Avengers 1 Narrowly Defeated By Oxford
Avengers 1 were close to victory against Oxford, but fell short after a remarkable turnaround.
| Oxford 1 | 2226 | Anglian Avengers 1 | 2222 | |||||
| 181 | w | Zakarian, David | f | 2306 | 1 – 0 | Kanellopoulos, Panayotis | 2265 | |
| 182 | b | Savage, Ben D M | f | 2273 | ½ – ½ | Walker, Martin G | f | 2275 e |
| 183 | w | Cont, Arya | 2147 e | 1 – 0 | Player, Edmund C | 2172 | ||
| 184 | b | Smallbone, Kieran D | 2179 | 0 – 1 | Talsma, Paul | 2177 e | ||
| 2½ – 1½ | ||||||||
Paul got us off to the best possible start with an emphatic 27 move victory against Kieran Smallbone’s Slav Defense. This takes Paul to a massive 6/6 score in this competition!
Martin laboured to prove an advantage against FM Ben Savage’s unexpected Centre Counter. Ben defended resourcefully and a dead drawn position was reached on move 52.
Panagiotis looked under pressure against FM David Zakarian’s Four Pawns Attack, but seemed to have completely neutralized his opponent’s advantage with a neat simplifying combination on move 23. Nonetheless, Zakarian continued to press in a R+N v R+B endgame, and was rewarded when Panagiotis went wrong in time pressure.
After a complex central struggle, Ed looked close to victory when he seized Arya Cont’s c-pawn on move 34. However, Ed, heavily behind on the clock for most of the game, never stabilized his advantage, and eventually succumbed to a King-side attack.
This result leaves the Avengers 1st team in 3rd place in Division 1 / Group B, 2 points behind Wood Green Monarchs. We will need an exceptional performance (probably 2.5/3) over the final 3 rounds to qualify for the Championship play-offs.