Overview

Kingston Chess Club serves the chess-playing community on the borders between south-west London and Surrey. We are one of the longest-established clubs in the UK and we believe we are also among the friendliest. We had a spectacular season in 2024/25 winning eight competitions which is unprecedented and in 2025/26 won another seven. These are historic levels of achievement for the club.

Where we meet

We meet every Monday at the Richard Mayo Centre, which is part of the United Reformed Church in central Kingston. The venue is convenient for trains and buses. Alas we are not on the tube. The venue comprises meeting rooms which we hire from the church. The space is used by different community groups every day. This is the same venue where we held Kingston Rapidplay tournaments before Covid and where we held the Fourth Kingston Invitational tournament and Open tournament in 2025. Matches and organised events usually get under way at 7.30pm.

Visitors are welcome

Club nights get very busy after 7.30pm, so first-time visitors are advised to contact the secretary using the contact email address on this website to arrange a visit. This will ensure that a club official is on hand to answer any questions you have about the club.

The best time for your initial visit is the first Monday of the month, ideally around 7pm, so well before matches begin at 7.30pm. That will allow time to greet you properly, assess your chess strength and ask what you are looking for from a chess club – league chess, social chess, junior or adult training, etc. You can then play some social chess and spectate the matches if you wish. If you do arrive at 7pm, it is likely that the door to the Richard Mayo Centre will still be locked, but ring the bell on the outside door and you will be admitted.

We try to cater for players of all strengths and ambitions, regardless of whether or not you know your Sicilian from your Sokolsky. The league season runs until the end of May and we then begin a summer programme of events. During the summer there may be some evenings when the club is not meeting at the Richard Mayo Centre, so again please make sure you contact the secretary to say when you intend to visit the club. We would not want you to have a wasted journey.

Competitive and social chess

We play competitive chess in both the Surrey and Thames Valley leagues (see below for details), but we also strive to offer social chess and a variety of activities – simultaneous displays by titled players, talks, demonstrations, study groups, mentoring by strong players – that encourage newcomers, allow them to explore chess and help make them better, more complete players.

We don’t believe that sitting around playing endless blitz is either fun or instructive. It has its place, but we want to offer something more structured and more progressive. We also don’t believe in a club that is run for strong players who just want to play match chess. At Kingston, everyone who comes along and makes a contribution is equal, whether you’re a master-strength player or someone who became fascinated by chess because you saw The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. We want our strong players to be fulfilled and our new players to be fascinated – and over time to become highly competitive and creative players.

The club aims to strike a balance between competitive match chess and social chess. It accepts that match chess is at the heart of the life of a chess club, but insists that social players must not feel excluded and supports the idea of joining league feeder divisions intended to give new players match-playing experience, with its requirements to score and observe certain playing conventions. Match chess should not be a closed circle, and where new players want to become tournament players – which means joining the English Chess Federation, learning how to keep a score of their game and transitioning from the mentality of five-minute blitz to a couple of hours of deep thought – we promise to help them.

Recent club successes

The club has been on a successful run in recent times. We won the national team championships known as 4NCL (4 Nations Chess League) when it was online in 2020. In the 2021/22 season, as chess (and the country generally) emerged from the pandemic, we entered five competitions and won all of them. We are most proud to have won the Alexander Cup, the Surrey open team championship, for the first time since 1975/76. Also in the knockout format, we won the Lauder Trophy, the Surrey competition with the teams constrained to a maximum total rating. In the leagues, we dominated Surrey League division 2, winning the Beaumont Cup. We also won division 2 of the Thames Valley League with two matches to spare. We were fortunate to win division 4 of the Surrey League by a margin of half a game point and gain the Centenary Trophy.

The 2022/23 season was even more successful, historic even. The club achieved a unique “Quadruple” – winning the Surrey League for the first time since 1975, the Thames Valley League for the first time since 1984, the Alexander Cup for the second year in a row and the Thames Valley Knockout for the first time since 2012. This incredible Quadruple is not just unique to Kingston. As far as we know, no club has ever managed to win the two first division titles and the two premier knockout trophies in one season. It was a remarkable performance, and left us wondering what we should aim for now. We were at the summit, peering down slightly anxiously.

