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Tournament: 143rd Varsity Match • Venue: RAC, Pall Mall, London • Date: 8 March 2025
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Sunday March 9, 2025 10:06 AM
John Saunders reports: The 143rd Varsity Chess Match between Oxford University and Cambridge University was held at the Royal Automobile Club, Pall Mall, London on 8 March 2025. The match sponsors were the Royal Automobile Club. The chief match arbiter was IA Matthew Carr, with assistant arbiter FA Jo Wildman. Oxford won the toss and chose White on the odd boards. Time control: 40 moves / 2 hours, then all moves / 1 hour - no increment.
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| Bd | Oxford University | Rating | Fed | 2025 | Cambridge University | Rating | Fed |
| 1w | Tom O'Gorman (Hertford, aged 22) | 2391m | IRL | 1-0 | Alex Leslie (Emmanuel, aged 19) | 2216c | ENG |
| 2b | Daniel G H Gallagher (Somerville, capt, 24) | 2226 | ENG | ½-½ | Freddie Hand (Trinity, 22) | 2190 | ENG |
| 3w | Ashvin Sivakumar (Harris Manchester, 23) | 2175f | SIN | 1-0 | Cameron Goh (Emmanuel, 24) | 2102 | SGP |
| 4b | Aron Saunders (Wadham, 19) | 2124 | ENG | 0-1 | Remy Rushbrooke (Clare, 19) | 2094 | ENG |
| 5w | Karthik Thrish (Wadham, 18) | 2195 | IND | 0-1 | Ranesh Ratnesan (Jesus, capt, 19) | 2138c | ENG |
| 6b | Jem Gurner (Magdalen, 21) | 2068c | JCI | 0-1 | Sacha Brozel (Magdalene, 22) | 2082 | ENG |
| 7w | Connor Clarke (Hertford, 19) | 2051 | ENG | 1-0 | Julia Volovich (Trinity, 19) | 1947 | ENG |
| 8b | Imogen A L Camp (Somerville, 23) | 1915wc | WLS | 0-1 | Ilya Misyura (Trinity, 21) | 1921 | ENG |
| Av. Rating 2143.1 | 3½-4½ | Av. Rating 2086.2 | |||||
Reserves: Baptiste Alloui-Cross (Somerville College, Oxford, rating FRA 2083), Lukas Domanski (St Catherine's College, Cambridge, rating POL 1985) - they also played a game, which was drawn (see below)
Link to results on chess-results.com
John Saunders reports: The two main talking points as the teams met for the 143rd time were whether Tom O'Gorman could extend his run of victories to five out of five, which would be an all-time record for this most venerable of all chess fixtures, and whether Oxford could draw level in the series for the first time since 1995.
All the auguries were good from the Oxford perspective as their captain won their toss and chose White on the odd-numbered boards. This meant that the record-chasing Tom O'Gorman had White on top board for the fifth time in a row - probably a record in itself though I haven't yet checked. (Oxford have won the toss four times out of the previous five, with Cambridge choosing Black on odds on the occasion when they last won the toss.)
The ratings of the teams also appeared to be in favour of Oxford, who averaged 2143 to their opponents 2086, but this was skewed by the significant rating gap between IM Tom O'Gorman and all the other participants. Oxford were rating favourites on six boards but the rating differences on boards other than the top one were relatively small and a close match could be expected.
The first result was a win for Oxford as Tom O'Gorman defeated Alex Leslie to achieve the unprecedented feat mentioned in the first paragraph. Given that his record of 5/5 was achieved in the world's longest established chess fixture makes it all the more remarkable and one wonders whether anyone will ever surpass this record set by the talented 22-year-old IM. Well done to him.
Before long, Cambridge were able to level the score. After a large-scale exchange of material, board four soon came down to a rook and pawns ending. White's rook was the more active but it still looked playable for Black until an injudicious rook move allowed Remy Rushbrooke to create a passed pawn which proved decisive.
The Oxford captain Daniel Gallagher drew a lively game with Freddie Hand on board two and the score remained at 1½-1½ for some time. But then Oxford pulled away to a 3½-1½ lead with wins on boards three and seven. Sivakumar-Goh was a curious game in which Black's Nimzo-Indian bishop on b4 found itself out of the game and hemmed in by its own pawns while its opposite number rerouted to b2 where its control of the long diagonal proved decisive. Board seven was weirdly similar, with Julia Volovich's dark-squared bishop baulked by her own advanced queenside pawns. Connor Clarke ably demonstrated that his kingside majority and better-placed king were enough to clinch the result.
But even as Oxford moved to within a single point of victory it was becoming apparent that the remaining three boards had a distinctly light blue complexion. On board six, the Cambridge player Sacha Brozel expended four of his first ten moves on an extravagant queen excursion which should have left him well behind in development. However, his opponent didn't make best use of the opportunity and within a few moves the queens were exchanged and White had established a firm positional grip. Black found himself obliged to cede the two bishops. Thereafter defence became problematic for Black and the pressure told. The way White wrapped up the game was unusual and imaginative.
Board eight was a fluctuating struggle with players having hopes of a win, but seemed to be heading towards a draw when, on move 59, Imogen Camp found herself faced with a choice of rooks to recapture. Both looked plausible but the one she chose had a flaw which Ilya Misyura exploited with a deadly intermezzo move which led to a pawn capture. Further exchanges led to an opposite-coloured bishop endgame. So often these are drawn but, unfortunately for Imogen, this one wasn't, with Ilya having passed pawns on opposite sides of the board.
That left the match score at 3½-3½ with board five still going. So far in the match the black pieces had been having a terrible time, with one draw set against six losses, and for some time the Cambridge captain, Ranesh Ratnesan, looked in danger of following the trend with a very shaky opening. Karthik Thrish opted to convert his positional edge into a material disadvantage by winning a pawn at the expense of surrendering a bishop for a knight. Analysis engines tell us this was not the best way to proceed but it wouldn't have been obvious to a human player at the time. But the engines were proved right as it soon became impossible for White to maintain his material advantage. Perhaps depressed at the turn of events, White's game continued to deteriorate and he found himself a pawn down in a double rook endgame. Desperate attempts to complicate only served to lose a further pawn, by which time White was dead lost and Cambridge's match victory assured.
Guests at the match included GM David Howell, in advance of his appearance on BBC Television as expert commentator in the new show Chess Masters: The Endgame, plus fellow GMs Daniel Fernandez, who led the onsite commentary team with Natasha Regan, Jon Speelman, Ray Keene and Michael Stean. Finally, I must make mention of Henry Mutkin, who was celebrating the 70th anniversary of his first appearance in a Varsity chess match and who received the warm acclamation of the guests at the dinner which followed the match.
For the first time, the two reserve players played a game, which didn't count towards the match...
File Updated
| Date | Notes |
|---|---|
| 9 March 2025 | Uploaded results, games and report. Photos to follow... |