Monthly Archives: June 2026

Jones wins Kingston Fischer Random

The latest event in Kingston Chess Club’s summer programme was a “Fischer Random“
tournament – so called because the late World Champion, like Magnus Carlsen in more
recent times, advocated the variant, in which the starting line-up of the pieces for each
game is more or less randomised 1 , as a means of getting away from opening preparation. It is also known as Freestyle, or Chess960 (from the number of possible starting positions).

The event was played as a 7 round blitz, with a different starting position for each round, so that those unfamiliar with the variant had plenty of opportunity to learn as they went along.

The event soon crystallised into a three-horse race. As might have been expected, Josh Pirgon and Julian Ward, who had led the previous week’s blitz, were well to the fore again. But in the end it was Kingston’s own Martyn Jones who triumphed with a final score of 6/7, half a point ahead of his two closest rivals. His win over Josh was critical, while Julian, who had beaten Martyn early on, lost a vital game to Robin Haldane. The best score for a lower rated player was 4, achieved by David Shalom, Colin Lyle and Jimmy Kew, while the best-placed junior was Lucas Palmer Curiel with 3.

Many thanks to Ed Mospan, whose experience handling the software which generates the positions as well as dealing with the results and pairings is invaluable for an event like this. Very modestly, Ed just played one game himself, when late arrivals meant there was an odd number of players, but his efforts made 18 others happy.

Peter Andrews
Chair

Pirgon wins opening Kingston summer Blitz

The Kingston summer programme kicked off on 1 June with a six-round blitz, won by Joshua Pirgon on tie-break from Julian Ward in a well-contested tournament

Photograph (above): William Lin v Robin Haldane playing out a tense endgame

Kingston Chess Club, now fully installed in its new venue at the United Reformed Church in the heart of the town, is keen to keep up the momentum of a successful league season with a series of events this summer. The opening tournament – a six-round blitz played at the unusual time control of 3+7 (dubbed by arbiter on the night John Foley “the Kingston time control”) was won by Joshua Pirgon.

Joshua is a Surbiton player, but a key point about these events is that they are being thrown open not only to Kingston members but also players from other clubs, or indeed no club. We are trying to create a hub of year-round chess activity as well as fielding strong teams during the league season, and the success of this opening event led us to believe we are on to something.

Joshua tied on five points with Julian Ward, but was awarded first prize – a compendium of great chess games – because he had beaten Julian in their head-to-head encounter in round 4. The next three places were occupied by two redoubtable veterans, Robin Haldane and Peter Roche, and a rising talent, Constantin Liesch, all on 4.5/6, with a gaggle of strong players on 4/6 hard on their heels. Full results.

The event marked a superior degree of organisation. We made this an ECF-rated event as many players find value in monitoring their progress. We also collected a game fee (£5 members / £10 non-members, cash or card) towards the cost of renting the venue for which we used a credit card reader. The club’s projector was used to display each round’s pairings and rankings on the wall. The results were displayed in real time on Chess-Results for anybody who wants to follow the tournament.

Peter Andrews collecting the entry fees watched over by Genc Tasbasi

Next week the club will stage a FischerRandom tournament, and future events in June and July will include a rapidplay, another blitz, a simultaneous display by FM David Maycock and a talk on “Principles of Attack” by FM Julian Way. Julian’s talk is free, but we are making a modest charge as above to participate in the tournaments and simul – to pay for the room and raise funds for the club. We hope this programme will form a template for future summers.

Stephen Moss is Kingston Chess Club captain

Kingston win Thames Valley Knockout – without actually playing

In what may be a first for the Thames Valley League, Kingston have been crowned champions of the knockout cup without having to take on a rival in the final. Harrow and Richmond had been due to contest a semi-final to determine who would meet us in the final, but communications seem to have broken down between the clubs and the match never took place.

The Thames Valley season has now been concluded, leaving no time for their semi, let alone a final against Kingston, and the league has decided to award Kingston the trophy. Congratulations to Kingston’s successful TVKO captain Alan Scrimgour (pictured), though naturally he would have preferred to get his hands on the silverware after a proper contest.

The win by default means that Kingston have completed (for the third time in four seasons) a clean sweep of all four major Surrey League and Thames Valley League titles – the Surrey Trophy (Surrey League Div 1), the Alexander Cup (Surrey League 10-board knockout), Thames Valley Div 1 and the Thames Valley knockout.

It has been a period of extraordinary domination by Kingston in the local leagues. We also won the Thorpe Trophy (Surrey team rapidplay) and the Beaumont Cup (Surrey League Div 2) this season, and our 4NCL partnership with CSC saw our first team finish second in the top division – another mighty performance.

There were too many fine individual performances by Kingston players to enumerate them all, but we must note the showing of some of our more senior members in the John Hawson Trophy, the Surrey League competition for over-60s awarded on the basis of best percentage score in Surrey league and cup matches. The trophy was shared by two revered Kingston players, Peter Large and Alan Scrimgour, with a 75% record, and, as the list below shows, there were three other Kingston players in the top six. Quite extraordinary. Even your own aged correspondent managed to break 50%. A memorable season all round. Let’s do it all again next year – if we still have the strength.

Stephen Moss is Kingston club captain

* To win the John Hawson Trophy, players must play a minimum of five Surrey games. The players marked in red in the list above all played at least five games.