Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 23 October 2023

This season the Thames Valley League brought in a major new rule change: there is no longer the ritual pre-match toss for colours; instead, home teams always have Black on odd boards. There has been some discussion as to whether this enables better opening preparation, as all the players now know in advance whether they will be White or Black. However, what no one knows beforehand is the composition of the other club’s team. You may find yourself playing the same opponent as last year (this was more or less my situation on Monday, but with colours reversed and on a higher board) and you may find that the other club is deploying all their strongest players in exact rating order. On the other hand, it’s quite likely that neither of these two situations will occur. In the Thames Valley it’s also possible for teams to order their players more flexibly, less predictably, than in the Surrey League.

On Monday Wimbledon turned up at the Willoughby with their strongest possible board 1, Alberto Suarez Real, an IM with a Fide rating of 2408. However, their team overall was missing some of its stalwarts from previous years. In the circumstances, facing a Kingston team which outrated them by an average of 141 points per board, Wimbledon put up a good showing, and it was only near the end of the three-hour session that Kingston’s win was assured.

The shortest game was in fact on board 1, where Peter Lalić played the Scandinavian Defence, except not as a defence, but as a gambit, giving up a pawn for quick development. His Spanish IM opponent used up a lot of time on the opening, and the players agreed a draw after just 12 moves. A very good result for Peter and the team.

The next game to come to a premature end was on board 6, where John Foley reached this position from what chess.com non-committedly calls “Indian Game”.

Stockfish evaluates this as roughly equal, but Black needs to be careful as White has a massive threat. Stephen Carpenter overlooked this, playing 25….Rg8 (Ne7 or Qe7 was necessary), and John was able to play the satisfying 26. Nxe6! If Black takes the knight White mates in two with Qxg6+. If he doesn’t take he’s lost the exchange (and more) in addition to the e6 pawn, so Carpenter just resigned. 1.5-0.5 to Kingston.

Three of the remaining four games involved a lot of slow manoeuvring. The exception was on board 2, where David Maycock won two pawns early on against Ian Heppell’s Philidor Defence and castled queenside. In the position below he decided to give up the exchange in order to maintain his strong centre. 22. Ne2 instead would only have given White a slight plus.

The game continued 22. Be3 Bxd1 23. Qxd1 Qc6 24. Nf4 Bb4 25. Rg1 Qb7. White’s pieces are gathering ominously on the kingside.

David now played 26. Ka1, presumably so as to be able to move his knight to f5 without allowing 26…Qe4+, forcing White to interpose with his queen, 26. Nf5 Qe4+ 27. Qd3 Qxd3+ 28. Nxd3. It seems that this position would still have been better for White due to his pawn centre and the threats to b4 and g7. Black’s only defence, 28…Bf8, allows 29. Nh6+ Kh8 30. Nxf7+ winning another pawn.  After 26. Ka1 the game actually continued 26…Bf8 27. h4 Rb8. Now Black is starting to have his own threats against White’s castled king.

Meanwhile, things were much less double-edged on the other boards.  Will Taylor had played a Petrov Defence and both sides were gradually trying to develop their pieces to their best squares. On board 4 I had won the minor exchange (bishop for knight), but with a symmetrical pawn structure was having difficulty making anything of it. In the position below, Black controls the d-file, but can’t make effective use of this, so I played 24. Kf2 (overprotecting my f-pawn) in anticipation of Black’s next move.

After 24…Qd3 25. Qxd3 Rxd3 26. Rc1 I am going to force Black’s rook out with Bf1 and then try to increase my slight advantage on the queenside. I probably didn’t find the best way to do this (Stockfish recommends a quick advance of White’s a-pawn), as by move 38 it was clear that Black was at least equal and we agreed a draw.

The Ingle-Way game, in which Julian played a King’s Indian Defence, featured a similar symmetrical pawn structure. However, the position opened up around move 25 and Julian gained the advantage. In time trouble the tactics became harder to calculate and both sides missed chances before Sean Ingle committed the final mistake and soon after lost on time. This was actually the last game to finish and it assured Kingston’s victory in the match.

