An extraordinary and stressful final 4NCL weekend of the season saw CSC/Kingston 1 win promotion to division 1 and CSC/Kingston 2 go down to division 4, leaving tricky questions for the squad for next season.

What drama there was in Daventry and Telford at the denouement of the 2023/24 4NCL season. At Daventry, CSC/Kingston 1 played superbly to win all three of their matches and secure second place in the final table and promotion to division 1 of the league, where teams with clusters of GMs await. Anyone fancy playing Alexei Shirov next season? Actually all our leading players will fancy it – and will give a very good account of themselves.

IM Vladyslav Larkin, who made a brilliant debut for CSC/Kingston 1, beating GM and three-times British champion Jonathan Mestel and scoring 2.5/3, would certainly be up for the challenge. As would CM David Maycock (pictured above), who scored 3/3 over the final weekend to complete a tremendous 4NCL season in which he scored 9.5/11 and racked up a rating over the 11-round competition of 2550-plus. It was more than enough for a nailed-on IM norm, except that one of the opposing teams at the final weekend managed not to give him the titled player he needed to satisfy that requirement. Very disappointing for David, and indeed infuriating for the entire team. That we did not let our fury destabilise us and kept our eye on the promotion prize made the success all the more admirable.

At Telford, valiantly though CSC/Kingston 2 battled, all the results went against us and we were relegated from division 3 (knights) to division 4. Having such a gulf between the two teams makes squad management difficult, and it is imperative that we work hard to get a team back into division 3 next year. Division 3 is perfect for players rated 2000-plus – highly competitive, with good games guaranteed in every round. Division 4 can be more hit and miss, with a big gap between the strong teams and the rest.

A word for CSC/Kingston 3, who performed creditably all season in division 4 and ended in the top half of the 27-team table (might there be scope for making 4NCL a five-division league?). Jon Eckert should be mentioned in dispatches: he played every round and drove thousands of miles to ensure that he and his team-mates were at the venues in good time. On a given Saturday or Sunday, especially when the team was playing in Telford, he would spend five hours playing and more than that driving up from London and back. Utterly exhausting and truly selfless. It is not just the first team that has heroes.

The three teams were as always excellently managed by team captains Kate and Charlie Cooke, who handled the logistics of getting 20 players per round to distant motorway hotel locations with aplomb. How they do it I have no idea. It requires the motivational powers of Alex Ferguson and the operational nous of a food distribution company. Well done to them and well done to the players who got CSC/Kingston 1 to the top of the mountain. Now, how do we set about establishing a serious foothold there?

All the results from the weekend’s three rounds are shown below, as well as the final tables. 4NCL has yet to publish the games from rounds 10 and 11. At some point, when the games have been published and we have had time to analyse them, a number of them will be annotated and added to this website’s games section.

Stephen Moss, Secretary, Kingston Chess Club

CSC/Kingston 1

CSC/Kingston 2

CSC/Kingston 3

Kingston v Wimbledon, Alexander Cup final, played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 2 May 2024

As far as Kingston are concerned, Alexander cups are like buses. Until 2022, in our post-pandemic golden period, we hadn’t won one since 1976. Now, with this 7-3 victory over a strong Wimbledon team, we have chalked up three in a row.

This is the first hat-trick of Alexander cups (Surrey’s premier knockout competition) in our history, a feat which suggests this may be Kingston’s strongest ever side. A bold claim to make, given that the club had tremendous teams in the 1930s (the era of J H Blake and R G Michell) and the 1970s (when a certain John Nunn was let loose upon the world). What we can say for sure is that this is the Kingston club’s third great side.

A hat-trick of Alexander cups has only been achieved by four other clubs: Redhill (2000s), Mitcham (twice – 1980s and 1990s), Richmond (1960s) and Clapham Common (1930s). Clapham Common and Mitcham are now defunct, and Redhill are inactive. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that. But Richmond are still going strong, and we fervently hope to follow their example and survive.

Mitcham won the trophy eight times in 10 years before collapsing in exhaustion. On the evening of the final, John Saunders – a key member of that Mitcham side – was taking photographs and collating results for his wonderfully researched BritBase website. He doubted whether we would emulate Mitcham’s achievement, and frankly I’m not sure we want to. It seems that too much success can kill you.

