Ashtead 1 v Kingston 1, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Peace Memorial Hall, Ashtead on 10 December 2024

A somewhat depleted Kingston team nevertheless outrated newly promoted Ashtead on all boards. We are, however, far too experienced to expect an easy match, and this was confirmed by the early results – there weren’t any, and it became clear that most games were heading for time trouble, where, as we have already seen this season, anything can happen.

On board 5, David Rowson had conceded a space advantage against Ashtead captain Bertie Barlow, who had also played for Richmond against our TVL first team the previous night. He found a good sequence of exchanges to get to a slightly better endgame (queen, rook and bishop each), but the position was blocked and with progress unlikely a draw was agreed.

Alan Scrimgour struck our first blow on board 7. A couple of inaccuracies as White had allowed his opponent Tom Barton to equalise. He prepared a kingside attack which induced his opponent to weaken on that side, pounced on the opportunity to open the h-file for his rooks, and quickly won decisive material.

Peter Large has been in tremendous form for Kingston, but got no change out of Phil Brooks’ French Defence on board 1. Computer post-mortem analysis found a couple of opportunities to establish a +1 edge, but requiring an indifference to the pawn count which is difficult for human beings. No one can accuse these top players of a grandmasterly draw – the battle ended with bare kings.

The highlight of the match was Peter Lalić’s game on board 2 as Black against Dan Rosen, who is able to play for Ashtead in division 1 this year now that Wimbledon are in division 2. After characteristic early exchanges, Peter had the advantage in the early endgame based on White’s doubled e-pawns. In trying to defend those, the white rook became trapped in a box on the queenside, only able to extricate itself by means of an exchange which ruined his queenside structure. Despite getting down to a minute on his clock, Peter was able to set up a prolonged zugzwang, starting on move 36.

On board 6, Ian McLeod accepted my offer to go into an unbalanced middle game, in which he gave up bishop for knight to double my f-pawns.

My judgement was that the resulting big centre and two bishops would outweigh the doubled pawns and the difficulty in finding a safe place to put my king. The final position illustrates the success of that strategy, with White immobilised by the black pawn rush.

By now White was almost on the increment and struggling to find sensible moves to play. Material is still level, but the e3 pawn is about to fall, and after Black plays e5 white will be almost paralysed. So White resigned. I had had some amusement in the game from making my first move with my king’s bishop on move 25. But this was misleading, as the bishop had protected several important squares from its initial position and had retained the choice of diagonal on which to emerge until the last minute. Motionless but not inactive.

That took us to four points, with three games still in play. Unfortunately, Jasper Tambini had drawn a short straw on board 4. As an overseas newcomer, James Allison’s estimated ECF rating is derived from his Fide rating, and (to judge from the usual difference between Fide and ECF) is at least 150 points too low. For a long time the post-mortem computer evaluation was that White had little more than his starting edge, but Jasper found his activity limited against white’s Catalan structure, tried a sacrificial approach to break out, and conceded defeat a rook down when it became clear that black’s counterplay had been thwarted.

Peter Hasson’s game against Jonathan Hinton on board 3 had so much in it that it would justify its own blog, and we are grateful to him for reconstructing it despite having stopped recording well before the end of the game. Peter had White and opening subtleties had given him a big advantage by move 23, when he missed a lovely combination.

Last to finish was John Bussmann on board 8. John had built an advantage in the middle game, won a pawn, and then sacrificed the exchange for a second pawn to maintain the initiative. Strictly the sacrifice was not necessary, but he rebuilt his advantage after it. In the position below, he had a clear win.

So in the end we scraped home by the minimum margin. Well done Ashtead for outperforming their ratings; let’s hope they can repeat that fighting spirit in their other home games and nick some points off other teams, which would help us in the title race. Thanks to the Kingston players for making the journey, especially Peter Hasson, whose trip home to Farnham was delayed by a road closure, completing what for poor Peter (one of our four Peters!) was a very frustrating evening.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in the Surrey League

Kingston 1 v Guildford 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 25 November 2024

To judge by the teams Guildford have been able to field this season, they will be close rivals in this season’s Surrey competitions. Kingston had a rating advantage on seven of the eight boards, but many of the differences were small and easily offset by the advantage of playing White. I was under too much pressure in my own game to see much of the others. Spectators reported a tense match, and in each of the games on boards 4 to 7 we had losing positions at one point. We eventually scored 2.5 points from those four games, so the final result gave a rather misleading impression of the course of the match.

