Pakovlevas, Aleksandras | |
From quickly being 1-0 down we turned this match around giving us our a first match win since January in the Essex League and the first win over Loughton for over 5 years. Loughton were stronger than us in grading terms at both the top & bottom, so this was a very good result.
New member Pakovlevas was no match for Groce, who quickly won his opponent’s Queen.But, from there on we did enough to hold our games together. Marshall arrived late after coming directly from work, but easily held Moth. Top board saw a typical feisty Scilicial defence, with Bowmer attacking the queen-side castled king, but being held up by Neville’s defence.
Tom’s Dutch likewise made life hard enough to stop Bill Stirling. Kershaw gained an advantage against Syd’s Ruy Lopez schliemann gambit. Syd forced the exchange of pieces and Graham’s slight plus petered out.
Anthony Kent faced the Alekhine defence which converted into a closed Sicilian following Spassky v Geller 1968 candidates match after 8 moves https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/1269245/ply/20 . Unfortunately, white played a much inferior line to Spassky and got into trouble. However, as the clocks ticked down, white gained the exchange and had an unstoppable passed pawn (see below). Stiffel advanced his K-side pawns against Jef with mating threats, but these were warded off. Jef did just enough on the Q-side to distract him, and gambled correctly by refusing a draw, sending his c-pawn up the board to queen. The match win was clinched when Malcolm Gesthuysen halted Moth’s Q&B’s attack and nicked a queen-side pawn. As both ran desperately short of time, effectively surviving on the 10 second increment, Moth agreed to a draw.
Has the worm finally turned the corner in our favour? Well maybe not, but it will do.
Thanks to everyone who played.
Neville’s game on board 1
Anthony’s position after 36 Ke2 (from f2). Back played 36…R5xf which lost the exchange after 37 BxN RxR 38 BxR, the g pawn is effectively unstoppable.
Some more action shots: Syd, Malcom and Jef all in deep thought.
Ilford Chess Club 