Co-organiser Stephen Moss introduces the tournament, and, below, John Saunders offers a blow-by-blow account of a fascinating and controversial event

The Third Kingston Invitational was a Swiss for 45 players played at Tiffin Boys School in central Kingston from Monday 12 to Friday 16 August. Nine rounds, Fide-rated, 90min + 30sec time control, with Fide arbiters Lance Leslie-Smith and Jake Hung acting as tournament controllers. The action could be followed on the Chess Results server, and esteemed chess journalist John Saunders supplied an excellent daily blog on the event – an edited version of his reports appears below.

There was a prize fund of winner £1,000 to the winner (plus the Kingston Invitational trophy, won last year by IM Conor Murphy); with £300 for second and £100 for third . The prize for the leading junior (16 or under) was £200 and the Barden Cup, named in honour of Leonard Barden, the veteran Guardian chess correspondent, who has long been an advocate for English junior chess and has taken a close interest in the Kingston tournament, encouraging us to give rising young players a chance to take on established stars. We were very proud that Leonard, who was 95 on 20 August 2024 and is boundlessly self-effacing, allowed us to name this trophy after him. It is, we believe, the first time he has been honoured in this way. There was also a £50 best game prize, judged by John Saunders.

The rating floor for participation in the event was around 2000 ECF, though some exceptions were made. Entry was free and by invitation only. The tournament was sufficiently strong and had enough titled players and players from the necessary range of federations to allow us to offer norms. These are the players who accepted invitations to play:

				FIDE
1	IM	Vladyslav	Larkin	2471
2	IM	Conor	Murphy	2460
3	FM	Maciej	Czopor	2364
4	IM	Peter	Large	2336
5	IM	Graeme	Buckley	2293
6	FM	Zhuo Ren	Lim	2278
7	FM	Roland	Bezuidenhout	2270
8	FM	Alex	Browning	2267
9	CM	Kenneth	Hobson	2266
10	IM	Gavin	Wall	2258
11		Daniel	Gallagher	2253
12	FM	Venkat	Tiruchirapelli	2225
13	CM	Thomas	Villiers	2195
14	CM	Peter	Lalić	2181
15	CM	Stanley	Badacsonyi	2179
16		Clive	Frostick	2161
17	CM	Supratit	Banerjee	2156
18	FM	Robert	Eames	2145
19	CM	Mark	Josse	2141
20		Michael	Healey	2130
21		Timothy	Seymour	2124
22		Matthew	Dignam	2118
23	CM	Robert	Willmoth	2098
24		Alistair	Hill	2089
25		Tianyi (Jack)	Liu	2081
26		Matthew	Payne	2080
27	CM	Jem	Gurner	2070
28		Elis Denele	Dicen	2060
29		Shlok	Verma	2060
30		Remy	Rushbrooke	2056
31		Connor	Clarke	2048
32		Rohan	Pal	2046
33		Zain	Patel	2035
34		Samuel	Walker	2032
35		Balahari	Bharat Kumar	2031
36	ACM	George	Zhao	2014
37		Billy	Fellowes	2006
38		Robin	Haldane	2000
39	ACM	Nicolas	Skettos	1985
40		Peter	Hasson	1984
41		Ewan	Wilson	1983
42		Joshua	Pirgon	1982
43		William	Taylor	1967
44		Edmond	Andal	1960
45		Daniel	Young	1926

Monday 12 August – Day 1 (round 1)

The Third Kingston Invitational got under way on a baking hot afternoon at Tiffin Boys’ School. As well as the extreme heat, those travelling to the venue for the 3.30pm start had to cope with a gridlocked town centre which added an hour or even more to some journeys of those arriving by road, and it seems the rail services weren’t great either. (I’m assuming no one arrived by river, though that is a feasible option in this suburb of south-west London through which the River Thames flows.)

It’s fair to say that co-organiser Stephen Moss feared the worst as the clock ticked round to the half hour. But his worries proved unfounded. His opening address, followed by chief arbiter Lance Leslie-Smith’s technical briefing, meant that clocks were started only a little later than scheduled at 3.40pm and within another five minutes all 21 boards featured two players. An added bonus was air-conditioning in the playing room, which is not something to be taken for granted in the UK.

