Ealing A v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at Actonians Sports Club, London W5 on 16 February 2026

On arrival at Ealing’s venue, we were pleasantly surprised to find that their team was not as strong as feared. Andrew Harley, their captain, was absent, and overall we actually slightly outrated them.

The early result on board 3, where Peter Andrews (pictured above) had White against Alejandro Lopez-Martinez, increased my hopes that we would get something from the match. From an English Opening, a close positional contest was looking likely when Peter’s opponent made a serious oversight.

The next result, a win for Martyn Jones on board 5, put us two up. Jack Sheard played the Lion variation of the Philidor Defence, but took a risk in opening up the centre early and was efficiently punished by Martyn. In the following position Black has just played 8…d5.

The board 2 game, in which Kingston’s Will Taylor had Black against Duncan Grassie, begun with an unusual opening – the Levitsky Attack). It is worth looking at the game from the beginning:

The board 4 game, with Kingston’s John Foley playing Black against Xavier Cowan, began with a deceptively quiet line of the Queen’s Gambit Declined, only to explode into tactics in the position below.

The most significant rating difference was on board 1, where I faced FM Rick McMichael. I have played him twice before, some years ago. This game was similar to the others in that I had White and chose the King’s Indian Attack against his French Defence. However, it was different in terms of the line played and, eventually, the result (I hadn’t previously lost to Rick).

Rick played imaginatively, assessing that having a backward pawn on e6 was not important in comparison to the attacking chances he obtained against my kingside. We reached this position after my 30th move:

On board 6 Seth Warren succeeded in equalising out of the opening, an Italian Game. His opponent’s attempts to attack on the kingside led to his pieces getting rather tangled up, and Seth managed to capitalise on this to win a pawn. Unfortunately, he made just one error in the ensuing ending and lost the exchange; a pity, after he had done well to reach a good position.

Thus the match ended 4-2 to Ealing. This was another disappointing result for Kingston B, given that for some time it appeared a close-fought match from which we could have anticipated at least a draw. We still have six matches left this season, so we just have to do our best to get points from them.

David Rowson is Kingston B captain in Thames Valley League division 1