We had assembled a strong team for the final, played at the Willoughby Arms because Wimbledon kindly waived their right to claim a neutral venue, and were confident until we saw the Wimbledon side. They were about as strong as they could be, with IM Alberto Saurez Real on 1, Russells Granat and Picot on 2 and 3, the sturdy Dan Rosen on 4, dangerous young players in Shahvez Ali and Girinath Haridas in the middle order, and doughty fighters all the way down to the veteran Tony Hughes on board 10. This was not going to be a straightforward night.

There was a result on the board – the whiteboard on the stage in the upstairs playing room at the Willoughby to be precise – almost straightaway. Will Taylor, with Black against Ian Heppell on board 7, agreed a draw in 10 moves in a book Petrov’s Defence position. Solidity personified from Will and a good result to begin, despite Will’s rating advantage. Ian is in any case almost certainly stronger than his rating suggests. This was the pleasingly bishop-heavy position in which peace was declared:

Rather less peaceful events were unfolding on board 4, where the wonderfully fluid and attacking Silverio Abasolo, with White, was giving Dan Rosen a very hard time. Dan boldly played a Pirc, but erred in this position:

Silverio’s terrific early win put us 1.5-0.5 up, but it was followed by a couple of hours of slog. I was worried for Julian Way, playing a King’s Indian Defence against Sean Ingle on board 9, in the cramped position below after Sean’s 17. f4:

So far so good. That made it 2-1. Vladimir Li was playing Black on board 1 against Wimbledon’s Spanish IM, Alberto Suarez Real. Alberto opted for a Scotch and a characteristically intense and theory-heavy battle ensued. These two players have met each other on several occasions and clearly have great respect for each other. Black gained a tiny edge, but Alberto equalised and a draw was agreed on move 22 in the level position below:

We were in a draw-dominated period of the match, with only Silverio’s quickfire win keeping us ahead. David Rowson gained a tiny edge against Girinath Haridas’s Modern Defence, but nothing significant and it was certainly legitimate to take a draw in the position below where David’s apparently superior coordination is largely illusory:

That made it 3-2 and not long after the score became 3.5-2.5 when Peter Andrews and Tony Hughes also agreed a draw. Peter and Tony know each other’s games well – so well that Peter, with White, departed from his usual opening repertoire and strayed into less familiar lines. This cost him time and he fell behind on the clock, as well as being slightly worse on the board in the final position he recorded (see diagram) before the five-minute rule kicked in:

But Peter is a doughty defender, didn’t panic and held the position with reasonable comfort. We were still only marginally ahead and the final result of the match was far from clear, but there wasn’t the same anxiety as in our previous two Alexander Cup finals – against Battersea last year and Wimbledon the year before. It felt as if we were playing like a professional unit. Perhaps we are getting better at handling these big matches.

The Wimbledon fortress was in any case about to be breached. In the space of a few minutes Kingston’s two youngest players – David Maycock on board 2 and Luca Buanne on board 6 – secured the wins that took us beyond five game points and ensured that we would retain the Alexander Cup and complete the much-vaunted hat-trick of titles.

David’s board 2 opponent Russell Granat, a formidable attacking player, had been caught in traffic and arrived just after the half-hour default time. In the circumstances we did not enforce the default, wanting to win fair and square, a decision applauded by our opponents, in particular Russell Picot, who made a point of thanking me. But playing David Maycock is not easy at the best of times, and playing him with Black when you are 35 minutes down on the clock was too much for Russell. David, essaying a Ruy Lopez, did nothing spectacular (unusually for him); he just played immaculate, implacable chess. One over-ambitious pawn push in the position below sealed Russell’s fate:

Luca Buanne, with White on board 6, also played a powerful game against Neil Cannon’s Alekhine’s Defence, and was always ahead in the game despite Neil’s valiant attempts to get counterplay. After 35 moves Luca had reached this winning queen and pawn endgame, though it still had to be won, as indeed it was almost 20 moves later.

The wins by David and Luca came in quick succession and secured Kingston’s historic hat-trick of titles – greeted perhaps with relief rather than euphoria by the team’s supporters. That it was achieved by two young players who have only been representing the club since the end of the pandemic was especially satisfying. The Covid shutdown now feels like it facilitated a rebirth. Before then we bumbled along; since then we have been motoring. It could all end tomorrow – “O my MItcham and my Redhill long ago” – but for the moment we savour the success.