Meantime, the board 3 Cannon-Taylor game had ended with both sides being content, or obliged, to repeat moves. There was also a repetition in the board 2 Maycock-Heppell game, but this was much less pacific. Black’s queenside attack became more dangerous than White’s kingside one, with the consequence that the position below was reached.

The game finished 37…Nc2+ 38. Kb1 Na3+ 39. Ka1 Nc2+ 40. Kb1 Drawn. However, Black could have continued with his dangerous attack instead of repeating. A forcing line is very hard to see unless you are a chess engine, but 38…Qe4 is difficult to meet.

Thus Kingston won 4-2, but Wimbledon had fought hard and the match would probably have been even closer if one of their top players had not had to drop out on the morning of the match: another reason why guessing the opponents’ line-up is often a toss-up, so to speak, though we can still try.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in Thames Valley League division 1

Surrey League division 5 (Minor Trophy) match played at the North Star, Chessington on 18 October 2023

This was a good result for Kingston’s newly inaugurated fourth team away to Chessington 2 – a victory by 4-2, capped by some fine displays on both sides.

It is not often I would highlight the opposition play, but credit where credit is due – Meena Santosh, who is due to give birth in less than two weeks, bombarded James Kerr’s kingside with an unrelenting attack. James was steadfast until the end and had opportunities of his own early on. A good old-fashioned kingside attack. The 19th-century masters would have been proud of both performances.

Solid wins by Sean Tay, Josh Lea, Ergo Nobel and me took us into an unassailable 4-1 lead. It was a great first win for the club by Ergo, who joined recently and has already proved his worth with a crucial draw in the Lauder Trophy victory away to South Norwood. Sean and Josh continued on their upward trajectory, and have also become important components in Kingston’s teams.

My game saw me win two pawns in a swashbuckling opening in which my opponent’s aggression but held at bay by a solid pawn formation. This new strategic awareness was a notable improvement in my game. A series of exchanges saw my two-pawn advantage manifest itself in two potential passed pawns. My opponent resisted doggedly until the promotion of one of the pawns finally forced resignation. 

Ed Mospan continued his Kingston comeback with an attack which at one stage saw him go several pawns to the good. But alas time trouble and a durable display by his opponent (whose ECF grade is 1686) saw the game hijacked at the eleventh hour. Nevertheless a solid performance by, to quote Julian Way, a great Kingston stalwart. Julian had come along to support the team, and his advice on the bus home was much appreciated. An enjoyable night of chess.

Stephen Daines, Kingston 4 captain

Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 16 October 2023

Coulsdon has such a large membership that there is always an element of mystery about their team selection.  But as Surrey and TVL champions we can expect opposing clubs to try to put out a strong team against us, and so it was in this encounter, when our opponents were considerably stronger than they had been when we visited Coulsdon in April. Nonetheless we still outrated them on every board and were relieved by the absence of Supratit Banerjee, currently representing Scotland in the World under-10 Cadet Championships.  We also set up an element of mystery, rotating our top boards to frustrate opposing preparation.

On top board, Peter Lalić’s rushdown strategy, sacrificing a pawn via the Morra Gambit and later the exchange for dynamic piece activity, ran into the superb calculating ability of Rahul Babu (whose ECF rating of 2169 makes him one of the country’s top juniors).  Babu fended off all the potential tactics, kept his head through Peter’s time shortage, and simplified to a king and pawn ending in which he had one extra pawn. Although doubled, that pawn was critical in allowing him to lose a move and thereby bring about zugzwang.

As at Ealing last week, David Maycock’s game once again progressed faster than others, and by the time I could tour the room he had already set up a strong attack on the kingside against Mark Smith (rated 2120). Smith played the Trompowsky Attack and allowed David to take the so-called “poisoned” pawn on b2. In the diagram position below, one might think White’s kingside pawns a bit fishy, but it is hard to believe that the game only lasted another nine moves.  

David played 14…h5! and opened the h-file. Then after 18…g6, White was expecting f5 but had missed David’s idea of Kg7, making room to pile major pieces down the h-file. 

