chess – Ilford Chess Club

Disappointing loss to Enfield

NORTH CIRCULAR CHESS LEAGUE B DIVISION 10th February 2025

ILFORD II 1.5 – 3.5 ENFIELD I

1844 ADHAR JAISWAL 0-1 PAUL GILBERG 1683 w

1762 ANTHONY KENT ½ DAVID McNISH 1642 b

1736 RAYYAN ASIF 0-1 C O’COALAIDHE 1630

1672 JEF PAGE 1-0 KYRIACOS KYRIACOU 1541

1709 VINCENZO NICOSIA 0-1 MARK McWILLIAMS 1498

(Based on Jef Page’s notes). In the NCCL B division where there is an odd number of boards, the away team has the white pieces – and it paid dividends for Enfield as they very surprisingly won boards 1, 3, and 5. Anthony Kent played a Sicilian Grand Prix Attack but could make little headway in a crowded board, and with space at a premium, and a draw was soon agreed (computer agreed position equal) – final position below.

But from here on the evening went downhill for Ilford. Vincenzo gave up his usual Kings Indian opening for the evening and soon came to regret it as his slow play left him well down on the clock and in the end Mark won a Rook. Jef tore into Kyriacou’s Kingside defence but almost lost the exchange (they both missed how he could trap Jef’s R) and wriggled out of that error. But when Kyriacou blundered away a Knight Jef was not so forgiving and it was a rare evening to be the only Ilford winner. (Photo of Jef on way to winning)

Paul played an advanced variation against the French got the better of Adhar (they had drawn in the away match at Enfield) in a difficult R,N and pawns endgame.

Cormac gained space with 2 well placed Knights and the pressure told on Rayyan when O’Coalaidhe got his advanced pawn moving up the c-file and his Q invaded the centre of the board. A poor night for us as we clearly outgraded them- which made little difference.

Essex League Division 2: two defeats against Wanstead 😟

Essex Chess League WANSTEAD II v ILFORD I 15th January 2025 Ilford won the toss, White on odd boards.

WANSTEAD II 3½ – 2½ ILFORD I

1.2020 PAUL BANCROFT ½ RAHUL GHOSE 1993 W

2.2014 ASHLEY FREEMAN 1-0 NEVILLE TWITCHELL 1868 B

3.1978 TERRY WHITTON ½ VENKATESH SUBRAMANIAN 1877

4. 1903 IAN HUNNABLE ½ ADHAR JAISWAL 1794

5.1912 GEORGE HORAN 0-1 ANTHONY KENT 1797

6.1826 PHILIP STANILAND 1-0 JEF PAGE 1685

(Based on Jef’s notes)/. Playing our closest rivals with both teams unbeaten in a top of the table clash, something had to give and it was us as we narrowly lost, so Wanstead II are now 7/7, Ilford 2/3. All of our players played well, even though outgraded in comparison to Wanstead’s strong team and all the games bar one went the full distance.

Terry Whitton had lost his usual top spot and he did well to hold off Venkatesh’s R& pawns in an endgame. Staniland had a grip on Jef’s position that he could not quite break. Though he went into the ending with level material, endgame play was poor…. In compensation Tony Kent’s Bird’s opening helped him to create weak doubled-pawns on Horan’s K-sde position. In time trouble, against Tony’s K, passed a-pawn & strong Bishop, they proved to be too strong for George hold off. Rahul always seemed to be probing Bancroft’s position and likewise Adhar’s B had an edge over Ian’s weaker N, but with the pawns locked a draw was agreed. Ashley created a strong passed e-pawn and though Neville fought hard to hold it back it proved to be too sharp thorn in his side to win Wanstead the match.

Essex Chess League Division 2 20th January 2025 Toss won by Wanstead: White on odd boards

ILFORD I 1½ -4½ WANSTEAD III

1. 1993 RAHUL GHOSE ½ PHIL STANILAND 1826 w

2. 1794 ADHAR JAISWAL 1-0 PAUL BARCLAY 1797 b

3. 1797 TONY KENT 0-1 ALEX COLLYER 1780

4. 1718 VINCENZO NICOSIA 0-1 PETER NICKALS 1744

5. 1700 JEF PAGE 0-1 P GURUSAMY 1780

6. 1555 TAHA UNDRE 0-1 KEITH JONES 1669

A bad night for Ilford. Missing a few of our regular strong players really hurt us more than expected, but as it turned out we losetall 4 lower boards. All our players were under pressure the whole evening and it paid off for Wanstead in the end.