When title contenders meet, the first goal is often crucial, and Peter Large scored it against FM Jon Ady, recently returned to England from Hong Kong. As the game emerged into the endgame, Peter had a useful initiative. That may have induced Jon to grab a hot pawn, leading quickly to his knight become trapped on one side of the board and his king on the other.

Luca Buanne, with Black on board 5, came under pressure out of the opening. His opponent missed a sequence which would have transitioned to a winning ending, and Luca needed no second invitation to activate and equalise.

Next to finish was Mike Healey on board 4 against Guildford’s new captain James Toon. Mike came out of the opening two pawns down and objectively lost, but with the kind of wild position in which a game can turn quickly. That is what happened in this position after White’s 23^rd move.

In the rare moments I could spare from my own game, I had followed some of the twists and turns of John Foley’s game on board 8, next to me. With kings castled on opposite sides, John had built a strong attack using the open h-file. But Black had sacrificed a pawn to block that, and then changed the nature of the game by giving up two rooks for queen and pawn.  Both sides had attacking chances after White had played move 38, but Black’s response led to defeat.

On board 7, the computer evaluation of my position proved later to be roughly equal most of the way through, but I had been short of space, which usually makes it harder to play. In the position below, my opponent missed an opportunity. We both missed that White could have played 22. Ng6, with a big advantage; to save the exchange, Black must play 22 …fxg6 after which 23. Qxe6+ regains the piece with Black’s kingside wrecked. I am sure we would both have seen that had Ng6 captured a pawn against a kingside fianchetto rather than being a sacrifice on an empty square. Then, just before a draw was agreed, it was my turn to miss a winning opportunity, after White’s 29th move, when Re4 would give Black a big advantage.

That gave Kingston a 4-1 lead, or “dormie three” in golf parlance. But it was hard to assess the remaining games. Julian Way’s game on board 6 probably had the most reversals. Julian had come out much worse from the opening. Facing a kingside attack on his castled king, he responded with a kingside attack on Black’s castled king. At one point, both sides could have lost a piece to pins down the g-file in quick succession. After Black’s 31st move, this was the position.

That half-point got us over the line. Could David Maycock or Peter Lalić (pictured above) add the extra point? David, playing Black against 2340-rated Gwilym Price and suffering the after-effects of a cold (though he would be the last person to make excuses), liked his position from the opening. The key position arose after White’s 18^th move.

In the encounter between Clive Frostick v Peter Lalić on board 3, unlike the other games in the match, there were no significant fluctuations in the advantage until after Black’s 31st move.

So we took the chequered flag, the spectators got their money’s worth, and Kingston have a good chance of being top of the Surrey League division 1 table at Christmas. But all the top teams, including ourselves, are stronger at home than away, so the trips to Epsom and Guildford in the spring will be serious challenges.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in the Surrey League

Kingston 1 v Epsom 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 11 November 2024

The clash of the 2022/23 and 2023/24 Surrey division 1 champions promised to be a critical match in the 2024/25 season, and there was a real sense of occasion, Epsom having brought additional players to take part in our regular rated friendlies, and with a gaggle of home spectators there to support us (I am grateful to FM Vladimir Li for his impressions as the games were in progress).

The line-ups revealed that Kingston would have a rating advantage on every board, but the differences on boards 1 and 3 were small, and (after the toss had to be repeated because my lightweight 20p coin escaped behind the Willoughby’s heating system; I was more careful with the pound used for the replay) Epsom would have White on the odd boards, so those boards were likely to be critical.

None of the opening phases suggested much advantage for either side in any game. But there was a sudden finish on board 6. Luca Buanne and Chris Wright had reached a tense queenless middle game when Chris miscalculated, and Luca quickly won decisive material.

Next to finish was board 7, where Peter Hasson had Black against Epsom president Marcus Gosling. Peter had hoped to make something out of a flaw in White’s pawn structure, but after the major pieces were exchanged on the open a-file, White was able to straighten the pawns out, leaving a blocked position in which progress could not be made. This was the final position, with White set to recapture Black’s light-squared bishop.

By this stage we seemed to have a clear advantage on board 4, and probable advantages on boards 2 and 8, the other games in which we had White. Even with David Maycock apparently under some pressure against IM Graeme Buckley on board 1 (although analysis subsequently showed that the position was just level but difficult for both sides), Peter Lalić’s draw with Black on board 3 v Zain Patel was therefore a good result. Against strong juniors, small rating advantages do not mean much. Peter steered into the sort of queenless middle game with which he is more familiar than most of us, and did have one momentary opportunity on move 17.

