Surrey League division 5 (Minor Trophy) match played at the North Star, Chessington on 18 October 2023

This was a game played in division 5 of the Surrey League between two players with an ECF rating of around 1600. It is not chess of an especially exalted standard. There are mistakes aplenty, and the game is one of those typical evening-match rollercoasters where the evaluation oscillates wildly, especially as time runs short. Ed Mospan, a Kingston stalwart who has returned to the club this year after a pandemic-induced break, enjoyed the game, felt he learned a lot from it, and offered this annotation. It is evening chess, played at 75 minutes a side with a 10-second increment, in its rawest form. Anything can happen, and both sides will have chances. Ed makes the final error and could have reacted badly to losing a winning position. But he’s not made that way. Instead he makes the best of it and prepares for the next friendly encounter. “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” as Nietzsche (who really should have played chess) so sagely put it.