This year’s Kingston Invitational is being run for the first time as a Swiss, which meant the usual first-round pairing of top vs bottom. If you wander over to the chess-results.com page expecting to see a monotonous series of 0-1, 1-0, 0-1, 1-0, 0-1 digits in the results (or vice versa), you’re in for a surprise as there were quite a number of giant-killing performances this afternoon, as those sporting 2200+ ratings struggled to beat their supposed inferiors weighing in around elo 2000.

That said, the 2023 Kingston Invitational winner, IM Conor Murphy, was not one of them. His opponent, Battersea Chess Club’s Alistair Hill, soon found himself in trouble when his knight was trapped behind enemy lines and unable to help defend against the Irish IM’s kingside attack, which soon crashed through.

Board four was the scene of a surprise as Oxford University player Jem Gurner defeated IM Graeme Buckley. The titled player is known as a risk-taker, but he pushed his luck a bit too far when he surrendered a piece for a kingside attack which had insufficient venom.

The next board saw an extraordinary number of swings of fortune as the sole female competitor, WCM Elis Denele Dicen won against FM Roland Bezuidenhout. The South African player went in for a very timid Réti set-up with White and it took him until beyond move 40 to emerge from a grovelly position against his tenacious 14-year-old opponent. Eventually a chance came to attack for White to attack on the kingside, but White hesitated and Black found a powerful move threatening the exposed white king.

I’ve no doubt the brisk time limit now played a significant part as fleeting chances came and went for both sides. Two or three times White missed chances to play a g4-g5 pawn push to attack the black king but, irony of ironies, when he finally played it, it turned out to be a blunder losing material. A tremendous performance from the 14-year-old player of the black pieces whose fighting spirit and determination finally paid off.

Zain Patel was one of the last competitors to arrive, having spent more than an hour stuck in the Kingston traffic with his mother, but he looked none the worse for the ordeal as he shook hands with his opponent and got the game under way.

On move 12 Black snaffled his opponent Daniel Gallagher’s a-pawn with a knight. “Pawn snatching at the expense of development,” the old-time chess primers would have called it, but it seemed to work out rather well, though it was touch and go in the opening. Let’s look at the game, which was very entertaining:

Tom Villiers seemed doomed to be the victim of yet another giant-killing when he lost the exchange in the middlegame against Balahari Bharat Kumar, leaving him with a hopeless position. But a mis-step by the 15-year-old allowed Villiers to give up his queen for rook and knight simply to stay in the game. Villiers also had two extra pawns which made a draw the likeliest result.

On move 56 Black’s last pawn was exchanged off, leaving Black’s lone queen to defend against rook, knight and three pawns (though two were doubled). In theory the draw was still attainable – it remained the analysis engine verdict for some time after – but in practice the defence of such positions where the opposing king can be shielded from a long series of checks is next to impossible. White could now continue playing with no fear of defeat and Black eventually cracked. At 82 moves this was the longest game of the round.

Another big surprise unfolded on board 12 where CM Peter Lalić succumbed to the newly crowned British under-12 champion, George Zhao. Lalić met the 11-year-old’s Queen’s Gambit with 2…e5 and the game followed theory until move 11 when Zhao opted to capture a stray a-pawn, much as we saw Zain Patel do above, though, with the queens already off, the pawn was less “hot”. Initially Black had sufficient compensation for the pawn, but a careless 14…Be7 allowed a neat combination which turned the extra pawn into a solid plus for White.

Not long after, White netted a second pawn and set up an unstoppable phalanx of three connected pawns on the queenside. Thereafter Black’s attempts at counterplay were easily quelled. This is the first time I’ve seen a game of George Zhao’s and I am mightily impressed by what I’ve seen. He made a very classy series of moves with his light-squared bishop, particularly the precise 18 Bf5! in a position where I’d bet most 11-year-olds, indeed all ages up to and including 71-year-olds like yours truly, would simply snap off the c7 pawn. 

Two players of pensionable age met on board 14, where the more senior but lower-rated Robin Haldane defeated Clive Frostick. I wouldn’t classify this as a surprise, however, since Haldane seems to have been underrated for the best part of half a century. The game was decided by a senior moment on move 20 committed by the junior partner, leading to an exchange of major pieces and the loss of a pawn and allowing White to show off his impeccable endgame technique. (Note: Robin Haldane is only playing as a filler so is not in the second-round pairings but might return later in the event should he be needed.)

