When I found out – to my surprise! – that Battersea Juniors had been included in the top division (Queen division) of the London Online Chess League, I knew we would be in for a tough season, writes team captain Fabio Buanne.
My initial entry had included one 14-year-old (Rajat), three 13-year-olds (Luca, Shivam and Nour) and one 12-year-old (Denis).
Looking at the average board strength in the Queen division, I felt had to resort to some reinforcement and quickly recruited Battersea Club stalwart junior Viktor Stoyanov (ECF 2300 and still only 17 years old!).
Game analysis by Adam Bukojemski
We faced two tough teams in the first two rounds and the results didn’t exactly go our way, but it was a very useful experience for the boys, with some missed chances and something to learn in each game.
Celebrity arbiter
Round 1 saw our team (Viktor, Luca, Shivam, Denis) lose 3-1 to a very strong Cavendish A, featuring no less than 3 titled players (an IM, an FM and a WFM!). Despite this, our young team managed to take 1 point home with draws from Luca on board 2 and Denis on board 4.
For those of you who may not have heard of her story, Denis’ opponent on board 4, WFM Shohreh Bayat, is the Iranian woman arbiter who fled Iran to escape punishment after being photographed not wearing a headscarf at the FIDE Women’s World Championship.
Shohreh was recently awarded the US Secretary of State International Women of Courage Award in a ceremony hosted by First Lady Jill Biden. Funnily enough, both Luca and Denis’s draws involved king bishop and pawn v king endings (and yes, it was the wrong colour bishop!).
Missed chances
Round 2 saw us featuring a team outgraded by an average 200 points against a very strong Petts Wood & Orpington A.
The 4-0 result in their favour actually hides some missed chances: Luca on board 1 refused two draw offers from Daniel Lindner and ended up blundering immediately afterward (hence learning the valuable lesson that sometimes if a stronger opponent offers you a draw, he’s not necessarily evaluating his position as worse, but might genuinely think it’s a draw!) and Shivam (game featured in Adam’s analysis) on the receiving end of a wild attack but missing winning chances and a draw by repetition in the end.
So lots of drama, and hopefully more to come in the next few weeks!