Epsom played the French Defence on three of their four black boards. The Kingston players had three different responses, all of them successful. In David Rowson’s game on board 8, the kings castled on opposite wings, and after his opponent’s 30th move David was ready with a crushing pawn sacrifice.

On board 4, Mike Healey took a different approach against James McCarthy, offering an early gambit. Mike has annotated this characteristically imaginative and dynamic game in the Games section, but we will show the denouement here. We join the action after Black’s 22nd move, Ba4, giving White a decision. Mike’s choice was spectacular. Standing back with the benefit of hindsight, what made it work? The black pawn on f7 is overloaded, defending the pawn on e6 and the hole on g6 which are both under fire. Black’s queen’s bishop, which might have defended those squares, is absent on a queenside raid. White’s king’s bishop might also appear to be absent on the queenside, but even from b1 it can attack the hole. Fasten your seatbelts.

The last three games finished almost simultaneously. Peter Large showed a third contrasting response to the French Defence on board 2 against Susan Lalić. Where David Rowson and his opponent had castled on opposite sides and pushed pawns against their opponent’s king, Peter and Susan castled on opposite sides and pushed pawns in front of the own king; counter-intuitive but equally good for White.

Perhaps as might be expected in a game between two such strong players, there were few significant mistakes, as measured by jumps in the computer evaluation. White won because he was able to develop his initiative on the kingside while Black’s on the other wing was blocked. In this position below, after Black’s 21st move, the player with White following the standard recipe of opening files against the enemy king might have tried b3. But this loses White’s advantage; after 21. b3 cxb3 22. Bxb3 Nb6, Black can get a knight to c4, which matters more than the open file. Instead 21. f5 was the key breakthrough.

So Kingston had won all four games with White. What of the remaining games in which our players had Black? On board 5, IM John Hawksworth had Black against FM and former British champion Peter Lee, a measure of the quality in depth of Surrey League chess these days. The latter played an enterprising pawn sacrifice 11. b4 in the position below, aiming to play against the weak pawn on d6.

That draw made it four wins with White and three draws with Black. The last game to finish, and the hardest to evaluate in play, was the board 1 match-up between IM Graeme Buckley v hungry wannabe David Maycock. The opening was characterised by masterly play on both sides which created an imbalance: Black had an extra pawn, but at the price of a broken kingside structure which would allow White attacking chances. White was faced with a critical choice at move 25.

With two extra passed pawns on the queenside and a time advantage, David converted smoothly, the only winner with the black pieces on the night. It gave Kingston a margin of victory which seems flattering given how tense the games were. Early matches this season suggest that home advantage is considerable, and the race may be close, so it is useful to have put a strong net run rate/goal difference in the bank.

Peter Andrews, Kingston captain in Surrey League division 1

Coulsdon 1 v Kingston 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at Coulsdon on 21 October 2024

Our Surrey League division 1 season started with an away match at Coulsdon.  On paper we had a modest rating advantage on most of the boards, but Coulsdon invariably field a crop of fast-rising juniors, rendering such comparisons unreliable. Peter Large, John Hawksworth, Ash Stewart and Jasper Tambini made their league debuts for Kingston; congratulations and many thanks to all of them.

In the early skirmishes, Peter Lalić (pictured above) quickly gained a winning advantage against Timur Kuzhelev on board 4. The critical position came after 11. Rg5.

Board 7 saw Black fall into an opening trap in the Giuoco Piano.  Unfortunately the setter of the trap was a 12-year-old uniformed schoolboy, and the victim was our own seasoned veteran David Rowson.

There was more bad news on board 3, where Ash Stewart’s opponent gained a massive amount of space in the centre and also won the exchange. The games on boards 5 and 6 were well-contested battles but always looked like being draws, so we would have to make a plus out of boards 1, 2 and 8.

I stood objectively better for most of my game, against a rather older junior, but it could easily have gone wrong. We join the action after 16 moves. I had played 16. Bh3, aiming at the hole on e6 and the rook on c8, but deserting the defence of e4. Black had responded with 16…c4, leaving both sides with a bewildering choice of pawn captures.

On board 2, it had seemed for some time that John Hawksworth had a slight edge against our Thames Valley League clubmate Supratit Banerjee, playing against an isolated queen’s pawn in a Queen’s Gambit Declined set-up. But in trying to turn that into something concrete, he ran short of time and of plans. Supratit combines a fine instinct for where the pieces should go, which reminded John of the 1980s Michael Adams, with resourcefulness and a very quick sight of the board, and took control, eventually putting one of John’s knights in a fatal pin.