Mark Josse was another victim of a lower-rated opponent, namely Ewan Wilson. An injudicious exchange of pieces by White allowed Black to exploit the weakness of the white queenside pawns in an endgame. Black allowed White one fleeting chance to achieve a perpetual check on move 33, but White missed it and was soon lost.

The seventh and final success for the lower-rated opponents in round one was achieved by Kingston Chess Clubb’s very own Will Taylor against Tim Seymour of Surbiton. As an old-time King’s Indian Defence addict myself, I would have been glad to see White’s slow-motion development unfold before me, rather than the usual high-speed pawn storm that used to pen me into my back two ranks and cause me much suffering.

As a rule of thumb, you should never allow a KID-ologist an even break, or you will suffer the consequences. Black, playing with the freedom of a man who had expected a long term of KID imprisonment but had unexpectedly beaten the rap, engineered a temporary exchange sacrifice which guaranteed him complete control of the dark squares on the kingside, and that was enough to ensure victory.

Tuesday 13 August – Day 2 (rounds 2 and 3)

First we must congratulate all the players in the tournament, not to mention the officials, on managing to get to the venue at all. As mentioned yesterday, there are huge traffic problems in Kingston-upon-Thames at the moment. Kingston Council reported t “Queen Elizabeth Road Kingston – Urgent Road Closure at the junction with Birkenhead Avenue due to the discovery of a large void in the carriageway. Estimated end date is currently 16 August 2024.” Note that those dates coincide exactly with the start and end dates of the tournament, and the road closed happens to be the one immediately outside the venue. How unlucky can we get?

The only tournament that comes close in misfortune in this respect is probably the recent British Championship in Hull which coincided with an outbreak of public disorder which led to the hotel venue having to lock down at one point. However, thankfully, the large void in the adjoining road in Kingston has not led to an equivalent void in the list of competitors.

One of the other most impressive features of the competitors is their fighting spirit. Round 1 featured 17 decisive results and just four draws. Perhaps not so surprising for a top vs bottom starter round, but the trend has continued. In round 2 there were again four draws and 18 decisive games. In round 3 there were six draws and 16 decisive games. The draws have nearly all been full-blooded battles, too, with one going to an eye-watering 137 moves. The tournament organiser keeps nagging me to make a come-back and play the odd game as a filler, but he’s got another think coming. Chess as played these days is too relentless for my cowardly blood and I shall remain a devoted spectator, thank you very much. I’m not the only one. We’re told that the tournament’s Lichess live audience is steadily growing.

In the morning round the higher rated generally did better than in the first round, but there were still some surprises. The top seed, Ukrainian IM Vladyslav Larkin, who took a half-point bye in the opening round, lost to English FM Bob Eames. Larkin appeared to have escaped some early difficulties and secured an advantage but then blundered away material.

Some of the youngsters who had excelled in round 1 ran out of luck in round 2. George Zhao seemed to be matching Michael Healey blow for blow beyond move 40 and was a pawn up when a small slip enabled White to mount a decisive kingside attack. Similarly Zain Patel ran into tactical trouble against Tom Villiers, whose back rank threats proved more potent than his opponent’s.

There was, though, a further surprise as Cambridge University player Remy Rushbrooke beat Peter Large. The veteran IM arrived 20 minutes late for the start – no doubt the traffic problem was to blame – and his opening play proved a little too provocative.

Board 1 in round 3 was an all-Irish clash between IMs Conor Murphy and Gavin Wall. Black opened with his trusty Philidor’s defence, but once 12…c5 was played it started to resemble a Sicilian with players attacking kings on opposite flanks. White’s 14. Na4 looked odd at first sight, but it proved to be a subtle plan to lure Black’s light-squared bishop to go after it and win a pawn, enabling its opposite number to control the light squares on the opposite side unchallenged. The plan proved very effective and White’s kingside assault soon crashed through. 

Maciej Czopor joined Conor Murphy and Stanley Badacsonyi in the joint lead after beating Tom Villiers in a 92-move marathon. After 52 moves it came down to an endgame of knight and two unconnected pawns versus bishop and one pawn, which the tablebase tells us is a draw. A further 40 moves ensued until the black king managed to circumnavigate the white forces and reach a position where White had only one move which maintained the draw. It wasn’t a particularly hard one to find, involving the “shouldering off” of the black king to prevent it reaching the passed black pawn, but, probably in a state of exhaustion, White missed it and was soon lost.

