The results to date for the U140 team
U140 Team Results
2011- 2012 Season
On Saturday Herts U140 took a big step towards a second consecutive ECF national section appearance with a big 10-6 win in Dartford.
The intrigue started 2 weeks previous with the Kent captain telling me that he had selection problems and could we play the match over more boards? This turned out to be infeasible - luckily for us as due to personal circumstances 2 of our regulars had to pull out at short notice and I only secured our 16th player on Friday evening - although due to your captain being less efficient than usual it was the unlucky Roger K who's confirmation email had mysteriously found its way into my Trash folder...
With no holdups on the bridge this time (apologies to my passengers who arrived at 1pm) we had a solid-looking team by 1:55pm, with many thanks to late call-ups for David Willsher and Miro Stefanovski making his county debut. The day started well with both Terry O'Sullivan scoring our first win inside 45 minutes, and the Kent captain having to stand in for one of his players a few minutes later being nearly an hour down on the clock. This was followed shortly afterwards by a good draw from Graham Williams and wins for Ed Magee and Barry Saunders which meant we were 3.5-0.5 up by 4pm.
This early lead turned out to be one that we would not lose this time, with most of the other games looking close. As the afternoon wore on, wins from Keith Woodhouse and Gary Ruddick and draws from Tery Douse and Mir Wali started to put victory in sight, and with 7.5 points on the board fittingly Roger Kearns forced his opponent's resignation to put us neatly over the winning line.
However Herts determination was such that the remaining games still produced some excellent results, with Steve Zsibrita and Andrew Maclaren also notching wins and Miro Stefanovski managed to defuse 3 dangerous-looking connected king-side passed pawns to obtain a draw.
Despite our win we are now 2nd in the table behind Surrey who beat Essex
12.5-3.5 at home and couldn't believe that we had won so handsomely at Kent, although assuming we can get a result at Horsham in 5 weeks time we will probably face an SCCU title decider in Harpenden on March 10th.
We now have a bit of a break, but note that our last 2 matches are 2 weeks apart - Feb 25th at Horsham (I assume - details to be confirmed) and the March 10th at home to Surrey.
| Board | Kent | Grade | Score | Herts | Grade | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Malcolm Mourant (B) | 138 | 1 | Steve Dicks | 137 | 0 |
| 2 | Derek Davis | 136 | 0 | Gary Ruddick | 134 | 1 |
| 3 | Michael Hawkes | 135 | 0 | Keith Woodhouse | 134 | 1 |
| 4 | Richard Woodfield | 135 | 0.5 | Terry Douse | 133 | 0.5 |
| 5 | David Gilbert | 134 | 1 | David Belton | 132 | 0 |
| 6 | Mark Stone | 134 | 0.5 | Miro Stefanovski | 132 | 0.5 |
| 7 | Chris Stampe | 134 | 0 | Ed Magee | 131 | 1 |
| 8 | Tyrone Jeffries | 116 | 1 | John Leake | 131 | 0 |
| 9 | Peter Thomas | 133 | 1 | David Willsher | 131 | 0 |
| 10 | Matthew Ridley | 130 | 0 | Terry O'Sullivan | 129 | 1 |
| 11 | James Everson | 127 | 0 | Andrew MacLaren | 128 | 1 |
| 12 | Luke Kyte | 126 | 0.5 | Mir Wali | 127 | 0.5 |
| 13 | David Orr | 126 | 0.5 | Graham Williams | 125 | 0.5 |
| 14 | Stephen Bond | 125 | 0 | Steve Zsbrita | 122 | 1 |
| 15 | Targino Kalid-Filho | 124 | 0 | Roger Kearns | 121 | 1 |
| 16 | Joe Neanor | 120 | 0 | Barrie Saunders | 117 | 1 |
Victory at the Cottage - Middlesex 7.5 - Herts 8.5 Saturday 26th November 2011
A somewhat makeshift Herts team showed we have strength in depth by achieving a narrow win over a much-strengthened Middlesex team at their new venue in Swiss Cottage on Saturday. Any ideas I might have had of them fielding 6 juniors graded under 100 (as they did in their previous match) disappeared rapidly on seeing their team-sheet filled with very similar strengths to ourselves - we out-graded them by a mere 17 points over the first 13 boards.
We always seem to get the better of the early exchanges these days, and yesterday was no exception with Wali getting a quick win followed closely behind by Ed Magee putting us 2-0 up. Shortly afterwards and with the hour approaching and their board 2 having not shown up, Chris Russell ended up facing the 9 year old they were supposed to be fielding on board 16 (with my apologies both to Chris and to debutant Ilan Elango, who was his expected opponent). Although the bottom 3 boards struggled (Ilan being outgraded by 53 points not helping matters) we managed to consolidate from that point onwards.