In the final position (see below), White resigned because mate is avoidable only with ruinous material loss. Black is threatening Qh8 followed by Rh1 mate, and the bishop on g3 prevents escape via f2. If White moves the knight on g2 to put the queen there to guard h1, the game might go 24. Ne3 Qh4 (the knight was protecting that square) 25. Qg2 Bh2+ 26 Kh1 Bd7 and the arrival of the other rook on the h-file mates quickly.  White explained afterwards that he was trying out some more dynamic positions. David in his current form is not an opponent against whom to experiment.

By this time there had been a couple of draws on the lower boards. Alan Scrimgour nullified pressure from Nick Edwards with some timely exchanges, while I learned a useful lesson against Ian Calvert. In an English that had turned into a sort of Catalan, I aimed to place rooks on the d- and c-files, when it turned out that the e- and d-files would have been better. That gave Black just enough time to liquidate to a queen and bishop endgame in which neither side could penetrate without allowing the other to do so, and the game petered out.

As a proponent of the English Opening, I was delighted to see Vladimir Li using it to play a reverse Sicilian.

A move order slip gave Vladimir’s opponent, Balahari Bharat Kumar (another improving junior, rated 2070), a momentary opportunity to play e4, after which best play would have been 10. dxe4 Qxd1 11. Rxd1 Bf6  12. e5 Nxe5 13. Nd4 O-O-O with a substantial advantage to Black. Fortunately, Black missed this and stuck to his preconceived plan with f6. We rejoin the action after 17… f5.

White’s knight on e5 is attacked, and if it moves the bishop on c5 will be undefended.  The obvious 18. Bxe7 leads to an edge for Black after fxe4 19 Bxf8 exf3, with the black pawn munching white pieces like a runaway draught piece. 18. Nd6 is only slightly better for White. But Vladimir had seen in advance that the subtle temporary sacrifice 18. Neg5 gives a winning advantage. 

After 18… Bxc5 19. Nxe6 Qxe6 (Black has nothing better) 20. Ng5 simultaneously attacks the queen and uncovers a second attack on the knight on d5. That forces the recovery of the piece, and White will arrive on d5 with check. Black has to defend both the bishop on c5 and against a subsequent Nf7+. The white bishop is in any case about to hoover up the pawn on b7, and Black will lose material. In the end, in understandable time pressure, he lost a terminal amount of material as White’s e-pawn approached the queening square.

So a 2-1 lead for Kingston, with Messrs Rowson, Way and Foley involved in long and murky games. Julian seemed to have a fractional edge for much of his game against Martin Faulkner until his 20… Nd4 allowed f5, trapping the bishop on g4 (see diagram below). 

Thankfully after 21. f5 gxf5 22. Qg5+ before h3 was a slight slip; Julian got three pawns for the marooned piece and a position which was solid enough to hold on.

David Rowson’s King’s Indian Defence came under a little early pressure from Shivam Agrawal, but he reached what he described as “a defensible position, even if it was rather crablike”.  Both sides did indeed move sideways for a while without closing their claws, and mutual attempts to open the game up in time trouble led to it fizzling out into a draw. 4-3 to Kingston.

That led to a crowd gathering around John Foley’s game with Matt Darville, and they had full value for money. In a Nimzo-Indian type position, John had sacrificed his front c-pawn for free play. For a while the compensation was not quite enough, but John was able to open up his opponent’s king and there was a momentary opportunity.

In the position above, after 28 moves, both sides were focused on the weakness of f6 and the value of the pawn on g6 if it could be reinforced; John played h4 with that in mind. Instead Rd5! would have won, with the idea of Rh5, and Black’s other weak spot at h6 leads to the defence being overloaded. Play might continue 29… Rh8 30. Kh2 Kxg6 31. e5, when Rxe5 would block the queen’s defence of e6, and if instead Rf8 the brilliant Rd8 overloads the defence.

Of course it’s easy for Stockfish to sacrifice pawns and rooks with no match result on the line. In the real world, the game continued to the position below in which Black has a slight edge but both players were so short of time that notation stopped. 