What do you do when you have done everything? Incredibly, we went further in the 2024/25 season and won eight trophies, and the 2025/26 season was just as successful, with a clean sweep of the major trophies in the Surrey and Thames Valley leagues, victory in the London club rapidplay championship and a remarkable second place in the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL).

We encourage you to come along

So please come along to the United Reformed Church, where you will receive a warm welcome. Matches against other clubs, if we have one that evening, usually start at 7.30pm, as do talks, mini-tournaments and other events, but even when a match is in progress there will be an opportunity to play social chess – quietly in the analysis room (because formal matches do need tranquillity). If you arrive a little before 7.30pm you may find one of the club officials already in residence, ready to welcome members and preparing the playing room for whatever activity is planned that evening.

A buoyant, booming club

We don’t have all the answers to creating a buoyant, inclusive chess club – in an era when clubs generally have been in decline as internet chess has taken over and work patterns have changed – but we are looking for them and would love you to join our quest. Veteran chess-watcher Leonard Barden said in his Financial Times column that the Kingston club was “booming”. This proved to be accurate during our 150th anniversary in 2025. You can follow and contact the club via its Twitter account. But better still, come down to the venue one Monday and start playing.

Level of play

We cater for all levels of play from beginner to international master. The annotated games on this website give you an idea of the thoughts that go through the heads of our players. We encourage each of our members to write up at least one of their better games during the season.

Juniors

We welcome juniors to attend the club, represent the club in matches at the appropriate level, and to join as members: junior members if they are under 16, full members if they are 16 or over. The club has a safeguarding policy published here: Safeguarding Policy | Kingston Chess Club. Children under the age of 16 should normally be accompanied on the premises by a parent or other responsible adult when playing. If you are a parent, then you should register membership with the name of the child but use your own email address. The club will never contact a child directly.

Kingston Junior Chess Club (KJCC) opens at the Richard Mayo Centre on 14 September and will be held every Monday evening in term time, starting at 5.15pm. Structured training and coaching is provided by the Jolly Good Chess Academy, featuring master-led coaching for children aged 6 to 18, catering to everyone from beginners to advanced players.

As Kingston Chess Club’s chosen provider of chess at Kingston Junior Chess, KJCC offers a direct pathway into match play. Those interested will find information and a link to the booking form at www.kingstonjuniorchess.com. Members of KJCC can join Kingston Chess Club at a discounted rate.

Leagues

Surrey League
We play teams from around the county at home or away. We run Kingston teams in the Surrey Trophy (ie first division), the Beaumont Cup (second division), the Centenary Trophy (fourth division) and the Minor Trophy (fifth division), as well as in two knockout competitions – the Alexander Cup and the Lauder Trophy. Matches take place from September through to May, leaving the summer free for social chess and special events.

Thames Valley League

We run Kingston teams in the first and second divisions of this league – and in Div X, a training league for new players. Matches take place in the Thames Valley area from September to May.

4NCL

We run three teams in the Four Nations Chess League (4NCL). Our first team comprises eight players and is in the first division. Our second team also has eight players and is in the third division. Our third team has six players and plays in division 4. The team is a joint venture with Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC).

Governance

The Club has a democratic constitution: Kingston Chess Club Constitution. The club is run by a committee comprising the chair, the treasurer, the club secretary, the committee secretary, the club captain and several other officers who are responsible for specific areas. All roles are voluntary and unpaid.

Membership fees for 2026-27

The annual full, playing club subscription is £60; affiliate membership is £40; juniors can be full members at £60 or, for the same amount, can be members of both Kingston Chess Club and Kingston Junior Chess Club. This presupposes they will be doing weekly training with KJCC. If they want to have the weekly lessons but not yet be part of the adult club, ie not yet play matches or participate more widely in club life, this will cost £30. All subscription money goes towards rent of the playing rooms, equipment, league fees and general running expenses.

For details on how to join, go to our membership page