Nick Cornish won after his opponent tried to refute his sound move with 'you shouldn't have done that' and David Belton's opponent managed to get himself into a losing tangle despite being 2 pawns ahead. Debutant Martin McAree appeared to be winning for a long time but eventually had to agree a draw, and Andrew MacLaren had a similar experience (although desperately short of time). I managed to add a second pawn win to the other dropped/sacrificed by my opponent earlier in the game, and Chris duly overcame his lowly-rated opponent with an hour advantage on his clock.
And so we were 8-7 up with just Keith Woodhouse's game outstanding with Keith looking a bit tied up and possessing what to me looked like the world's worst bad bishop - and then his opponent offered him a draw without checking the match score!
A big thank you to all those who played, especially those who turned out at short notice.
We now enter a well-deserved Christmas break having beaten 2 of the weaker teams in the SCCU - next up is a trip to Dartford on 21st January to play Kent.
U140 SCCU Table:
Pld W D L Pts
Surrey 2 2 0 0 21
Herts 2 2 0 0 19
Kent 2 2 0 0 18
----------------------------
Sussex 2 0 0 2 13
Middx 2 0 0 2 12
Essex 2 0 0 2 11
| Board | Middlesex | Grade | Score | Herts | Grade | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David McNish (B) | 137 | 0 | Steve Dicks | 137 | 1 |
| 2 | Reuben Balouka-Myers | 53 | 0 | Chris Russell | 136 | 1 |
| 3 | Richard Dunn | 135 | 1 | Jonathan Phillips | 135 | 0 |
| 4 | Charlie Cooke | 133 | 1 | Ray Claret | 134 | 0 |
| 5 | Faye Ainscowe | 132 | 0.5 | Keith Woodhouse | 134 | 0.5 |
| 6 | Alistair Morton | 131 | 0 | David Belton | 132 | 1 |
| 7 | Andrew Costeloe | 131 | 0.5 | Matt Read | 132 | 0.5 |
| 8 | Wil Ransome | 130 | 0 | Ed Magee | 131 | 1 |
| 9 | John Harvey | 129 | 0 | Nick Cornish | 130 | 1 |
| 10 | Kishnan Pattni | 127 | 0.5 | Martin McAree | e130 | 0.5 |
| 11 | Gerald Parfett | 127 | 0.5 | Andrew MacLaren | 128 | 0.5 |
| 12 | Paul Robertson | 123 | 0 | Mir Wali | 127 | 1 |
| 13 | Joseph Farrell | 119 | 0.5 | Chris Cook | 124 | 0.5 |
| 14 | Nick Murphy | 104 | 1 | Roger Kearns | 121 | 0 |
| 15 | Martin Pole | e109 | 1 | Madhi Elango | 121 | 0 |
| 16 | Des Byrne | 118 | 1 | Ilan Elango | 61 | 0 |
| Board | Herts | Grade | Score | Essex | Grade | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Simon Cage (B) | 138 | 0.5 | Andrew Offord | 138 | 0.5 |
| 2 | Chris Russell | 136 | 0.5 | Simon Moth | 136 | 0.5 |
| 3 | Jonathan Phillips | 135 | 1 | Phil Foley | 135 | 0 |
| 4 | Keith Woodhouse | 134 | 1 | Tony Loh | 131 | 0 |
| 5 | Ray Claret | 134 | 0 | Ed Porter | 131 | 1 |
| 6 | Gary Ruddick | 134 | 1 | Peter Nickals | 128 | 0 |
| 7 | Matt Read | 132 | 0.5 | Geoff Cooper | 125 | 0.5 |
| 8 | John Leake | 131 | 1 | Richard Joyce | 123 | 0 |
| 9 | Ed Magee | 131 | 0 | Vladimir Chtym | 119 | 1 |
| 10 | Terry O'Sullivan | 129 | 0.5 | Steve Woodall | 109 | 0.5 |
| 11 | Andrew MacLaren | 128 | 1 | Chris Phillips | 104 | 0 |
| 12 | Mir Wali | 127 | 0.5 | John Jestico | 103 | 0.5 |
| 13 | Graham Williams | 125 | 1 | Herbie Alley | 99 | 0 |
| 14 | Steve Zsibrita | 122 | 1 | John Porter | 99 | 0 |
| 15 | Roger Kearns | 121 | 1 | Matthew Key | 88 | 0 |
| 16 | Barrie Saunders | 118 | 1 | default | - | 0 |