Black was even shorter of time than White, and visibly under pressure from the possibility of getting a result against a higher-rated player. He had already offered a draw, which John didn’t hear! John was unable to reconstruct the exact sequence of the next 20-odd moves with a few minutes and eventually seconds on each clock. 

The spectators saw Black force White to give up his bishop and a pawn for the black queenside pawns when the c-pawn reached c2. That should objectively have been drawn, but the white king came up the board and attacked the black rook on e8 with the king defending it on the f-file. Then Rf4+, Black picked up his K, realised that his intended move left the rook undefended, and dropped his king, somewhere between exasperation and resignation, as his last seconds expired. An appropriate end for an exciting match, won 5-3 by Kingston. An important result against a dangerous Coulsdon side.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in Surrey League division 1

Surrey League division 4 (Centenary Trophy) match played at the Haywain Brewers Fayre, Epsom on 16 October 2023

Epsom were very strong for this home match against Kingston 3 and ran out comfortable 5-1 winners. Charlie Cooke and Adam Nakar fought out tough draws on boards 2 and 3, but by then the damage had already been done.

I lost after being battered on the kingside, where my king was horribly vulnerable. Josh Lea and Ed Mospan’s games could have gone either way, despite each being a pawn down, but both eventually succumbed to strong opponents.

Nick Grey was a rook down, but fought back with a strong attack, helped by the fact that his opponent had two passive pieces. Ultimately, though, the piece advantage proved decisive despite Nick’s aggressive display in which he tested his opponent to the limit before conceding.

Accentuate the positives: it was a good experience against a strong team.

Stephen Daines, Kingston 3 captain

Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 9 October 2023

So near and yet so far, and I fear it is all my fault. Kingston 2 lost 4-3 to Ashtead 1 in a surprisingly tight Surrey division 2 match, and if I had managed to hang on for a draw on board 2 against Dan Rosen we would have got out of the evening with a draw and a half-point. That would have been quite an achievement given that we were substantially outrated on the top five boards.

Still, accentuate the positive: it was a night of some singular personal achievements. On board 1 Jon Eckert made light of a 350-point rating deficit against Phil Brooks and, reverting to his trusty Dutch after a dalliance with the French last season, made a comfortable draw. David Shalom also drew on board 5 against Bertie Barlow – another terrific result on a night when the outgunned Kingstonians fought hard all the way.

Even better, on board 4 Gregor Smith overcame a 200-point rating gap to win against the Ian McLeod. Ian shed a knight in a tactical melee in the middlegame and thereafter Gregor gave him zero chance of counterplay. An accomplished performance and an excellent scalp. We suspected Gregor was underrated and here was proof.

Charlie Cooke and Adam Nakar had solid draws on the bottom boards and Kingston were well in the hunt, but it was on boards 2 and 3 that the problems lie. Dan Rosen and Jon Hinton are extremely good players, and on the night they proved too good for me and Nick Grey.

Nick went wrong early against Hinton’s Wing Gambit, lost the exchange and endured a pretty miserable evening. He battled on, but in truth there could be only one winner. I played unbelievably boringly with White against Dan Rosen, traded everything I could and got to a same-coloured bishops and six pawns endgame which I thought might just be drawing (see diagram below).

With correct play maybe it was, but I was short of time and Dan is a far better endgame player than me and was able to shuffle his bishop and king around in risk-free way until I was pinned on the back rank and pawns were about to start falling. An irritating way to lose and even worse was that at some point in a long-drawn-out endgame, where Black feints with the king to infiltrate on the queenside before switching back to the centre, I resigned myself to defeat. Toughen up!

Defeat was in any case exactly what I deserved for such a negative approach. Against a player who is technically superior to you, you have to mix it and go down with all guns blazing. Here I went out with a whimper rather than a bang. The last time I will ever play so insipidly. I hope anyway.

Well done to Ashtead on a successful start to their campaign – they will surely be favourites for promotion from this division as several of their strongest players were missing for this match. And thanks, as ever, to their captain Bertie Barlow, the nicest and politest man in Surrey chess.