So we needed a win from Peter Large on board 1, playing Black against Rahul Babu, who, with an ECF rating of 2298, is now England’s number 6 rated under-18 (Supratit is number 8 on that list). Peter rebutted a dodgy-looking innovation in the Closed Sicilian, and already had a slight edge when the critical position arose after 23. Qa1.

So a well-contested match finished 4-4. Several of the sides in this division do not always travel well, and it may be difficult for some of the juniors to play an away match finishing at 10.30pm (are we clutching at straws here?). But it confirms that the title race is wide open. Coulsdon look credible challengers, after Epsom won in 2023/24 and Guildford had been our main challengers in 2022/23.

* In case anyone is waiting in suspense for Peter Lalić’s finish: 17. Rg8+ Ke7 18. Bg5 pinned and won the black queen. If you failed to spot it, console yourself that Peter’s opponent, who presumably also missed it, is rated around 2100.

Peter Andrews, Kingston captain in Surrey League division 1

Wimbledon 1 v Kingston 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at St Winifride’s Church Hall, Wimbledon on 15 February 2024

Confidence in advance of this match was not high, given the depleted team we were able to field: Thursday is an inconvenient evening for several regulars, and illness took out Vladimir Li and Julian Way in the 24 hours before the match.  Some team-mates thought our situation resembled that of Henry V before Agincourt: 

O that we had now here But one ten thousand of those men in England that do no work today.  What’s he that wishes so?  …. The fewer men the greater share of honour.  

That was perhaps an exaggeration: Kingston Chess Club does not yet have 10,000 members; Nick Grey and Charlie Cooke, stepping in at short notice, ensured we had as many players as Wimbledon; and the ratings of the two sides were almost equal. But if the thought helped stiffen our sinews it was a good one.

Charlie Cooke faced an uphill battle on board 8 with Black against the higher-rated John Polanyk. Having neutralised a dangerous-looking attack, a small slip allowed an exchange sacrifice which eventually won at least a piece. Jon Eckert and Nick Grey on boards 6 and 7 drew relatively early. Nick was frustrated that his edge from a better pawn structure did not crystallise into a win, but his was one of the boards where we were outrated, so this was nevertheless an important contribution.  

Alan Scrimgour had found himself in a line of the French Defence known better by his opponent.  Kings castled on opposite sides, and Alan sacrificed the exchange to try to drum up an attack; he accepted a draw offer when he realised that there was not much there. John Foley equalised the score with a convincing win with black against Wimbledon secretary Gordon Rennie.  He has analysed this in more depth in the Games section.  From my observation point on the next board, he built up the pressure impressively to reach this position after 22 Re3.

My own game finished shortly after John’s.  At the time, I thought it had been an anodyne draw, with my opponent successfully neutralising the slight disadvantage of an isolated pawn. Imagine my frustration when Stockfish showed me three distinct winning opportunities I had missed, each of them instructive.  

That left the scores level at 3-3, with Kingston apparently slightly worse on both remaining boards.  Luca Buanne, on his league debut, faced Dan Rosen’s Grand Prix attack.  This game, which was a tense but fairly balanced struggle from the outset, is provided in full in the Games section, with annotations by Luca and John Foley. The rest of the team started to focus on his game around this critical moment, after 37. Rc1 by White.

So it all came down to board 1. Peter Lalić, against the IM Alberto Suarez Real, played a trademark queenless middle game.  Around the point the other games were over, he was a pawn down but solid and with reasonable activity, and his chances to hold were improved because his opponent was down to a minute on the clock while Peter still had more than five.

Thus we won the match, securing our position in division 1 and (such is the closeness of the race) keeping us in with an outside shot at the title. To beat a 2400+ IM in that ending starting from a pawn down was an epic performance. Peter will remember with advantages what feats he did that day^[1].  

Peter Andrews, Kingston captain in Surrey division 1

^[1] Shakespeare was of course expert in the pressures and rewards of Surrey League chess.

Thames Valley division 1 match played at St Winefride’s Church Hall, Wimbledon on 1 February 2024

Wimbledon captain Ian Heppell said before the start of the match that this was the strongest Thames Valley League team they had turned out this season. They had IM Alberto Suarez Real on board 1, and, although Kingston had a rating advantage on the other five boards, they all looked likely to be tight.