The top boards did pretty well. RahuI had trouble holding off Staniland’s attack and was surprised to be offered a draw which he quickly accepted. Adhar’s position looked quite level in a minor piece & pawns game but long term pressure from the opening ot the better of Barclay. Tony admitted that he played too passively and losing control of the f-file, when Collyer doubled-Rooks on it, proved too difficult to hold. Jef never really broke out of the opening Queen’s Gambit Declined and in the end got swamped by a strong pawn push on the q-side which he could not hold back. Vincenzo lost the exchange and although he tried to make it hard for Peter it was a lost cause. Similarly Taha had a poor opening and whilst he held the middle game together, Keith ground it out. Ilford now 2/4 🌚

Essex League Division 2: Played One, Won One

2nd December 2024 ILFORD I 3½ – 2½ BARKING II

Toss won by Ilford, White on odd boards.Time Control: 80 minutes & 10 seconds a move.

Board 1 2020 RAHUL GHOSE 1-0 PETER JASZIWSKYJI 1956

Board 2 1871 VENKATESH SUBRAMANIAN 0-1 COLIN RAMAGE 1931

Board 3 1854 NEVILLE TWITCHELL 1-0 R MATHOMPAT 1836

Board 4 1818 ADHAR JAISWAL ½ STEVE BERKLEY 1781

Board 5 1761 TONY KENT ½ KEN CLOW 1712

Board 6 1708 JEF PAGE ½ JOHN FIGGINS 1699

(Edited from Jef’s match notes) Our first of 12 Essex League matches this season, with only one more this year. A good win. Venkatesh arrived a bit late, and then had to face a rapacious Morra Gambit attack against his Sicilian, as Colin smashed into Venkatesh’s King-side for a mating attack. On the bottom boards, Anthony emerged OK as white from a Birds opening, and won Rook for Knight, but unsure of a winning plan, and short of time, took a draw. Earlier in the, white opted for 27.NxR to win material. 27.Nxd5 is even stronger.

Likewise, Jef also won R for N but with Figgins having sufficient pawns to hold off any significant attack,he had to accept a half. Adhar put Steve Berkley’s K- side under pressure and began to run a pawn up the board but Steve followed suit with his a-pawn which was equally powerful so both survived to halve the game.

Neville meanwhile cancelled out Colin’s win by going pawns up and crucially send a pawn up to b7 which proved to be an unstoppable winner against Mathompat’s lonely black knight.

So the equal match hinged on Rahul’s game. With his K-side crippled and having to defend double f-pawns made life difficult, but in a rapid endgame with time running out he got he advantage of a Q,R & N attack to win the endgame and the match.

So we get off the mark with a win in our penultimate 1st team match of 2024. we have had too many defaults in various leagues this early in the season (due to illnesses) so more players, and particularly reserves, are needed. We’ve played very few matches so far so there are lots more games to come in 2025.

NCCL: A narrow but welcome win against Loughton

NCCL DIV B ILFORD II 3-2 LOUGHTON I 25.November.2024

1794 ADAR JASIWAL 1-0 STEVE MIDDLETON 1908

1797 ANTHONY KENT ½ SIMON MOTH 1802

1685 JEF PAGE ½ MARTIN VAN TOL 1730

1302 LALITRANJAN VIGNESWARAN j 1-0 OLIVER KING (1611?)

1109 JIAYI ZHENG J 0-1 KESTUTIS GUDOVIJUS 1288

(Edited, based on Jef’s notes) Loughton automatically had white on odd boards as the away team in a 5-board match. Time Control: 80 minutes plus 10 seconds a move.

Having had bad trouble at home with no internet & landline, and to lose 1 player in the morning may be considered misfortune. But, to lose another later on (both illness) might be considered foolhardy. Fortunately Lalit and Jiayi were standing by, but had differing fortunes. King’s opening was somewhat poor as he first blundered away a pawn, and then a knight. But not to be outdone, Lalit gave it back, but by then he was so far ahead being pawns up he simply motored up the board with his h-pawn that was virtually unstoppable backed up by a Q&R. Jiayi meanwhile had won a N for 3 pawns and with Jiayi’s q-side defenceless Kestutis not only got the N off the board but queened a pawn as well.

Tony got an awkward position from a lethargic Sicilian Grand Prix Attack, having to nurse doubled b-pawns. With careful defence and a few bits exchanged, the middle game pawn structure locked. Black elected for a draw by repetition rather than open up the game. (position below).

On top board Adlar led the team well sacrificing a N to create a passed pawn and as Middleton fought to hold it back he had to give back his N advantage but it still wasn’t enough as Adlar obtained 2 connected central passed pawns.

So ,with Jef’s game the last to finish, surving on time increments, he pulled off his usual escaping trick of wriggling out of an awful, crippled opening to harass Martin’s pawns. Even when Martin finally managed to create a lone passed pawn backed up by his K&B ,he could never get it passed black’s K&N. A draw was agreed giving us the match.