Stephen Moss, Kingston captain in Surrey division 2

Thames Valley division 1 match played at Actonians Sports Club, Ealing on 9 October 2023

We arrived at Ealing to find tables set up for a match, and young Xavier Cowan (ECF- rated 1957), whom I recognised as a strong performer in last year’s Surrey U2050 team, standing at one end of it. Assuming that he was to be Ealing’s board 6, I headed for those tables, to be told that it was for an internal training match, and Xavier was board 1 for one of the teams. 

If the Ealing first team was to have six players stronger than him, we were likely to be up against it, and so it proved.  When a second set of tables was set up, mostly in the dark periphery of the room, and team sheets were exchanged, Ealing were 2139 on board 6; our bottom three were outgunned while the top three looked fairly balanced. 

David Maycock has been making a big effort to improve his time management, and on my first tour of the boards, his game against Martin Smith (2299) was well advanced while the others like my own were still in the early stages. Some complications in the Ruy Lopez which would be hair-raising for those not versed in these lines led to the queens coming off early; David had two pieces and a lot of activity for a rook and two pawns, which Stockfish judges to be a winning advantage. It was, however, not to be so simple. 

In the position below, David played the innocuous-looking 15. Nc3, but it is an error which allowed his opponent to roll his pawns and “win” a piece for three pawns.

The game proceeds 15…c5 16. Bg5+ Kc8 17. Nxe4 b5 18. Nxc5 bxa4 19. Nxa4 Kc7 20. Re1 Rhe8. David now had one pawn for the exchange and was worse, with little material left. But his opponent’s king was the more exposed, and David managed to create a mating attack despite having only a rook and two minor pieces to work with on an open board. A few moves later, this was the position and David went for the kill.

The game proceeds 26. Nd7 Rac8 27. a4+ Ka5 28. b4+ Kxa4 29. Nb6+ Kxb4 30. Rb3+ and checkmate is imminent. A crucial victory for Kingston.

Vladimir Li was on the black side of a Torre Attack against fellow FM Rick McMichael (2256) in which the queens are exchanged early, giving Black doubled pawns on the b-file. That can be double-edged, but Vladimir mixed up different parts of his preparation and was significantly worse by move 12. As sometimes happens, the opponent taking the pawn that his play has earned gives compensation and clarity to the other side.  Vladimir had drawing chances by move 19, and had equalised by move 23. 

Then his opponent blundered into a psychological trap, set by 23…b6, allowing Vladimir to win material, and the rest was mopping up. The game proceeded 24. e4?? Bf4 25. Rc3 Rac7 26. g3 Bd6 27. Rac1 Ba3 28. R1c2 Bb4 29. Nd2 f6 30. Kf2 Be8 31. d5 Bxc3 32.Rxc3 Bxa4 0-1

I had Black against Alan Perkins (2177), who was well over a grade of 200 in old money for many years, and we had a rather intense game which made it difficult to stay abreast of what was going on elsewhere. He got nothing from the opening, a solid line in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, but we both had plenty of possibilities to manoeuvre things around and try ideas, most of which would have been unsound.

I spent an age here on move 19 considering plans with Nb6-a4 and Nf6-d5, but White had too many ways to disrupt them. I decided to refrain from speculation, especially after my disaster in the Lauder Trophy last week.  In the final position (see diagram below), I offered a draw with both players down to five minutes. My structural disadvantage of doubled isolated b-pawns doesn’t matter too much when they are not on an open file; he no longer has bishops, which like attacking loose pawns, and the front pawn keeps his knights out of c5. 

John Foley played a London System against John Quinn (2171). They first played each other in 1969 when John Quinn, the newly crowned British under-21 champion, came to Salvatorian College to give a simultaneous display. Not much seemed to be happening from the opening when suddenly there was a tactical melée. Our John offered an exchange sacrifice which the other John declined with a clever counter-sacrifice. The position got tricky but, after the smoke had cleared, John Quinn had a winning advantage. The last occasion that Kingston played Ealing was in April, the final match in the Thames Valley league. Kingston won the match with the sole result being the victory by John Foley over Andrew Harley. On this occasion, John’s result was the only defeat for Kingston. Swings and roundabouts.