Stanley Badacsonyi is the third member of the round three leadership group, after beating German-registered Alex Browning. This talented 14-year-old from East Finchley, who won the British junior under-16 rapidplay and blitz titles in Hull, has started in great shape in Kingston. In round 3 he opened with the Trompowsky against the German FM and was quickly on the offensive after Browning went in for an inferior line which ceded the dark squares and also a pawn to his opponent. It was all over in 28 moves.

I mentioned earlier that Bob Eames had a nice win in the afternoon, neatly bookending his IM scalp of the morning. Let’s end by having a look at it:

Wednesday 14 August – Day 3 (rounds 4 and 5)

After all those things I wrote in my last report about the absence of quick draws, etc, the round 4 top-board game between Maciej Czopor and Conor Murphy ended in a draw in 15 moves. That left the third of the three leaders, Stanley Badacsonyi to battle it out against T S Venkataramanan and he did so successfully to wrest the sole lead with 4/4. It was great fight, reflecting credit on both players.

Bob Eames won his third game in a row, beating Mike Healey. Black chose to decline a Morra Gambit but soon came to regret it as White created something resembling a Maroczy Bind, followed by a powerful queenside pawn storm.

The Malaysian FM Zhuo Ren Lim had a good win against Matthew Dignam after tempting his opponent into accepting an unusual counter-gambit against a c3 Sicilian. Alex Browning also won when his kingside attack crashed through against Supratit Banerjee. Elis Denele Dicen found herself ground down in a long rook and pawns endgame by Tom Villiers. Peter Lalić was another Morra Gambiteer, but his gift was accepted by Jem Gurner, who also gratefully annexed a second and then a third. Lalić reduced the deficit from three to one but at the cost of ruining his position.

Ewan Wilson was two pawns up with a good chance of winning, but the capture of a third saw him facing (Kenneth) Hobson’s choice in this game:

Zain Patel won against Edmond Andal after the Philippines player missed a saving move in a rook and pawns endgame.

In round 5 the leader, Stanley Badacsonyi, found himself paired with the number 3 seed FM Maciej Czopor. White opened with something I’ve not seen before – 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bf4 e6 4. Nb5!? – but that might be because my chess knowledge, such as it is, is firmly rooted in the 20th century, before he was born. It didn’t work out particularly well and White’s slow development led to some problems along the e-file which he could only meet by surrendering the right to castle. However, Czopor’s advantage was dissipated by an ill-judged queen exchange, and he was unable to dominate the ensuing double rook ending in the way that he might have expected. Badacsonyi’s recovery after mishandling the opening show he is a tough fighter.

That left last year’s winner IM Conor Murphy with the task of defeating Bob Eames with White to tie with Badacsonyi for the lead. Eames defended a Benko Gambit. Murphy sacrificed the exchange for a pawn, making two in total with the addition of the traditional Benko pawn. Stockfish was unimpressed, judging the position to be level but, as is so often the case, the practicalities of the position told a different story, with Black being faced with a series of difficult defensive problems while the white king remained safely out of harm’s way. That said, Eames coped with most of them extremely well, before stumbling over the final question posed by the relentless Irish examiner.

The highlight of the afternoon for me was not one of the games but a pleasant chat with one of the player’s coaches who was present at the venue. Here’s his photo:

Zhang Pengxiang is a 44-year-old Chinese grandmaster, who is currently rated 2567 but with a peak rating of 2657. He is less active as a player these days, concentrating on his work as a chess coach, but his chess CV includes some awesome achievements. In 2001 he qualified for the FIDE World Championship in Moscow when the format was knock-out matches of two classical games followed by rapid and blitz tie-breakers. In the first round he drew the two classical games but won both the subsequent rapidplay games to eliminate his opponent … who was Anatoly Karpov. It’s worth reading the description of this extraordinary achievement on his Wikipedia page. 