That left two games still in progress. Mike Healey, with Black on board 5 against the dangerous junior Shahvez Ali, eschewed his usual creative flights of fantasy, realising that a draw with Black was just what the doctor ordered. He offered a draw in the position below:

It is completely level, but White realised his team needed a win – we had not established an unassailable lead by this point – and persisted in trying to establish an advantage for a dozen more moves. Mike played with great precision, other games went against Wimbledon, and a draw was finally agreed.

That, inevitably, left Peter Lalić still playing. Peter was under the weather and had spent much of the evening blowing his nose in the storage cupboard. Most players, if they felt unwell, would seek a quick exit, but Peter is sui generis and persisted in trying to win against the wonderfully urbane Russell Picot for more than three hours and precisely 142 moves. If this is Peter ill, imagine Peter well. Long games, for better or worse, are becoming his signature. The game went on late into the night and I was in the bar celebrating, so I must defer to my esteemed colleague Peter Andrews, who was by this point scoring the game in case a threefold repetition was claimed. Peter A takes up the story.

The last game to finish was on board 3. Peter [Lalić] described it as his “Immortal Game”.  Anderssen-Kieseritzky (1851) was so named because the memory of the brilliant final combination was immortal. This time it was not the memory, although Russell Picot may carry the scars for some time, but the game itself which threatened to last for ever.

On the black side of a Botvinnik English, Peter achieved by move 20 the kind of blocked position in which he revels, and skilfully exploited White’s overextended queenside structure to launch a raid with his queen which won the a pawn on move 59 (see diagram below).

But he had to extricate his queen to ensure that it was not trapped, and with the position still blocked it seemed that a draw was inevitable – White offered a draw at least twice. However, the situation was ideal for Lalićian timebuilding – more or less indefinite woodshifting starting with both players on the increment, in which although there should be no breakthrough the under-pressure side has to exercise a little care, in this case to ensure that (1) the black a-pawn could not be pushed or (2) the black queen could not come to f4 without being opposed by the white queen. Not difficult in principle, but the combination of boredom and the requirement for care through an indefinite number of moves at 10 seconds a move may cause tiredness and a momentary loss of concentration.

That eventually occurred on White’s 120^th move. Playing on 10-second increments, it may not have been clear what Black’s concentration on the c-file was intended to achieve, with no way to sacrifice the bishop for two pawns and a rook sacrifice being too high a tariff. However, Peter had used his accumulated time for a nice bit of visualisation in the position below:

Thus ends Peter Andrews’ superb analysis of his namesake’s game. I can hear every reader asking, “Why can’t Andrews do all the game analysis rather than the other bloke?” Because frankly he is far too expensive and has better things to do.

The Picot-Lalić epic ended at around 10.45pm. An odd coda in some ways – Peter L, coughing and spluttering but characteristically determined to win a game that had no material impact on the result of the match other than to ensure we won by the in the end comfortable margin of 7-3. In a rapidly emptying playing room, as holders we presented the Alexander Cup to ourselves, with president and non-playing Alexander Cup captain John Foley cradling it . Three years’ hard work was complete. What now? Should we weep for there are no more worlds to conquer? In Surrey anyway.

Stephen Moss, Secretary, Kingston Chess Club

This was also a league match!

Kingston’s Surrey League division 1 captain, Peter Andrews, writes:

The top eight boards of the Alexander Cup doubled as our postponed home league match against Wimbledon (a future quiz question might be: “How can a chess player be in two places at the same time?” Answer, a home league match and an away cup match are twinned.) Our 6-2 win over those boards meant that we finished with six match points out of eight, half a point (and also half a game point) behind Epsom.

It was naturally disappointing not to repeat last season’s championship and unbeaten record. The early defeats at Guildford, when we were missing some key players, and at home against Epsom, when our very strong side slightly underperformed, left us with too much ground to make up in the second half of the season, despite a fantastic team effort to pull off a win at Wimbledon when we were so depleted that some evoked the spirit of Agincourt. And we had a sense that as defending champions we had targets on our backs, and other clubs did their best to put out their strongest possible sides against us. So six points out of eight was a good effort, and it was particularly satisfying to beat Epsom fairly comfortably in the return match.

