Hammersmith A v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at London MindSports Centre, London W6 on 29 October 2026

A Kingston B side with several strong players missing expected to be substantially outrated at Hammersmith, yet ended the evening frustrated at falling just short and losing the match 4-2.

Jon Eckert got us off to a great start on board 5, smoothly increasing his advantage against his opponent’s French Defence and overpowering Black with impressive attacking play. A tremendous victory for Jon against a player rated 200 points higher than him. Kingston were 1-0 up and it was all to play for as we seemed to be doing reasonably well on all boards, though, fairly soon after Jon’s electrifying win, Hammersmith’s Gaston Franco struck back against me on board 2.

That was frustrating. I have had some bad results lately, though not playing too badly, and hoped this might be the turning point. And as it turned out, turning a possible win on this board into a loss decided the match.

Boards 3 (Tom Mayers), 4 (Homayoon Froogh) and 6 (Stephen Moss) had similar outcomes. All long games in which the Kingston player was heavily outrated, all reached late middle games where neither side seemed to have a major advantage, but all lost in the endgame. Stephen’s was perhaps more disappointing because there had been a fleeting chance to seize the initiative.

Amid the disappointment, however, there was another highlight. Will Taylor (pictured above, in white shirt) scored a spectacular victory on board 1 by refuting Tony Niccoli’s sacrificial attack after Tony turned down perpetual check. There were some mind-blowing side variations in this game, which we touch on for fun.

So overall a 4-2 defeat. Not a bad result against our first team’s main rivals for the title, but slightly frustrating given that we could easily have done better, and we do need some of our good performances to translate into match points before long.

Peter Andrews is chair of Kingston Chess Club