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Tournament: 129th Varsity Match • Venue: RAC Club, Pall Mall, London • Date: 5 March 2011
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John Saunders reports: The 129th Varsity Chess Match between Oxford University and Cambridge University was held at the RAC Club, Pall Mall, London on 5 March 2011. The match sponsor was Henry Mutkin and match arbiter was David Sedgwick.
| 2010« 2011 Varsity Chess Match »2012 | |||||||
| Bd | Oxford University | Rating | Nat | 4½-3½ | Cambridge University | Rating | Nat |
| 1b | Amon Simutowe (Green Templeton) | 2481g | ZAM | ½-½ | Gabor Pinter (Queens') | 2363m | HUN |
| 2w | David Zakarian (St Antony's) | 2362 | ARM | 1-0 | Peter Roberson (Churchill) | 2274 | ENG |
| 3b | Ravindran Shanmugam (Balliol) | 2293f | SIN | 1-0 | Mitesh Shridhar (Churchill) | 2116 | USA |
| 4w | Athanasios Tsanas (St Cross) | 2264 | GRE | ½-½ | Chris. Graw (Sidney Sussex) | 2257 | GER |
| 5b | Robbie Coleman (Wolfson) | 2042 | SCO | 1-0 | Sven Quist (Homerton) | 2150c | GER |
| 6w | Steffen Schaper (Exeter) | 2000e | GER | ½-½ | Mikhail Tyomkyn (Corpus) | 2106 | GER |
| 7b | Murray David (Brasenose) | 2024e | ENG | 0-1 | Richard Lee (Christ's) | 2000e | ENG |
| 8w | Susan Yu (Linacre) | 1680 | ENG | 0-1 | Izabella Khazagerova (Fitzwilliam) | 2080 | RUS |
| Av. Rating 2143 | 4½-3½ | Av. Rating 2168 | |||||
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 brilliancy 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) were Cambridge 56 wins, Oxford 53 wins and 20 drawn matches.
2011 Cambridge Varsity Team
2011 Oxford Varsity Team
© 2011 John Saunders, all photos and text - not to be used without permission