Battersea players have turned in an excellent performance at the Hastings Masters, one of the UK’s most prestigious competitions.
The largest contingent of players in living memory from the club came to contest the Masters, with seven participating, including four juniors.
In the last round the first ten boards featured no less than four Battersea players – FM Adam Taylor, Midhun Unnikrishnan, FM Koby Kalavannan and Viktor Stoyanov.
Adam and Midhun both started the last round with a chance of finishing first equal if they won. As it was, they were to fall short, both against much higher-rated opposition, though Adam drew with black against top seed and former British Champion Jonathan Hawkins, thereby denying Hawkins the chance to tie for first place.
The final scores for the Battersea players were:
Adam Taylor 6.5/9 (in 7=, half a point behind the six joint winners, who included Danny Gormally who gave a simultaneous display at the club last year), Koby Kalavannan and Midhun Unnikrishnan 6/9, Viktor Stoyanov 5.5/9, Shreyas Royal 4.5/9, Tim Spanton 4/9 and Boris Stoyanov 3/9.
The value of our five minute games at the club was shown by Battersea player being victorious at the two Blitz tournaments held at Hastings. Adam and Midhun finished first and Viktor and Boris second in the pairs, and Adam finished first and Midhun second in the individual Blitz.
The full results are at http://chess-results.com/tnr403313.aspx?lan=1.
