Kingston 4 v Epsom 6, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 10 November 2025

You have to hand it to Epsom – even their sixth (!) team plays a mean match. On paper this looked like a strong Kingston 4 team, playing in the Minor Trophy (effectively the fifth division of the Surrey League). But it wasn’t strong enough for the solid and experienced team Epsom brought to the Richard Mayo Centre, with the visitors prevailing 4-2.

First the positives. New Kingston members Martyn Jones and Alexander Chmelev recorded excellent wins on the top boards. They will no doubt soon be appearing in higher teams. Martyn was a strong junior who has recently returned to chess; Alex is a great enthusiast, a strong player and a qualified arbiter. Both are becoming important presences at the club.

Things did not go quite so well on the lower boards. On board 4, Jaden Mistry lost with Black to Sammy Hedges in a Queen’s Gambit Declined; on board 6, Sam Wilcox was defeated by the capable Robert Fairhall in a Danish Gambit; on board 3, Epsom veteran Michael Wickham had too much nous for promising Kingston youngster Ethan Kim; and on board 5 David Bickerstaff (pictured above, right) lost to Venkatash Subramoniam. Kingston captain Edward Mospan described the latter game as “ping-pong chess”, and said David had good chances before eventually succumbing.

Well done to Ed, who, as well as captaining Kingston in this match, ran a large number of rated friendlies and looked after the social chess while several of his regular co-organisers were playing in an away match at Hounslow. And congratulations to Epsom on running a large number of teams in the Surrey League and making them all so competitive. The sign of a very healthy and dynamic club.

Stephen Moss

Hounslow v Kingston, Thames Valley Knockout match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 10 November 2025

Photograph: Stephen Moss (right, seated) sets a puzzle for Leon Fincham, while David White (left) and Jasper Tambini (right) look on. David Rowson (centre) is keeping the club updated on WhatsApp

Even though Kingston did not field our strongest side, we still outrated Hounslow by an average of 160 elo per board. Hence the final result of 5-1 was no surprise. As holders of the Thames Valley Knockout Cup, Kingston had a solid launch to the 2025/26 campaign.

The first to finish was David Rowson with a nothing-much-happened draw with Black in the Italian. Next up was Jasper Tambini, who, with White against David J White, executed a classical queen sacrifice against the castled king.

Next to finish was Genc Tasbasi, who exchanged pieces to reach a drawn endgame. I got a neat attack against Vibhush Pusapadi and was well ahead on the clock. My opponent resigned in a hopeless position just before his flag fell. So 3-1 to Kingston with two games remaining. On board 1, Peter Large was squeezing Mateusz Dydak in the endgame such that Mateusz froze with indecision and lost on time, to make it 4-1.

This left Stephen Moss, who had carelessly lost a pawn in the opening – he would argue it was an intuitive gambit – after which he played dynamically and rudely threw away another couple of pawns against Leon Fincham. In the crucial position below, Leon’s queen is under attack and he decided to capture the e3 bishop counter-attacking White’s queen (the counter-intuitive Qb6 is the best move). However, after the rook recaptured, not only was the queen still under attack but so was the bishop on e5, so Black had to lose a piece. The resultant complications ended in yet another frozen-by-indecision flag fall, though Black was lost on the board when his time ran out. That made the score a convincing 5-1.

We look forward to the next round, but discovered that this may not be played until next summer because Richmond and Harrow have busy schedules. Surely a league knockout should be held during the main season. We await developments, with our fixtures secretary on standby.

John Foley

Wallington v Kingston, Lauder Trophy quarter-final match played at Wallington United Reformed Church on 5 November 2025

There was a scary moment before the start of this match when the Kingston players entered the playing room and found our very own Peter Lalić chilling with the Wallington players. Fortunately – for me at least – he was only there to watch the opening stages at his most local club. For Kingston second-team players to face him for  a fourth time in six weeks would have been tough. There would have been room for him within the rating limit of 10,500 for the Wallington team, which had no one over 1700.