Zhang has played in Britain twice before. In 2007 he was part of the powerful Chinese team which overcame the British team in a match-tournament held in Liverpool. His results on that occasion were wins against Mickey Adams, Jonathan Rowson and Nick Pert, draws with Nigel Short and Gawain Jones, and a solitary loss to David Howell, for a rating performance in excess of 2700. More recently he was invited to play in the 2023/24 Hastings Masters by tournament director Stuart Conquest and finished second to Abhijeet Gupta with an unbeaten 7/9.

Zhang has a charmingly modest demeanour and it was a real privilege to chat with him. And how great for young players like Jack Liu that they get the opportunity to learn from him. 

Thursday 15 August – Day 4 (rounds 6 and 7)

A clash between the two overnight leaders, Stanley Badacsonyi and Conor Murphy, might have been expected in the morning, but the 14-year-old player from East Finchley was otherwise engaged and took a half-point bye. His prior engagement was a family trip to learn (and hopefully celebrate) his elder brother’s A-Level results. Instead Murphy was paired with FM Alex Browning. The German-registered player, with White, played the slightly unusual 5. d4 line in the Ruy Lopez. Black equalised fairly easily against this. With a largely symmetrical pawn structure and level material, little else of note occurred and the result was a draw.

The battle of the two FMs, Maciej Czopor against Zhuo Ren Lim, promised to be a livelier affair after opening with a Najdorf Sicilian sideline. Czopor (White) managed to exchange queens and gain a pawn, but his position wasn’t conducive to exploiting his material advantage and the game eventually fizzled out to a draw.

Board 3 was the scene of an exciting showdown between Michael Healey (White) and Ukrainian IM Vladyslav Larkin. The opening was 1. b4, or the “Polish Orangutan” as the software I use likes to style it. (Are there orangutans in Poland? I think we should be told.) There was nothing much wrong with the opening phase of the game for White, but when he dared to fork his opponent’s knight and pawn he was suddenly “terminated with extreme prejudice” (if I may borrow a euphemism from Apocalypse Now). The killer move, 14…d4, had to be calculated with great precision: Larkin proved equal to the task.

Gavin Wall scored an instructive win against Zain Patel, similar in a way to the Larkin win for the suddenness with which the game turned, but this was a more positional version of the same.

After his dominating performance in the 2023 Kingston Invitational and other recent competitions, plus his near 300-point rating superiority, IM Conor Murphy might have been expected to overcome Stanley Badacsonyi in their top-board encounter in round 7 on Thursday afternoon, but it was the 14-year-old who came closest to winning the game. A draw was enough to take Badacsonyi over the threshold of 2300 for his FM title (subject to confirmation).

The opening was a sideline of the McCutcheon variation of the French Defence. After the queens came off in a level position, Murphy, playing White, had a slight edge but mishandled it and allowed Badacsonyi to equalise. Murphy then overdid it in trying to win and for a fleeting few moves stumbled into a technically lost position. That said, it would have required a counter-intuitive, super-GM/Stockfish-level move (not to mention plenty of time on the clock) to seal the deal for Black, who shouldn’t beat himself up too much for missing it.

Vladyslav Larkin defeated Maciej Czopor after an innocuous opening became unexpectedly sharp. The Polish player, with Black, missed an opportunity to hold, after which White’s kingside assault broke through.

The game between Roland Bezuidenhout (White) and Bob Eames seemed to be pootling along in fairly normal fashion when the South African suddenly launched a sacrificial attack. It was dangerous, though probably unsound, but Black failed to follow up accurately and duly lost.

There was more risk-taking on board 5 where Alex Browning (playing Black) was outplaying Kenneth Hobson. Then, on move 39, calamity: Browning, the exchange and a pawn up, took a pawn and allowed a mate in two.

It was an exhausting round to watch, let alone play, which might account for some of the mistakes made. Everyone is getting tired. One of the games from round 7 has not yet finished. They had reached move 203, in a position where one pair of queens, bishops and pawns had been exchanged, when the arbiters decided enough was enough and asked them to adjourn. The game is due to be resumed at 8.15am tomorrow, with round 8 scheduled for 10am. 

Friday 16 August – Day 5 (rounds 8 and 9)

Before round eight started, there was the small matter of concluding round seven. This epic game had been adjourned at 10pm the previous evening on move 203 and resumed at the unearthly hour of 8.15am on Friday. The two players, 13-year-old Billy Fellowes and Peter Lalić duly continued, but the younger player’s game started to worsen very soon and by move 219 it was apparent that his position was resignable. The fact that White didn’t resign at that point or soon after is not something that deserves criticism since that is the norm for junior chess and what he will be accustomed to.