One privilege enjoyed by Kingston members is Vladimir Li’s occasional series of lectures on positional chess, a key message from which is that positional and routine chess are very different things; even in quiet openings, players must be alert to tactical opportunities which can destroy the positional build-up. My game against Neil Cannon on board 5 illustrated this nicely. Black slightly mixed his plans by playing b6, which weakened his knight on c6, and then not following up immediately with Bb7.  After nine moves, he was already lost. 

With that quick goal in the net, Alan Scrimgour dodged a bullet against Tony Hughes (who was in form, having won the first Kingston Blitz at All Saints Church the previous day). After playing against Tony’s English much as he would as White against a Sicilian, Alan had launched a queenside foray with his queen and rook. For a moment, in the position below, White had the chance to win the exchange:

White could have played 17. Ndb1 and won the trapped rook for his knight. Fortunately – for Kingston at least – he missed the backward step (a common theme in my reports), Alan extricated himself, and a draw was soon agreed as simplification was about to occur.

Next to finish was Vladimir Li, who had White on top board against Suarez Real. After a King’s Indian Defence, Vladimir’s 16th move prompted an interesting debate later among the Kingston players:

Vladimir went with 16. Qb3. Black’s queen is his most active piece, defending several weak spots. Although after 16…Qxb3 17. axb3, the b-pawns are doubled, Black cannot get at them, and the semi-open a-file may be of use. Stockfish suggests 16. Qd2 as the best move – 16…Rac8 17. Be3 Qa5 18. Bf4 Qb6, but the evaluation (level) is the same. Vladimir was concerned that if the black queen was not challenged, Black could reorganise, moving his queen’s bishop to f5 and knight to d7 or e4 (though in such a line he would have to ensure that g4 would not win the bishop).

In the game, Vladimir got the sort of position the late world champion Tigran Petrosian would have loved, in which, although he had no immediate breakthrough himself, Black had no useful way to activate himself, and instead retreated his knight to e8 and bishop to f8 to hold the weak d6 point. Vladimir had a substantial time advantage as well, so the IM could not reasonably turn down a draw; clearly a good result for Kingston on the one board where we had a rating disadvantage.

Boards 2, 3 and 4 went the distance. On board 3, Silverio Abasolo had an early edge with White against Dan Rosen. In the position below, both sides must have missed that White had two ways to get a significant advantage:

The best move might be 15. Qe3, attacking the a-pawn. If 15…Kb8 16. e5 dxe5 17. Rxd8+ Qxd8 18. Qxe5+ wins, so White will win the d-pawn. If 15…b6, White can play a move which is the more daring option anyway: 16 Rxd6!, and after 16…Rxd6 17. e5 the fork wins back the rook, leaving White a pawn up.

After that, Black took the initiative. In this position, he perhaps “played for two results” by going for a slightly better ending rather than leaving the queens on:

30…Qf6 would have left White suffering: 31. Bg2 Rde8 32. Qd2 Nb6 threatens Nc4 and unbelievably the queen would be trapped in her own backyard, and White would have to give up the exchange. So 33. b3 is necessary, and White has multiple problems: the front rook is almost trapped, and Black threatens to land on f2, or pick off the weak white pawns. Instead he played 30… Qxe2. After 31. Bxe2 Rf2 32. h4 gxh4 33. Rh1 c5  34 Rd2 d4 35. Nd1 was a surprisingly effective defence. Pieces were exchanged, Silverio recovered his pawn, and in the final position (below) his passed pawn more than compensated for his less solid pawn structure and a draw was agreed.

For a long time, spectators found it difficult to evaluate Julian Way’s position against Ian Heppell on board 4. In the position that arose after 14…fxe6, which both sides had allowed voluntarily, were his doubled pawns sufficiently compensated by the two bishops, the extra open file and a central pawn mass? 

Vladimir aptly described Peter Lalić’s game on board 2 against Russell Picot as “flowing like music”. Most of Peter’s games this season have started with him allowing an early queen exchange on d8 or d1. His opponents are attracted to preventing his king from castling, and probably by the thought that with queens off they improve their chances of a draw against a highly rated player. But this can be an illusion. Queenless middle games can require precision, and Peter has far more experience of handling such positions than most of his opponents will ever have. As in Julian’s game, there was an important point at which the two players allowed a sequence of moves which they must have evaluated differently.

A tremendous win by Peter to complete an excellent night for Kingston. It felt like a return to the “steamroller” first team of last year and propelled Kingston to the top of Thames Valley League division 1, though Hammersmith in second place have three matches in hand and must be warm favourites to win the title. Still, we were greatly encouraged by this performance, and enter the second half of the season in good heart.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 Surrey League captain and captain on the night in this match