Kingston A v Hammersmith A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 27 January 2025
In the past two seasons Hammersmith have been our main rivals for the Thames Valley league title. In 2022/23 we were running neck and neck until we beat them at their venue, and last season they looked to have it in the bag before they slipped up mid-season and we showed our mettle by finishing with a run of wins. This year we have seen our squad boosted even further by several very strong additions, to the remarkable extent that our line-up for this match had international masters on boards 1 and 6. However, although we comfortably outrated Hammersmith’s team on the night, they were still strong and a hard-fought match ensued.
The first result came quite quickly: a very nice, deceptively smooth win for Peter Lalić (pictured above) on board 5 against Paul Kennelly. Having made his trademark pawn sacrifice in the opening, he developed quickly, gained the two bishops and had White’s king in the centre as a target. In the position below his opponent played 14. Rhd1? 14. h3 was correct to stop Black’s next move, which forces the position open.
The second game to finish, on board 6, also resulted in a Kingston win for IM John Hawksworth against Robin Sarfas. From a Slav Defence this position was reached:
So Kingston had a two-point lead, but the remaining four games were all hard to call and, in two cases at least, very tense. The board 1 game saw IM Peter Large play the Hedgehog Defence against Alistair Hill, reaching this position:
It’s hard to know what to focus on when describing the board 2 game between David Maycock and Zain Patel (not named in the scoresheet below as Hammersmith do not appear officially to have registered him with the Thames Valley League), as it had so many twists and turns, with creativity – and, as time trouble set in, errors – running wild on the part of both players. From an unusual variation of the Ruy Lopez, this position was reached:
This meant the score was now Kingston 3 Hammersmith 1, and we only needed a draw from the remaining two games to win the match.
The board 3 game, in striking contrast to Maycock v Patel, was a close positional contest from a Caro-Kann Defence Exchange Variation. Supratit Banerjee and Carsten Pedersen manoeuvred carefully until a rook and knight ending was reached with all the pawns on the same side of the board. Eventually, in the position below, the players agreed a draw, and Kingston had the half-point we needed to win the match.
The final game to finish was the board 4 encounter between Ash Stewart, with White, and Hammersmith captain Bajrush Kelmendi. Ash established an advantage from the position below, which at first sight looks a little worrisome for White:
Thus a hard-fought match resulted in a win for Kingston by 4-2. A very professional performance, one might say, not conceding a single game, even though there was no shortage of tension. As it happens, our next Thames Valley League Division 1 match is at Hammersmith’s venue on Thursday 13 February, so the battle will continue. Having won all five of our Thames Valley matches so far, we are three points ahead of Hammersmith with a game in hand, but there are still more than half the fixtures left to play – and look what happened to Hammersmith last season after they had made all the early running. We take nothing for granted.
David Rowson, KIngston captain in Thames Valley League division 1
