South Norwood 1 v Kingston 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at West Thornton Community Centreon 16 January 2025
This was the board 1 game in a crucial Surrey division 2 match between South Norwood and Kingston. The loser of the match was likely to face the threat of relegation, so we were mightily relieved to emerge as 5.5-1.5 winners. This proved a fascinating game and was the last one to be concluded. Marcus made all the early running and put IM John Hawksworth, who recently returned to chess after a long absence, under severe pressure, both positionally and in terms of time. But John held his nerve, Marcus missed a tactical coup, and the game turned around, with John eventually running out the winner while playing on the 10-second increment.
South Norwood 1 v Kingston 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at West Thornton Community Centreon 16 January 2025
This was the proverbial six-pointer. Lose and we would be sucked into a relegation dogfight in ultra-competitive Surrey League division 2, where Kingston 2 face three first teams and Guildford’s strong second team. Win and we would at least have some breathing space, with our opponents on the night South Norwood facing the dreaded drop.
There was thus a good deal at stake as we set off on the longish journey south. I had chosen a strong team, with IM John Hawksworth facing the anticipated threat of the highly rated Marcus Osborne on board 1; the evergreens Peter Andrews, John Foley and Alan Scrimgour on 2, 3 and 4; Stephen Lovell and Jon Eckert on 5 and 6; and debutant Zubair Froogh on 7. This was Zubair’s first ever classical rated game – he had played a lot as a junior but very little over the past 15 years. On the strength of a few rapidplay games against him, I decided to blood him in this important match.
He was up against South Norwood stalwart Ken Chamberlain, and I was worried about his position early on after he had castled queenside. This was how the game looked after 20 moves, with White to play:
The next game to finish was South Norwood captain Simon Lea against Stephen Lovell on board 5. Stephen has played very little chess over the past 10 years, but he is a strong player and probably a bit better than his current estimated rating of 1885 suggests. Stephen, with Black, played a very exact technical game, went a pawn up early on and never really relented, allowing his opponent little counterplay and eventually winning a second pawn to force resignation.
Jon Eckert played a powerful attacking game with White against Ibrahim Abouchakra on board 6 and eventually won queen for rook to make the result of the game a formality. That made it 3-0 to Kingston and we could start to breathe more easily. Peter Andrews’ game against Paul Dupré on board 2 was complicated and John Hawksworth appeared to have the worst of the position and a big time disadvantage on board 1, but John Foley and Alan Scrimgour were doing well on boards 3 and 4, and a single point from those two games would be enough to win the match.
Alan was up against Ron Harris, who plays very aggressively and at lightning speed. Alan was ready for this, though, and with White played forcefully in the opening to establish an advantage in this position:
Alan’s win made it 4-0 and the match was in the bag, but there were still three fierce struggles under way on the top boards. John Foley, with Black, had turned down a draw offer from Oliver Weiss on board 3 and was pressing for a win. His chance to seal the deal came in the position below, but with time short the winning move can often prove elusive:
Peter Andrews and Paul Dupré were having a ding-dong struggle on board 2. Peter had a small plus in the early middlegame, but then things started to go badly wrong, as he explains.
That left just one game in progress – Marcus Osborne versus IM John Hawksworth on board 1 – and what a game it was. Baffling to onlookers and at times possibly to the players as well. Marcus had blitzed out the opening moves, and at one point John was almost an hour behind on the look. To eventually win the game was little short of miraculous. John has been out of chess for more than 30 years, and has been feeling his way back in over the past few months. To win here against a player of Marcus’s quality and resilience suggests he is well and truly back in the groove.
John has annotated his win for the Games section. The victory made the final score in the match 5.5-1.5, and we can now start to believe that we will survive in Surrey division 2 for another season. South Norwood would have to take a point off either Wimbledon 1 or Surbiton 1 away to consign us to bottom place, and that will not be easy against two very strong teams who could hold their own in Surrey division 1.
Stephen Moss, Kingston 2 captain in Surrey division 2
Maidenhead A v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at St Luke’s Community Hall, Maidenhead on 13 January 2025
It is a truth universally acknowledged that half the battle when it comes to winning away chess matches on winter evenings is getting a full team to the venue. This is particularly the case when it comes to Maidenhead (or South Norwood, where the second team ventured this same week). So the fact that six players, one unwell and one only 11 years old, made it to a church hall in distant Berkshire was a very good start. Three of us, very kindly driven there by Stephen Moss, arrived 10 minutes late due to traffic problems, but the Maidenhead captain, Nigel Smith, very sportingly did not start the clocks until we had sat down.
