Kingston 2 v Surbiton 1, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 1 December 2025

Having beaten Surbiton only 10 days earlier on their home ground, and with the likelihood that they would be weaker away from home, Kingston 2 approached this match with a degree of confidence. As we shall see, that confidence was justified on the ratings difference between the teams and on the run of play, but not in the final result.

For the fourth consecutive match, Kingston lost the toss in a seven-board Surrey Division 2 match, so having Black on four boards and White on three. Having an odd number of boards and a toss rather than predetermined colours which give a 50/50 split over the season does seem an anomaly. But we had overcome that disadvantage on the three previous occasions.

David Rowson quickly equalised with Black on board 1 against David Scott. Jaden Mistry, on board 7, reached what looked like a drawn rook and pawn ending in which his opponent Alexey Markov had a passed a-pawn but Jaden had a four to three majority on the kingside. Jaden pushed his majority and penetrated with his king, but perhaps pushed too hard for the win and went down to defeat. However, Homayoon Froogh soon netted the equaliser with a win on board 6 against Malcolm Groom. Having built up a strong and lasting kingside attack, he missed the chance of a spectacular sacrificial win here.

Instead, Homayoon took no chances and kept the pressure on, and was eventually rewarded when Black cracked and blundered a piece. 1-0

But there followed a series of disappointments in which, as football statisticians might say, expected goals failed to turn into the real thing. On board 5, Alan Scrimgour found a nice tactic to win a queen against Andrew Boughen.

With the white pieces on board 4, John Foley had found another of his trademark exchange sacrifices against Graham Alcock to reach a winning endgame. But a single mistake in the endgame cost the win.

My game with Black on board 3 against Nick Faulks was even worse. I have a substantial plus score against Nick, having a couple of times got away with murder, so he might regard this as evening up, but it was nevertheless galling with the match on the line.

That left Jasper Tambini (pictured above, right) needing to win with White on board 2 against Neil Davies to save the match. Having had his attacking chances resisted, the game came down to a bishops-of-opposite-colour ending with White a pawn up. One pawn is not usually sufficient, but Jasper outplayed his opponent in the blitz finish to create chances. The moves at the critical juncture were not recorded, but we believe the following position was reached.

Now 1. e7 drew, because after 1… Kd7 2. b7 Bxb7 3. Kxb7 h4, the black pawn reached h2 forcing Bxh2 and allowing Kxe7 before the white king could guard the e-pawn. Instead 1. b7 would have won, because the black king cannot easily get at the white bishop and pawn, and the white king can get to d5 to guard the e-pawn. Straightforward in the cold light of day, but not so easy when you are playing on the increment and your mind is scrambled after a tense three-hour struggle.

So a match which could easily have been won 5-2 had been lost 4-3. Taking the two matches against Surbiton together, it is still a decent effort to split the points with a first team, but it could so easily have been better.   

Peter Andrews captains Kingston’s first and second teams in the Surrey League