Abingdonian 2017

63 www.abingdon.org.uk Summer Term Aylesbury Grammar School 6-0 in the other semi-final and, as the ECF database showed, still had available to them almost all the strong players they had fielded last year. This would be our third match against them in three years – an excellent continuing challenge for our best players. Last year Rafi’i Al-Akiti had won on Board 3, playing Peter Isaksen, and Jeff Abraham had drawn on Board 5, playing Ryan Wong. Could we do better this year? The huge gap in grades had certainly closed a little over recent years. The Reading team that turned up on Tuesday 21 March, though formidably strong, did not include all their star players, which gave us an outside chance of causing an upset. The closeness of grades on Board 2, in particular, was quite unexpected, Anthony Zhang (218) for Reading being absent. These are the two teams. 1. Ray Ren (165) v Matthew Wadsworth (220) 2. Joseph Truran (149) v Peter Isaksen (157) 3. Jeff Abraham (107) v Ryan Wong (148) 4. Jerry Yang (110) v Alex Vanlint (143) 5. Thitipat Ditrungroj (111) v Shaan Mohan (125) 6. Sebastian Watkins (88) v Akshay Velraj (111) Our opponents arrived an hour late, forcing us to limit the match to 90 minutes, 45 on each clock. Abingdon won the toss and chose “white on odds.” The match did not have quite the same drama as the semi-final, the result never really being in doubt, but the climax was equally thrilling. After 30 minutes of play, Jerry was down a piece, on Board 4, but Seb was clearly winning, on Board 6, and the top three boards seemed remarkably level. After a whole hour had elapsed, everyone was still playing and Jeff had also established a winning advantage. The first result was a loss for Jerry, who had done well to fight on after disaster in the opening. Thitipat then resigned in a hopeless position, after briefly attempting desperado tactics. But Seb soon got one back for Abingdon, despite his opponent pleading “the two-minute rule,” causing puzzled looks all round. Jeff’s game, on Board 3, had taken a turn for the worse, but his opponent, who had only 4 seconds left on his clock at the end, was clearly relieved when Jeff accepted a draw offer. Not long afterwards, Joe had resigned too and the match was lost. Ray was again the last Abingdon player still at the board, and again he was down on time and defending brilliantly. Despite standing worse, he had managed to construct a defensive position in which he could see more quickly how to defend than his opponent could see how to attack. Soon it was Matthew whose time was being quickly eaten up and who was visibly the more concerned about possible defeat, so when Ray offered a draw with just a few seconds left on his clock, Matthew accepted, unwilling to take the risk. So, England junior Matthew Wadsworth, soon to earn his first International Master norm in the 4NCL, had been held to a draw by Abingdon’s own Ray Ren. This was by far the best individual performance by an Abingdon pupil in the last decade. Here are the moves up until Ray stopped recording, with five minutes left on his clock: 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 d5 e6 4 Nc3 exd5 5 cxd5 d6 6 Nf3 g6 7 Qa4+ Nbd7 8 Bf4 a6 9 e4 Rb8 10 Be2 b5 11 Qc2 Qe7 12 Nd2 Bg7 13 0-0 0-0 14 a4 b4 15 Nd1 Ne5 16 Bxe5 Qxe5 17 Ne3 Qe7 18 Bf3 Nd7 19 Nec4 Ne5 20 Nxe5 Bxe5 21 Nc4 f5 22 Rfe1 f4 23 Rad1 Bd7 … Draw agreed. A team did begin preparations for the Eton Repêchage, and it was pleasing that with public examinations in the offing boys were still prepared to make a final attempt at qualification for the national finals. But with none of the boarders available, due to the awkwardness of the date, and then a last-minute case of mumps, we were left with very little choice but to scratch. Abingdon’s excellent brief run in the National Schools’ Championship - once again representing Oxfordshire in the zone final – was, anyway, a perfectly fitting finale for leavers Ray, Joe, Jeff and Jerry, a truly golden generation of Abingdon chess players. They will be sorely missed in the years to come.