We drew on the resources of the whole club: 17 different players turned out at least once. Our mainstays were once again David Maycock (4.5/6) and Peter Lalić (4/7).  Having two such consistent performers on high boards was crucial, and they were aided by the willingness of our other less regular leading lights, Vladimir Li, Silverio Abasolo and Mike Healey, to be flexible around board order so as to facilitate our preparation and frustrate our opponents’. 

But we tended to have a greater rating edge slightly lower down, where David Rowson, liberated from the captaincy, scored 3.5/6, and John Foley 3/5. There were many other solid performances, and Luca Buanne [2.5/3] made an immensely promising debut late in the season. He will be a key component as we refresh the squad next season.

Final division 1 table

Epsom v Kingston, Lauder Trophy final, played at the Adelaide pub, Teddington, on 30 April 2024

This was a very satisfying win on many levels. The Lauder Trophy is the competition in which titled players sit alongside relative novices, because captains have to choose a six-board team in which the total ECF ratings do not exceed 10,500 points. That’s an average of 1,750 a board, though you can slice it any way you wish. We were up against the holders of the Lauder Trophy, Epsom, who are always tough, and I’d followed a few hunches in selecting my team.

I had chosen the very highly rated David Maycock on board 1 – in case Epsom had picked any of their posse of IMs (which in the end they didn’t) – and combined him with the experience of Peter Andrews, John Bussmann and Jon Eckert on 2, 3 and 4, and relative newcomers Ergo Nobel and Rob Taylor on 5 and 6. Rob has only played a handful of rated games, so this was a huge test. Even having to notate would have been foreign to him.

The team – and Rob in particular – performed superbly to win the match 4-2 and bring the trophy back to Kingston for the third time in the past five completed seasons (one year was entirely lost to Covid and another stretched over two seasons).

There were some anxious faces among the Kingston contingent for the first hour of the match as games looked to be going against us or were at best level, but David Maycock calmed nerves by winning with a beautiful sacrifice against promising junior Zain Patel on board 1. David’s win is worth looking at in full, not least as it was a rare d4 opening for him. Are we seeing the start of a whole new Maycockian repertoire?

Jon Eckert then got an important draw against another good Epsom junior on board 4. “The game was tricky,” Jon said afterwards, “and I have to admit that the French [Defence] backfired. I saw the drawing idea of exchanging queens, but in doing so I lost all chances of winning and just hoped for an opposite-colour bishops to salvage a draw. Looking up my opponent, I saw that he had won virtually all his recent games. For the team, a draw with Black was not a bad result.”

Jon’s analysis was born out by what unfolded over the next hour. John Bussmann, who has had a long layoff with a back injury this season and barely played competitively, engineered a fine endgame win on board 3. That was a vital win in a game that looked like it could go either way, and it gave us some much-needed breathing space.

The middle game was a ferocious tussle, and Black had the edge for long periods,. In this position, after 23 moves, you would probably have bet on a draw.

But by pushing his h-pawn to create threats on the kingside and then exchanging a rook to make a potential passed c-pawn. John suddenly conjured up an advantage. It was a game of mistaken trades: John erred in exchanging queens, forfeiting much of the advantage he had built up, and his opponent then effectively lost the game by trading the other pair of rooks, eventually leading to this position, which is overwhelming for White.

There was further shuffling as time ran short – John was by now, under the terms of the five-minute rule, not recording moves – but Black’s race was run. The passed b-pawn will now win the game. John’s win made it 2.5-0.5, and we were now fairly confident. Ergo was losing on board 5, but Peter was better on board 2 and Rob was getting on top on board 6.

Rob’s game was initially sticky. “During the game,” he said later, “I saw a weakness in my position where my opponent could have won a pawn and planted a rook firmly in my half of the board. Thankfully, he missed it.” Instead, in a middlegame melee, Rob went a piece up, and after that it was just a case of not doing anything silly.

