NCCL Team 2022-23

North Circular League Div B

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
8	2	1	5	5

To see match report, click on score, or scroll down.

Day	Date	Venue	0pponents	Result
Wed	9-Nov-22	Home	Enfield I	W 3-2
Wed	7-Dec-22	Home	Chingford II	L 2-3
Wed	4-Jan-23	Home	Wanstead II	L 2-3
Tue	10-Jan-23	Away	Enfield I	L 2-3
Thu	28-Feb-23	Away	Wanstead II	D 2½-2½
Mon	13-Mar-23	Away	Chingford II	L 1-4
Thu	13-Apr-23	Away	Barking II	W 4-1
Wed	17-May-23	Home	Barking II	L 1½-3½

Match reports

Loughton Bowls Club Wed 9^th Nov 2022

	Loughton			Enfield I
1	Middleton, Stephen	1936	1-0	Olulode, Olu	2150
2	Groce, Ken	1693	0-1	McNish, David	1742
3	Kershaw, Graham J	1672	1-0	Kyriacou, Kyriacos	1591
4	Brunger, Myles	1542J	1-0	Ozdemir, Kamil	1484
5	Gudovijus, Kestutis		0-1	McWilliams, Mark D	1467
			3-2

Our first match for over two years against our old friends from Enfield. Generally they out-graded us on higher boards, so we did well to win. We actually had very good performances, from losers, as well as winners.

Stephen got probably the stand-out result of the evening, against a 2150 player. He played a Grunfeld as black. For a while he had a weaker pawn structure, but played positively and got his rooks doubled up down an open c-file, extracted a material gain and eventually managed to queen a pawn.
Ken played English and had a close game, but ended up slightly worse in a pawns and minor piece endgame.
Graham had a Queen's Gambit, in which his white opponent played cxd5 on move 3. This game had a closed position, in which both sides had a central knight outpost. However, Graham's was slightly better, and he built a good K-side attack with doubled rooks, Q and N, eventually getting white's Q. Avoided mistakes in the endgame to win it.
Myles played white against a Scandinavian Defence. He ended up with better placed pieces and black had a weak pawn structure. This looked like a very good win.
Kestutis was playing his first game for us, and it was really encouraging. He played Caro-Kann Defence Advance Variation and ended up with white launching his pawns aggressively down the K-side. A very lively game, where white's rook control of the central files counted in the end. Kestutis lost narrowly.

Loughton Bowls Club Wed 7^th Dec 2022

	Loughton			Chingford II
1	Malinik, Attila		½-½	Horan, George	1970
2	Faulkner, David J	1845	½-½	Rose, Peter W	1845
3	van Tol, Martin	1782	1-0	Oakley, Robin J	1777
4	Groce, Ken	1677	0-1	Spear, Brian J	1786
5	Collins, Fred	1641	0-1	Morrell, Andrew	1739
			2-3

Dave drew relatively quickly.
Look briefly at Fred's game, his opponent got into his position and won well.

The other three games took a lot longer.

Brian offered Ken a draw twice before Ken lost on time.

So that put us two down.

Martin was black and played a Sicilian. Robin tried a Morra Gambit, which Martin refused. But Robin then constructed a Maroczy Bind and had the initiative. Eventually Robin got control of the c-file and Martin was diverting minor pieces to hold c7 and c8. But then a small error allowed Martin to free up a Knight, harass queen side pieces and eventually with some tactics got a Rook down an open file and won a Bishop. Robin was now low on time and walked into a fork. The position still had some traps in it, but Martin kept it safe and won on move forty.

So we were one down.

Then Attila and George really went the distance. Attila was R and 2P vs R but could not find a win.

So we narrowly missed a drawn match.

Loughton Bowls Club Wed 4^th Jan 2023

	Loughton			Wanstead II
1	Collins, Fred	1592	0-1	Murrell, Mark R A	1871
2	van Tol, Martin	1792	½-½	Barclay, Paul R	1812
3	Groce, Ken	1670	1-0	Nickals, Peter A	1716
4	Brunger, Myles	1535	½-½	Nigrelli, Vittorio	1778
5	Gudovijus, Kestutis	1309	0-1	McCarron, Peter DJ	1739
			2-3

Ken had an excellent result. The game started as a Queens Indian but transposed into a Queens Gambit where his opponent went wrong and got three isolated pawns. Ken's bishop had control of the centre and he won in his opponent's time trouble.

St Stephen's Church Hall, Enfield Tue 10^th Jan 2023

	Enfield I			Loughton
1	Olulode, Olu	2148	1-0	Malinik, Attila	1821
2	Hetherington, Carl J	2000	½-½	Moth, Simon C	1801
3	McNish, David	1746	½-½	van Tol, Martin	1793
4	Gilberg, Paul	1743	½-½	Kershaw, Graham J	1680
5	Kyriacou, Kyriacos	1575	½-½	Gudovijus, Kestutis	1287
			3-2

Wanstead House Tue 28^th Feb 2023

	Wanstead II			Loughton
1	Karacsony, Istvan	1843	0-1	Moth, Simon C	1800
2	Barclay, Paul R	1816	½-½	Malinik, Attila	1773
3	Jones, Keith S	1759	1-0	van Tol, Martin	1791
4	Nigrelli, Vittorio	1762	0-1	Collins, Fred	1661
5	Colclough, Ryan	1765	1-0	Gudovijus, Kestutis	1336
			2½-2½

Excellent wins by Simon and Fred against higher graded opponents.

British Legion Club, Chingford Mon 13^th Mar 2023

	Chingford II			Loughton
1	Horan, George	2004	1-0	Collins, Fred	1708
2	Rose, Peter W	1835	1-0	Brunger, Myles	1547
3	Spear, Brian J	1776	1-d	Dee, Fault
4	Klein, Steven	1517	½-½	Gudovijus, Kestutis	1328
5	Neogy, A Robin (Robbie)	1555	½-½	Smith, Michael	1314
			4-1

St. Margaret’s Church, Barking Thu 13^th Apr 2023

	Barking II			Loughton
1	Pastukhov, Boris	1730	0-1	Middleton, Stephen	1981
2	Berkley, Stephen W	1806	0-1	Moth, Simon C	1795
3	Mathompat, Rajyeshwar	1597	0-1	van Tol, Martin	1776
4	Monk, George H	1645	0-1	Brunger, Myles	1544
5	Chtym, Vladimir	1464	1-0	Sargent, Leslie J	1325
			1-4

An emphatic away win. However, the match felt a bit closer and in reality could have gone the other way.

We went into the match with a slight grading advantage.

We went two up fairly early. Myles's opponent had an off-night and Myles got a very decisive attack early on. Simon's opponent retired sick. Les then went down, to leave the score at 2-1 in our favour.

The remaining two games went the full distance and were both very close. Martin had a very closed game in the French defence, which he only won in a bishops and pawns ending. Stephen's game was very double-edged, but just as his opponent seemed to be getting on top, Stephen found a sequence of moves leading to an unusual mate with a pawn on the edge of the board.

Loughton Bowls Club Wed 17^th May 2023

	Loughton			Barking II
1	van Tol, Martin	1797	½-½	Robinson, James M	1874
2	Kershaw, Graham J	1720	0-1	Naumov, Igor	1849
3	Collins, Fred	1698	0-1	Mathompat, Rajyeshwar	1657
4	Gudovijus, Kestutis	1335	0-1	Chtym, Vladimir	1453
5	Smith, Michael	1304	1-0	Milburn, Noel	1415
			1½-3½