Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 8 January 2024

Having beaten Ealing 4-2 away in October, Kingston approached this match with moderate confidence. Last season we benefited from some clubs not travelling well, most notably Ealing. Several of their players are Fulham FC supporters (like me) but in contrast to last year Fulham didn’t have a fixture on Monday, so our opponents arrived in good time and close to full strength, whereas we were lacking a couple of our top players. All the same, the similarity in the average ratings of the two teams foretold a close match, and that was borne out on the evening.

The first game to finish was that on the top board, where Martin Smith and Peter Lalić agreed to a very early draw. Queens had been exchanged on move 4 and the position was pretty level at move 15, with White perhaps having more reason to play on than Black. 

Ealing then went ahead when Jonathan White converted his extra pawn advantage in a rook ending against John Foley, but on board 6 Alan Scrimgour was on top against Simon Healeas. I’m not qualified to comment on how the opening (a Caro-Kann, Panov Attack) developed, but in the early middlegame White’s queenside pawn majority was up against Black’s two central pawns. The following position was reached:

Here, instead of defending the knight on c6 Black counter-attacked with 18….e4. The problem with this was that after 19. Qxc6 exf3 gxf3 White was a pawn up and Black’s pawn centre was half what it had been. The doubled pawns on the f-file are not so significant here. Play continued 30…Rc8 31. Qa4 d4 32. Rbd1 Nd5 33. Ne4 (Rxd4 loses a piece to Nc3).

A few moves later this was the position:

Now if 25…Bf6 White would exchange rooks and queens on e8 and his connected queenside pawns would be much stronger than Black’s single central one, which is in any case likely to fall imminently. However, after 25…d3 26. Qb5 White won the d-pawn and soon after the game.  This levelled the scores at 1.5-1.5.

On board 4 Will Taylor was defending a Queen’s Gambit Declined against the very experienced Alan Perkins.

Here White played 18. Nxe6! The idea is that after 18…fxe6 19. Rxe6 Black has to play 19…Kh8 to avoid the discovered check, and then 19. d5 pushes the c6 knight away from defending the bishop on e7. Will commented, “I didn’t react well to the shock of Nxe6, spending almost all my remaining time and leaving myself playing on increment in a position which might otherwise have been defensible.” After 20…Bxa3 21. dxc6 the c6 pawn, helped along by White’s bishops and rooks, became a winner, advancing to c7.

Now Ealing had a point lead, but the match continued to roller-coaster, which description fits my own game perfectly. Out of a Giuoco Piano I had what I thought was the advantage, as Tony Wells’ pieces were mostly stuck on the back rank, but I couldn’t work out how to exploit this, and after the queens were exchanged I played some casual moves and suddenly realised that I was much worse. Black was pressing hard on the kingside and my pieces seemed to be tripping over each other. With little time to think properly I decided to confuse things, and played 40. g3 here:

According to Stockfish this takes my position from -0.58 to – 1.86. After 40…g4! 41.fxg4 Bxg4 I played the strange-looking 42. Ng1. My idea was to move a rook to the g-file to line up against Black’s bishop and king.  It’s not really a particularly good move, but then nothing is here. Black doubled rooks – 42…Raf7 – and I played 43. Nh2, giving this position:

Now 43…Nxg3 44. Nxg4 Rf4 would have threatened the g4 knight and mate on e4, and after 45. Nf2 h3 46. Ngxh3 Rf3++, but this was very hard to see with only about a minute left on the clock. Instead, Black defended his bishop with 43…Nf6, losing the advantage. I continued 44. gxh4 and my opponent decided to use his king to recapture the h-pawn. We reached this position a few moves later:

Here I played 47. Nhf3+ (Ngf3+ was even better) and after 47…Kh5 I was able to win a pawn by 48. Nxe5. The game continued 48…Nxd3 49. Nxd3 Nxe4? (time trouble – Re8 was best) and finished 50. Kxe4 Bf3+ 51. Nxf3 Rxf3 52. Rh1+ when Tony resigned, as it’s mate next move. With a lot of luck I had managed to go from dead lost to dead won, and the match was all square again.

So the match result would hang on the last game to finish. From a very complex French David Maycock – playing White against Fide master Andrew Harley – gained the two bishops, but when the queens were exchanged he became tied down to defending an extra pawn on c5:

Play continued 24. Ra4 Nd8 25. Ra5 Nc6 26. Ra4 Nd8. Andrew Harley was offering to repeat the position, but David, with his usual admirable fighting spirit, turned this down. He didn’t know the match situation and decided he should try to win for the team, so varied by 27. Nc3. Unfortunately this meant he gave up his small advantage of the two bishops. The position was still absolutely level by move 50, with each player only having a rook and knight, but time pressure had now entered the equation. David kept finding ways to set Andrew problems, but Andrew resourcefully solved these, and with only seconds left David had to resign when facing two connected passed pawns.

So Kingston had narrowly lost the match. Ealing had proved very tough opponents. This was our first defeat this season in the Thames Valley League. It will now be very problematic for us to retain the title (see current table below, beneath the match score), but we’ll keep fighting – six matches remain.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in Thames Valley League