Rob played coolly, won more material and his opponent eventually resigned. What a fairytale! It was Rob, in just his fifth ever rated game, who had had the honour of taking us over the line to victory. While proud of his part in lifting the trophy, however, Rob’s feet are still firmly on the ground as he gets to grips with competitive chess. “I don’t think I will be getting too carried away with my win,” he insisted. Wait until you’ve played at least a dozen rated games before eyeing the British championship.

The Lauder Trophy – which Epsom president Marcus Gosling had brought along to the Adelaide pub, home of the Richmond and Twickenham club and the neutral venue chosen for the final – was ours. There were, though, still the board 2 and 5 games to complete, and both in the end had results which went against the grain of the play for the previous three hours. Ergo Nobel had been under the cosh throughout against yet another capable Epsom junior, Maya Keen, but managed at the death to pull off a miracle save with a perpetual check.

I congratulated him on fighting for hours in what looked a lost position. “Everyone I have ever met has told me I was stubborn,” he explained, “so I guess it’s normal for that to transfer to the way I play chess. Although I’d definitely prefer to be stubborn in a winning position.”

Peter Andrews, with Black, had had the better position more or less throughout in his board 2 game against Marcus Gosling – the Epsom president was captaining, playing and probably doing the washing up at the pub later (his energy is remarkable) – but often time (or rather the lack of it) takes over, making a mockery of all the careful play that has gone before, and that’s what happened here. This was the position in what might be called “normal” time, when Peter was still recording.

Black still has a small plus, but now in a mutual time scramble Marcus threw all his pieces at Peter (metaphorically speaking) and it paid off. Peter’s king was surrounded and his kingdom fell. Or, as Peter put it, “There were several more moves in a frantic scramble, in the course of which White activated his entire army, Black blundered the g7 pawn, and got mated.”

“The real lesson was psychological,” Peter reflected afterwards. “When the game changes, as it did after Marcus’s sac of two pieces for a rook and again after the sac of an exchange, it takes time to reorientate. After the first change, I still had time on my clock and did that better than my opponent did – hence the attack on g3 which should have been winning. But after the second change with less time I failed to do so, and Marcus seized the initiative, which matters much more than material or machine accuracy in a blitz finish. I never quite managed to reactivate the bishop on h7, whereas he activated everything he had.”

The Epsom president won that battle, and congratulations are due to him for leading from the front, but we triumphed in the war and are happy to have the Lauder back in our possession. Surrey tournament controller Huw Williams (to whom thanks for running the final) did wonder, as he handed me the cup, whether I had done anything to deserve it, having spent most of the evening in the bar, but the Lauder is all about the preparation and the mathematics, and the Kingston abacus had been used to good effect in the weeks leading up to this encounter. What matters in the bunker is as important – perhaps more important – than what happens on the battlefield. That’s my armchair general story anyway.

Stephen Moss, Kingston Lauder Trophy captain

Kingston B v Surbiton B, Thames Valley division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 29 April 2024

After a fine season in Thames Valley division 2, we found ourselves in with a chance of promotion going into the final game of the season against neighbours Surbiton B, who also faced exactly the same prospect. We spent most of our preparation for the match undecided if getting promoted would be a wise idea or not for the club. On the one hand, you always want to win and play at the top level, but on the other hand a second Kingston team in the top division could present logistical nightmares, not to mention produce some severe rating disparities and mismatches.

Unclear on what the best outcome would be, it would be down to fate to decide. We fielded our usual line-up of second-team regulars, with expert-level players Julian Way, Peter Andrews and Alan Scrimgour as the top three, and Stephen Moss, me and Nick Grey making up the middle order/tail (delete according to how generous you are feeling). Between the six of us, we have played 50 Thames Valley League games this season – stability and consistency, the core of a successful team. 

Surbiton brought a strong and balanced team to the Willoughby, with only 127 rating points separating their top and bottom boards (compared with our 357). There was no doubt that promotion was uppermost in their minds, especially given that their first team were set to be relegated from the top division. All was set for an intriguing match.

Alan Scrimgour, with Black, faced Paul Dupré on board 3, and was happy to settle for an early draw against a dangerous opponent. Stephen Moss then succumbed to the in-form Sean Butler on board 4 after his Smith-Morra Gambit self-destructed. Having vowed never to play the Scandinavian last week, Stephen has now said he is jettisoning the Smith-Morra as well. Quite what he will play next season is anyone’s guess – Scrabble perhaps. Nick Grey, playing Andrew Boughen for the second time in a week, made a mistake in the opening and went down on board 6, leaving Kingston with an uphill struggle for promotion. 