Maidenhead, like some of our other recent opponents, were surprisingly weaker than expected, especially given that they were playing at home. We, on the other hand, were near full strength, bolstered by the presence of Supratit Banerjee on board 3. How important this was rapidly became clear when, after less than an hour’s play, Supratit’s opponent resigned, after going wrong in a tactically complicated position, the kind of position where Supratit seems completely at home. At this point, after just seven moves, Black is already under pressure from the pin on the f6 knight:
On board 2 a Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack led to a wild position. Things took off from here when David Maycock played the provocative 9…g5:
On board 5 John Hawksworth was consolidating a positional advantage. He commented: “My opponent Tony Milnes played an unusual combination of the Dutch and the Bogo-Indian. I didn’t know the theory, but got a pleasant position playing natural moves. He misplaced his knight with 17…Nb7, which I could completely neutralise with 18.b4!” This gave the position below:
John’s win made the score 3-0 to Kingston. In my own game on board 6, everything also appeared to be going swimmingly as my opponent allowed me to win two pawns early on:
The board 4 game had seen manoeuvring in the centre and on the queenside, with neither player gaining much advantage, until the following position was reached. At this point Charles Bullock had about three minutes to Peter Lalić’s one and a half, but Peter thrives in such situations and he was the one who was pressing.
This made the score 4.5-0.5, with the top-board contest still outstanding. From a Caro-Kann Defence Peter Large and his young opponent, Bohdan Terler, reached this position:
With all the games completed (but the long journey home still in front of the Kingston players), Kingston had chalked up another convincing Thames Valley League division 1 victory. Our record so far this season is played four, won four, with 20.5 game points out of a possible 24. However, we still have eight matches to play, and our next two may well be crucial in deciding whether we retain the title, as we face Hammersmith home and away.
David Rowson, Kingston A captain in the Thames Valley League
Kingston C v Hounslow C, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 13 January 2025
In the spirit of Thames Valley Div X, Kingston captain Jon Eckert chose a young and inexperienced team for this match, with three highly promising juniors on boards 1, 2 and 3 and Sean Tay holding the fort on 4. Sean won smoothly, while the juniors found it tough going against good-quality opposition. But the games were well contested and excellent training at a longish time control (65 minutes plus a 10-second increment) for Kingston’s rising talents. These are the players who in a few years’ time, as they rise up the ranks, will be carrying Kingston’s fortunes.
Kingston A v Wimbledon A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 January 2025
A whitewash is rare in the very competitive Thames Valley division 1, but it happened here. Wimbledon brought a depleted side shorn of their five strongest players to Fortress Willoughby and were duly trounced 6-0. They fought hard, especially with the White pieces, but the rating disparity was just too great.
Will Taylor on the Kingston Whatsapp group noted at the beginning of the match, when I cautioned against the counting of chickens, that our board 6 was stronger than Wimbledon’s board 1. He said he would “buy a chicken for every club member if we lost”. He never looked in danger of having to cough up. This, he said as the Kingston score mounted up, was one dangerous boast which would not be coming home to roost.
Captain David Rowson, on board 6, claimed Kingston’s first win when Stephen Carpenter, playing Black, blundered a piece. “The game finished rather bathetically,” David explained later, “when my opponent, having made better decisions at many points of the game than me, overlooked that he needed to keep his queen protecting his knight. He took this catastrophe very well, very sportingly. I thought it was a rather unusual game in that White rarely castles queenside in the Italian Game, but by that point castling kingside looked suicidal, as I’d misplayed things (wasting time with my knights) and was very much on the defensive. Before the final mistake the position is probably roughly level.”
Peter Lalić’s board 2 win was typically Lalićian: queens off on move 3, win an early pawn, squeeze. Owen Phillips, with Black, tried to create counterplay, but Peter allowed nothing at all. When he wants to play in this style, he is a technical wizard and exerts complete control. Owen resigned in the position below with his remaining pieces virtually immobilised.
Tony Hughes and Luca Buanne fought out an inspired game on board 3. Luca countered Tony’s English Opening with some typically combative play – he is not afraid of double-edged games, as the following position after White’s 20th move shows. Visually this looks tricky for White: Black’s queen appears compromised and White’s kingside attack must surely come to something. But the engine favours Black here. Chess really is calculation, calculation, calculation. Tony throws the kitchen sink at Luca, but he survives and goes on to consolidate his material advantage.
A tremendous game in which both Luca and Tony played with great verve. The last three results came in a cluster. On board 5, Peter Andrews had Black against Gordon Rennie. Peter identified this as the key part of the struggle:
On board 4 Peter Hasson was up against former Wimbledon team-mate Sean Ingle. Peter got an advantage out of the opening and was applying steady pressure when Sean blundered away a piece, resulting in the second sudden denouement of the evening.
Peter Large – two-thirds of the Kingston team were called Peter – completed the 6-0 win with a well-controlled display against Neil Cannon, who held his own until deep into the game. The position below is level, but then matters start to go awry for White.
The win means we have won all three of our opening games in the Thames Valley League and are now level with pacesetters Ealing but with two games in hand. Early days – we have 12 matches in all, home and away against six strong A teams – but the start to our defence of the Thames Valley title could not have gone better. Fingers crossed the run continues when we meet mighty Hammersmith, who are in joint third place with Richmond, at home on Monday 27 January. That will be a pivotal encounter.
