129th Varsity Chess Match: Oxford University v Cambridge University, 5 March 2011

Report by John Saunders: The 129th Varsity Chess Match between Oxford University and Cambridge University takes place at the RAC Club, Pall Mall, London on Saturday 5 March 2011. The match sponsor is Henry Mutkin, as generous and genial a host as any match could hope to have. The match arbiter is David Sedgwick.

Captains were Yangshi Yu (Oxford) and Alexander James Gordon-Brown (Cambridge). The match commenced at 12.30pm, with the time control set at 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by one hour for all remaining moves.

First result at 4.20pm – all the games involved time scrambles to some degree. Just around the four-hour mark, Oxford went into a 2½-½ lead and not long thereafter completed their victory 4½-1½. Cambridge won the final two games, on board seven and eight, to narrow the gap but in truth it might have been a more comfortable win for Oxford had they taken all their opportunities. The Bob Wade prize went to the Armenian player David Zakarian, while the best game prize went to the draw between Athanasios Tsanas and Christopher Graw on board four.

The overall scores in the series (which started in 1873) are Cambridge 56 wins, Oxford 53 wins and 20 drawn matches.

http://www.bcmchess.co.uk/news/varsity2011.html

Bd Oxford Rating v Cambridge Rating
1w Amon Simutowe (Green Templeton) ZAM 2481g ½-½ Gabor Pinter (Queens’) HUN 2363m
2b David Zakarian (Pembroke) ARM 2362 1-0 Peter Roberson (Churchill) ENG 2274
3w Ravindran Shanmugam (Balliol) SIN 2293f 1-0 Mitesh Shridhar (Churchill) USA 2116
4b Athanasios Tsanas (St Cross) GRE 2264 ½-½ Christopher Graw (Sidney Sussex) GER 2257
5w Robbie Coleman (Wolfson) SCO 2042 1-0 Sven Quist (Homerton) GER 2150c
6b Steffen Schaper (Exeter) GER e2000 ½-½ Mikhail Tyomkyn (Corpus Christi) GER 2106
7w Murray David (Brasenose) ENG e2024 0-1 Richard Lee (Christ’s) ENG e2000
8b Susan Yu (Linacre) ENG e1680 0-1 Izabella Khazagerova (Fitzwilliam) RUS 2080
4½-3½
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