But all was by no means yet lost. Julian Way secured an excellent victory on board 1 against rising Surbiton star Joshua Pirgon – another great result for Julian with Black. Things were getting spicy, and on board 2 Peter Andrews faced Surbiton captain Nick Faulks. Nick deviated from earlier battles in the English, which Peter had won. He induced Peter to give up the bishop pair in return for doubled isolated pawns, leading to a tense middlegame in which Peter had a slight edge. But his time shortage, uncastled king and Nick’s centralisation gave home supporters cause for concern.

Eventually Peter blundered, but Nick eschewed what should have been a winning move to get the draw by perpetual check which meant Surbiton could not lose the match and ensured they would have a team playing in the top division of the Thames Valley League next season. “Phew!” Nick was heard to mutter afterwards. Job done – and an important job too for his club. That made the score 3-2 and Surbiton had what they needed.

Finally, I managed to swindle a victory against young Joseph Morrison. Joseph outplayed me in the opening, but had used up a lot of time in doing so. I had nothing to lose and at the time knew a win was our only hope of promotion, so fired an all-out attack on the kingside which was tricky to defend against while playing on the increment. Practically it was easy for me to make moves, and hard for my opponent to defend, and I eventually managed to break through and win, settling the result at 3-3. 

Congratulations to Surbiton for topping the division ahead of Richmond and Twickenham B, who are also promoted and will, instead of us, have the logistical and rating dilemmas of having two teams in division 1 next season. We were at the same time disappointed and relieved by the result – a complicated emotion.

Season review

I think solid is the way to sum up the season. We only lost two matches, had a healthy game difference, no thrills, no real spills! My Player of the Season goes to Julian Way. Julian has led the line brilliantly, recording five wins, two draws and just a single loss –  an impressive +4 score. His wins have always been an impressive combination of positional understanding, neat tactics and accurate endgame play. 

Thanks to everyone who played this season. We had a solid core of solid players who were extremely dependable, and happy to travel, throughout the season, making team selection simple.

Moving on

On a personal note, in my second season of captaincy, I was very pleased to vastly improve on my own performance last season and finish unbeaten, with six draws and four wins in the division. However, it will sadly be my last season with Kingston (for now!), as from June I’m heading for pastures new in Oxfordshire to start a family.

I joined Kingston Chess Club in 2021, like many having turned to online chess during the pandemic. I was keen to resume playing the game that had been a large part of my early childhood. The Kingston club has had a central role in my life since. I’ve relished the competitiveness of league chess, but probably valued even more the relaxed casual games down in the bar on a Monday night.

The lectures that go over my head, simultaneous displays against elite players, the many blitz tournaments, garden chess in the rain and driving to Maidenhead will all go down as cherished memories, but it’s the people that will really be missed. Thanks to everyone for making the club a special place. I will be excited to watch Kingston Chess Club’s progress over the coming years and, you never know, I might be back. I will in any case have a similar length drive to Maidenhead from my new home in Oxfordshire, so anything is possible!

Gregor Smith, captain of Kingston B in Thames Valley division 2

Kingston C v Surbiton D, Thames Valley division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 29 April 2024

Kingston’s third team maintained their tremendous late-season burst with a win over local rival Surbiton’s fourth team. Colin Lyle won in double-quick time against Shelia Siu on board 4; Jaden Mistry had an excellent victory against Kim Cross on in a lengthy battle on board 3, and Greg Heath got a solid draw against Surbiton captain Phil Goodings on board 2 to seal the win for the team by 2.5-1.5.

Only Ergo Nobel on top board suffered the pain of defeat. His opponent James Lawrence, who seems to have no official Thames Valley rating, has a ECF rating of 1623, so is no slouch, and Ergo was by no means overwhelmed. It was a good workout for Ergo ahead of the Lauder Cup final on the following night, when he would be playing board 5. Third-team captain Stephen Daines pronounced himself well pleased by the win and these end-of-season successes. “Like last season”, he said, “nurturing good players is paying dividends late on.”

Stephen Moss, Kingston Chess Club secretary