NCL: Ilford beat Barking (for a change)

NORTH CIRCULAR CHESS LEAGUE DIVISION A 5th.February.2024

ILFORD I 3½ – 2½ BARKING I

1996 ALEXANDR PERESLAVTSEV 1-0 JEFF GOLDBERG 2133
1973 NEVILLE TWITCHELL 0-1 PETER JASZKIWSKYJ 2002
1925 RAHUL GHOSE ½ COLIN RAMAGE 1927
1802 VENKATESH SUBRAMANIAN 0-1 J AMES ROBINSON 1860
1806 ANTHONY KENT 1-0 MIHAITA BLAGIANU 1649
1672 ADHAR JAISWAL 1-0 VLADIMIR CHTYM 1470

Ilford won the toss: White on odd boards

Time Control: 80 minutes & 10 seconds a move

(Based on notes by Jef Page) An excellent result for Ilford. The first time in a few moons that we have beaten Barking’s 1st team – a bit of a shock for them. They didn’t quite have their usual full team out. We won the match in the old Ilford way: holding the top boards but winning the bottom ones. This was the return home match after they demolished us 4.5 – 1.5 at Barking earlier in the season.

Venkatesh arrived late on board 4 and couldn’t prevent Robinson from winning a Knight. Neville won Peter’s Queen for 2 Rooks, but the open board favoured the Rooks. Although Neville tried to run a pawn down the board, his Q could not do enough to support it. Ramage put Ghose’s King under a lot of pressure and he was forced to give up the exchange. However with a lot of pawns to the good this was compensation enough for Rahul to hold out and force a draw. Blagianu paid the penalty for losing a pawn early on in the Bishops opening and then getting the h&g pawns ‘doubled’. Tony never released his grip on the position, and a final N fork of Q&R settled the issue.

Sergey (father) and son Alexandr came over from Upminster to play for us on board 1 in our return home match and he made it a ‘double’ win over Jeff again. A long, cagey, positional game was played out as Alex pinned Goldberg back and neatly won the exchange.The last game to finish was Adhar’s in a long,drawn out R, N and pawn ending. It looked like Vladimir might be able to hold out for draw but a final blunder cost him his N and he lost the ending clinching the match for us.

After only a few NCCL matches league positions are: Barking, Wanstead, 4 match points each. Ilford 2 match points, 8½ game points; Chingford 2 match points, 7 game points. Our NCCL next match is : Ilford v Chingford 4th March. Thanks to all the Ilford players for turning out for us.

Board 1

Q v 2 Rooks and Bishop on board 2

Holding out for a draw on board 3

Eventually won on board 6

After 26. Nd5 – f6 Black is lost on board 5

Essex League Div 2: Ilford 4.5 Southend 1.5 – Fine win to finish 2023

Essex Chess League Division 2 18.12.23

Time Control: 80 mins+ 10 secs a move.

ILFORD 4½- 1½ SOUTHEND I

1. 1965 NEVILLE H TWITCHELL ½ NEIL SUTHERLAND 1998 w

2. 1935 RAHUL GHOSE 1-0 HOWARD GRIST 1977 b

3.1842 VENKATESH SUBRAMANIAN 1-0 MATHEW SHAW 1918 w

4. 1806 TONY KENT ½ STEVE WEDLOCK 1929 b

5. 1685 JEF PAGE 1-0 COLIN NEWTON 1721 w

6. 1500e. PAUL ADAMS ½ DENNIS PAUL 1710 b

(based on notes by Jef Page). With everyone of the Ilford players outgraded to some extent this was a good win to end the year as Southend were a division 1 team last season. They did come bearing gifts- the match points- and we accepted them. So 3 wins and 3 draws and no losses so far for 2023/24 – very pleasing.

I only really watched the bottom board games. Adams quickly exchanged Queens and had a nice attack going but rather let Dennis block it up, and then he went into the minor piece endgame a pawn up. Fortunately Paul Adams played calmly & held on. His grade is rather an underestimate & currently works out at 1972! (we’re going to have to be careful about this).Tony Kent made his 1st welcome visit for us this season (over from Borehamwood) and his Birds (Polar Bear) attack was never really too troubled and he to took a draw.

The first time I got up to have a quick walk around to check out the games I looked at Venkatesh’s game to see he had Shaw’s R en prise. Although his Q-side castling looked a bit open he was soon the winner. The last time I played Newton he rather mangled me but this time I won a pawn and held it neatly to win the Rook and pawn endgame with only seconds remaining. Neville meanwhile had trouble finishing off Sutherland for although also a pawn up, frustratingly he had to accept a draw.

We now have a break before we play the 2nd half of the season’s 6 matches with a few difficult away matches i.e. at Southend (26 Jan) & Witham etc.. Wanstead II lead division 2 followed by us but we are well behind. Full results on the ECA/ECL webpage .

Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy & Peaceful 2024 to everyone.

Neville a pawn up on board 1

Draw offered and agreed on board 4 as white running short of time.