Alan Scrimgour played carefully against Andrew Harley’s c3 Sicilian, finding a line which liquidated the major pieces and led to a quick draw.  So when my game finished we were 3-2 ahead, with Peter Lalić’s game on board 3 against the strong junior Nischal Thatte (2178) still in play. Peter played the Exchange Variation against the French Defence, and on my first tour of the room I was surprised that for one of his games the position looked fairly normal – material balanced, no unusual pawn advances. Peter had more open development to compensate for an isolated queen’s pawn, and his manoeuvres gradually induced Black to huddle his pieces on the queenside, where they were largely immobile and could do little to defend the king. 

An exchange sacrifice opened up the black king, and then with players short of time a little sequence won a rook, leaving Peter ahead and with mate imminent.

The game proceeded 26…Rd7 27.Qg6+ Kf8 28.Qxh6+ Kg8 29.Qxg5+ Kf8 30.Qh5 Kg7 31.Qg4+ Kf8 32.Qxd7 1-0

A really tough match and, with Ealing having an average rating advantage of 50 points a board, a very gratifying result against the odds. Kingston’s defence of the Thames Valley title is off to the best of all possible starts, with an away victory against one of the club’s fiercest rivals.

Peter Andrews

South Norwood v Kingston, Lauder Trophy, West Thornton Community Centre, 5 October 2023

This was always going to be a tough match and so it proved. The rules of this excellent competition dictate that the collective ratings of the six players in a team must be less than 10,500. This tends to make for very close and exciting matches, and this was no exception.

South Norwood have won the Lauder four times in its 23-year history and are expert at bringing in their team just under the 10,500 threshold to maximise their chances. They had the strong Tariq Oozeerally on board 1, the dangerous (and underrated) Simon Lea on 2, and solid players all the way down to captain David Howes on 6. We knew this was a difficult assignment.

Jon Eckert, playing with the black pieces on board 3, drew first blood for Kingston with a fine win over Kaddu Makusa, opening up the g-file and using his queen and rook to inflict an irresistible mate. It looked very good for the away team because Dieter McDougall, making his debut for Kingston, was a piece up against John Ganev on board 5 and seemed nailed on to make it 2-0. But he got into horrendous time trouble, tried to play for an age on the increment and eventually blew up, falling into a mating net. South Norwood were back in the hunt.

Another new Kingstonian, Ergo Nobel, drew with the experienced Howes on 6 and Sean Tay was doing fine against Ken Chamberlain on 4, but Peter Andrews was in trouble against Simon Lea on board 2, having played what he later admitted was an unsound sac of piece for two pawns. Everything pointed to the match hingeing on the heavyweight clash on board 1 between Oozeerally, with White, and the ever reliable (indeed inspired) Peter Lalić, who has often been Tariq’s nemesis in these clubs’ encounters in the past.

This was a tremendous game, later described by a veteran Kingstonian as “one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen”. This was the position after White’s 14th move:

Four moves later, Black’s queen was trapped in the opposite corner:

But in moving between prisons, it had managed to account for both White rooks. Tariq resigned in a position which was hopeless, despite Peter’s queen still resting on h1. A quite extraordinary game, over in 19 moves.

Peter’s win and Sean’s eventual draw on board 4 took Kingston to 3-2, which guaranteed victory on board count – the top boards are given higher numerical values in the event of a tie and Kingston had won on boards 1 and 3. Peter Andrews battled on and got a pawn to the seventh, but with knight and two rooks against queen and two rooks it was going to take a miracle to get it any further. No miracle was forthcoming, so the match ended up tied at 3-3. But the wins by Lalić and Eckert were enough to secure a 12-9 win on board count, and Kingston march on to the next round, where we will face Coulsdon or Dorking.

Stephen Moss, Kingston Lauder Trophy captain