Played at the Epsom Christian Fellowship Hall on 17th February 2025 in the first division of the Surrey League
Photo: front David Maycock (left) v Graeme Buckley, second game is Susan Lalic v Peter Lalic
Home advantage has been a notable factor in Surrey League Division 1 this season, so a visit to to defending champions Epsom promised a tough match. We were missing our two IMs, Peter Large representing England at an international seniors event and John Hawksworth ill, but were still formidably strong, with the captain able to play a watching brief after driving half the team down. Epsom were missing a likely future IM in Zain Patel, at another overseas tournament (if the Solent counts as overseas).
The absence of Large resulted in an intriguing mother v son clash between the Lalićs on board 2. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this ended in a quick draw. The players played some friendly moves afterwards in which mother established an advantage over son, and before I noticed that the clocks had stopped and the result sheet filled in, I was concerned, but I was soon able to move on.
Peter Hasson could make little headway on board 5 against the solid Chris Wright, with exchanges down to a bishop ending in which neither side could penetrate the other’s position. On board 6, Jasper Tambini quickly established a winning advantage against Epsom President Marcus Gosling, a pawn up and having wrecked the white kingside, albeit with some damage to his structure. Marcus then sensibly decided to sacrifice a piece for two pawns to take the initiative and pose concrete threats. The sacrifice was not sound for a machine, but for a human chess player, it wasn’t easy to find an accurate defence, and the game quickly went downhill for Jasper.
Rowson v Pooler on board 7 was also looking good for some time but also went downhill after an opportunity had been missed. David’s effort to break through with a pawn advance left holes around his king which James Pooler belied his lowly rating to exploit.
Thankfully Mike Healey almost immediately hit back on board 3 v Robin Haldane. The queens were exchanged early on, and Mike backed his bishop against Robin’s knight together with a lead in development and central pawn mass. His judgement was right, and the queenless middle game was a smooth squash with no big tactics. According to Stockfish, White was 95% accurate.
So with three games left in play, Kingston were 3-2 down. We had been slightly better in all three for much of the game, but by the closing stages all looked objectively drawn, and with all six players short of time, anything could happen.
Board 4 was a clash between the oldest player in the match, the former British Champion Peter Lee, and the youngest, Luca Buanne. Luca exploited a classic Sicilian pin down the c file to win a pawn.
On board 8, John Foley dodged a bullet when his opponent declined to make a very promising piece sacrifice.
So scores were level and the match would be decided by board 1, Maycock v Buckley, who were predictably in a time scramble – David had been playing on the increment for some time. Although he had an advantage out of the opening, he missed several chances to cash in. The one he regretted most, although it required great visualisation in several lines, occurred at move 20.
This was a fantastically complicated game for which we owe the players thanks. The match finished 4-4, leaving both sides feeling rightly that they could have done better, and Epsom feeling justifiably that they had outperformed the ratings.
The result of this match means that if both Kingston and Guildford win their other matches (by no means a certainty), Kingston may need another 4-4 draw at Guildford to be sure of the title, although the game points may be sufficiently in our favour that a narrow loss would suffice.
See also Match Report from Epsom
Match report from Peter Andrews, captain on the night
Photo by John Foley