The game carried on to move 272, which at first was thought to be a record for OTB rated chess but turns out not to be, as several other games have been found which went on longer. Though Leonard Barden in his Guardian column later decreed this to be “the longest ever decisive Fide-rated game”. Chess historians and Wikipedia editors are still wrestling with the implications of this epic encounter. The game has led to a great deal of harrumphing among the chess chattering classes. I don’t propose to say more about it here, but I might do in the October issue of Chess magazine.

Three players started round 8 in the joint lead and three players ended it thus, but they were not the same players. Stanley Badacsonyi drew with his second IM in a row when he played out a draw with Vladyslav Larkin, but IM Conor Murphy, winner of last year’s Kingston Invitational, lost to South African FM Roland Bezuidenhout and was replaced by him at the head of the score table.

Badacsonyi had White against Larkin and the opening, according to ChessBase software was a “Pirc Miscellaneous”, though Black never fianchettoed his f8 bishop. The queens came off early and Stockfish claimed a small advantage to Black. Nevertheless, Badacsonyi played accurately and any trace of an edge for Black dissipated. At the end there was a curiosity where Black gave up the exchange, but in a position where the opposing rooks had little chance of exploiting this, so a draw seemed a fair result.

Meanwhile Murphy-Bezuidenhout (which I later named game of the tournament) began with a Rauzer Sicilian, with Black trying a pawn sacrifice to get queenside play. It could have been countered more energetically, but Murphy, playing the white side, was curiously hesitant and soon drifted into a disastrous position and Black’s counter crashed through. Or very nearly… a false step suddenly spoilt the black position and Bezuidenhout found himself having to win the game all over again. Conor Murphy might have dug himself out of a hole a second time, but this time failed to find a way out. His chances of prolonging his reign as the Kingston Invitational champ now hung by a thread going into the final round.

Maciej Czopor, playing White, opened with an English against Kenneth Hobson. The Polish FM steadily improved his position and piled on the pressure until Black allowed his light-squared bishop to be trapped and captured. Black had some nebulous compensation thereafter, but it was never enough.

Mark Josse, playing the black side of a non-standard Sicilian set-up, seemed to keep Gavin Wall comfortably at bay until he (Josse) unaccountably shed two pawns on moves 38 and 40, and that was the end of the story. Peter Large (White) against Michael Healey started with a Bb5 Sicilian and proceeded in orderly fashion until Black committed a calamitous gaffe.

As the final round began, players on the top three boards all had an interest in the top prize, which was £1,000, descending steeply to £300 for second and £100 for third. Badacsonyi, Bezuidenhout and Larkin were on 6, while Murphy, Czopor and Wall were half a point behind on 5½.

Roland Bezuidenhout was White against Stanley Badacsonyi in the top-board battle between two six-pointers. The opening was a Symmetrical English. White tried to mix things up a little, but the canny youngster managed to dampen it down. When the last of the queenside pawns disappeared on move 39, the players decided a draw was the only result.

Last year’s winner Conor Murphy, playing the black side of a Catalan, couldn’t make much impression on Vladyslav Larkin. As with the top board, the imminent disappearance of all queenside pawns was the signal to abandon the struggle, in just 22 moves.

That meant that the three leaders from the morning round, Stanley Badacsonyi, Vladyslav Larkin and Roland Bezuidenhout, knew they had shared first prize, but by the time the games had ended another player had already reached the a score of 6.5 as Maciej Czopor had scored a quick win with Black against Gavin Wall.

That settled the division of the money prizes, with each of the four on the top score receiving £350 each. Maciej Czopor collected the Kingston Invitational cup on tie-break based on progressive score through the tournament. Stanley Badacsonyi won the Barden Cup to go with his share of first for the Invitational overall and the award of his FM title – completing a wonderful tournament which the teenager later hailed as a career breakthrough.

The organisers wish to thank John Saunders for all his work in documenting the Third Kingston Invitational. He has also given the tournament what we hope will be cyberspace immortality by adding it to his wonderful BritBase website.