Jon Eckert, Rob Taylor and Robin Kerremans on boards 4 to 6 all won fairly quickly. Jon soon went a piece up, and Rob’s classical play with Black squashed his opponent with a big centre which left no room for the white knights to get out of the way of the rest of the army. Robin Kerremans played the English, despite which his opponent had a slight edge for a while. But Black’s advantage was short-lived, and Robin quickly turned the tables to win the black queen in the course of a mating attack.

John Foley (pictured above) had sacrificed an exchange in the style of Tigran Petrosian in Monday’s league game against Ashtead 1, and now sacrificed another one, this time in the style of Paul Morphy in the famous Opera House game against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard.

I had a much less clear-cut game with Black against Robert Davies on board 1. I had a slight edge almost throughout, but the engine reveals that the advantage was much less than I had thought until my opponent slipped up in the tactics.

Xavier Cowan, who made his Kingston debut only on Monday, was last to finish, with Black against Daniel Luck on board 3. Daniel must be one of the younger club officials in the Surrey League, and is already the Wallington fixture secretary and their match captain for the Lauder and two Surrey league teams, so he has taken on a lot and we wish him well. Xavier has not taken long to figure out that exchange sacrifices are the club trademark.

So the result was what tennis followers would call a bagel (6-0), not surprising given the rating difference, but we have already seen this season, for instance in the recent first-team match against Wimbledon, that in games with a high tactical element almost anyone can go wrong. The Lauder Trophy semi-final will be an away match against the winner of Chessington v Epsom, and must be played by the end of February.

Peter Andrews is Kingston captain in the Lauder Trophy

Kingston 2 v Ashtead 1, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 3 November 2025

Ashtead are the “yo-yo team” in division 2 of the Surrey League, having been relegated from division 1 last season and promoted the season before. So on paper this was one of our toughest matches. Ashtead substantially outrated us on boards 1 to 3, thanks to Kingston’s own Peter Lalić making his third appearance of the season against the second-team squad (the other two in the Thames Valley League for our own first team). However, Ashtead were missing some of their middle-order batting, so we had the rating advantage on the lower boards.

First to finish was David Rowson on board 5. David has previously had several draws with White against Bertie Barlow, so he was pleased to outplay him with Black from a level position.

David’s win enabled me to agree a draw with White against Phil Brooks on board 2 in a position where there was still plenty of play but which was unclear and where we were both a little uncomfortable. And soon afterwards Jasper Tambini drew with Black on board 3 against Dan Rosen in a game that had more clearly run its course. He was never worse, and indeed had had a fleeting opportunity to be better – a solid effort.

Xavier Cowan was making his debut for Kingston, although he is a familiar opponent for several of us in the Thames Valley League, where he captains the Ealing second team. With Black against Platon Razis on board 7, Xavier had a strange-looking pawn structure more reminiscent of a rugby scrum than a free-flowing set of threequarters, but as so often it was piece activity which was decisive.

Alan Scrimgour agreed a draw with White against Chris Perks on board 6, standing better but short of time, which ensured that we could not lose the match. And John Foley (pictured above, left) brought home the bacon with a win with White against Tom Barton on board 4 which reminded us of former world champion Tigran Petrosian.

Meanwhile, on board 1 Julian Way with Black had fended off Peter Lalić’s initiative to reach an equal late middle game in which one slip under mutual time pressure cost the game.

Disappointing for Julian, but a good effort against a player who is currently in excellent form and moving through the 2300s in the ECF rating list.

So after two matches Kingston 2 are top of the division 2 table. We are unlikely to be able to turn out teams regularly as strong as we have for these early matches, but it is very encouraging that already the usual struggle against relegation seems unlikely to materialise. And longer-standing members will remember that it is only a few years since we were pleased when Kingston 1 seemed secure in Surrey division 2. 

Peter Andrews captains Kingston’s first and second teams in the Surrey League