Coulsdon 3 v Kingston 4, Surrey League division 5 match played at Coulsdon on 16 December 2024
For the second week in succession, Ed Mospan’s travelling army got a win at one of the more distant outposts on the Surrey circuit. After a fine victory at Guildford last week, they faced Coulsdon 4 and once again emerged triumphant.
Coulsdon were nothing like as strong as Guildford 4 had been, but the job still had to be done, and Kingston won handsomely by 4.5, with successes for Ye Kwaw, Aziz Sannie, Mark Sheridan and the in-form captain himself. An excellent end to 2024 for Ed’s hard-working and much-travelled team.
Ed (pictured) is captaining Kingston’s third and fourth teams in the Surrey League and doing half a dozen other jobs at the club besides, thus making himself (as usual) a leading contender to win Club Person of the Year. We may as well just give him the award in perpetuity.
Guildford 4 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Guildford Institute, Guildford on 9 December 2024
This game was played in a match between Guildford 4 and Kingston 3. Guildford had home advantage and a very experienced side, but Kingston scored a memorable victory, with Aziz Sannie (pictured) winning this game on board 4. Aziz is rated around 1550 ECF, though his true strength is probably a bit more than that. He was very pleased with this game and eager to showcase it. It is not perfect – he repeatedly overlooks the killer move g3 towards the end of the game and hands his beleaguered opponent a lifeline – but what is impressive is the control he exercises throughout. White has very little play and is reduced to shuffling queens and rooks on the back two ranks. It is a recipe for disaster, and that disaster does indeed eventually come to pass.
Guildford 4 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Guildford Institute, Guildford on 9 December 2024
This was a remarkable win for Ed Mospan’s Kingston 3, who currently have a tough schedule, visiting Epsom, Guildford and Coulsdon in successive weeks. Guildford 4 fielded a very experienced team – Trevor Jones, Peter Horlock and Mike Gunn have been playing since about the Steinitz era – but Kingston dispatched them with aplomb, running out 4.5-1.5 winners.
David Shalom and Adam Nakar won on the two top boards; Aziz Sannie played a well-controlled game to win on board 4 against Anthony Garrood, who only last week won an important game for Guildford 2 against Kingston 2; and Ed Mospan continued his terrific run of recent form with a victory over the wily Horlock. Congratulations to Ed and his team (pictured above at the match, minus photographer Ed). This is surely one of Kingston’s best wins of the season so far.
Surbiton D v Kingston C, Thames Valley League division X match played at Fircroft, Surbiton on 4 December 2024
Thames Valley Division X is meant to be a training division – something we took literally in this away match against Surbiton D. Nick Powell on board 4 was playing his first ever rated game – welcome to the wacky world of competitive chess, Nick – and Zhixing Bai was playing only his second game for the club. Junior Jaden Mistry and Mark Sheridan (still limping after a fall earlier in the week and bravely playing through the pain) were veterans by comparison.
Jaden played extremely well to win on board 1 – against a new face at Surbiton who I suspect is fairly strong. Jaden played confidently and had a slight edge throughout. The pressure he applied told in the end, and he was able to pick up a loose rook in a queen-and-rook v queen-and-rook endgame with a tactic which he saw instantly.
Nick Powell and the affable Kim Cross got into a similar endgame, but it was Kim who came out on top, marshalling his forces to deliver mate. It had, though, been a protracted and keenly fought struggle, and Nick acquitted himself extremely well on his league debut.
Zhixing Bai, a nine-year-old with considerable potential, offered an earlyish draw in his game with Harry Roberts, which the latter eagerly accepted. Where do youngsters learn to make these grandmasterly draw offers? “Just play” I advised Zhixing later. “Don’t offer middlegame draws. Rating points are of no consequence.” I was echoing American grandmaster Ben Finegold, who once told me: “Never take a draw. No one ever learned any chess by taking a draw.”
The last game to finish was the encounter between Surbiton captain Phil Goodings and injured hero Mark Sheridan. They have had close battles before and this one was no exception, but in the end it was Goodings who prevailed. Admirably, Mark refused to blame his leg injury for his loss.
An excellent match played amid Christmas decorations, which added a welcome festive sparkle to proceedings. What a well-appointed venue Surbiton have. They are well on the way back to the top of the tree after a post-pandemic slump saw them lose their status as top dogs in south-west London. We fear them. But there again we fear everyone. Everywhere we look our rivals are making progress. 2025 is going to be a hard slog.
Kingston 2 v Guildford 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 2 December 2024
On the same night that Mark Sheridan slipped, fell and ended up in A&E, missing the match at Epsom, the Kingston 2 team did the same thing collectively (metaphorically speaking) against Guildford 2. There is no other word for our performance but debacle, and I would say the Kingston 2 captain’s place is now in serious jeopardy. (I would say that except the Kingston captain is me.) This loss drags us into the Div 2 relegation mire and might even make us favourites for the drop. It was very ugly.
We had lost two strong players in the 24 hours before the match – one to illness, the other to a bereavement – but the news that Guildford were defaulting bottom board seemed to make our task easier and we still had a rating advantage. But we just didn’t gel.
John Foley, kindly replacing one of the indisposed players at short notice, rushed from a teaching stint at the Kingston Chess Academy, but was exhausted and happy to play out a fairly anaemic draw with White against Guildford captain Malcolm Twigger-Ross. At the time, that result seemed OK, but what followed made it look anything but.
Jon Eckert would be the first to admit he has been struggling for form so far this season, and things went badly for him with Black against Richard Duncalfe on board 5. They played out an interesting line of the French Defence, but the Guildford player did well to accumulate a succession of small advantages and, faced with a losing endgame, Jon resigned. It was a similar story on board 6, where Tony Garrood’s killer bishops – working in perfect harmony – overwhelmed Ye Kyaw’s defences.
The high spot of the evening – the sole bright light in fact – was John Bussmann’s smooth win against Anton Barysenko’s Grünfeld Defence. John is having an excellent season so far and is now pressing for a first-team place – watch this space! It’s really important to have him back and firing, after a long-term injury kept him out for most of last season.
Peter Andrews was up against old foe Seb Galer on board 2 – a critical battle with Peter playing White. Lose this and we really were in trouble. Seb went on the attack in the opening, and by move 10 Peter was already up against it. Peter takes up the story from the position below (one of the nice things about him is that, win or lose, he will cheerfully annotate the game and try to learn from it – a lesson to us all!)
This defeat – surely the result of being under attack for a prolonged period, surviving it, relaxing and then blundering because the worst seemed to have passed – made it 3.5-2.5 to Guildford. They could not lose the match, but we could still draw it – if we could win on board 1, where the estimable Will Taylor had Black against Matthew Dishman.
Matthew had sac’d a pawn for what he hoped was an initiative, but his kingside assault had come to nothing and now Will had queen and four pawns against queen and three. Will was pushing and pushing for the win, but he was also playing on the 10-second increment, whereas his opponent had five minutes left. This imbalance proved fatal.
At one point Will was down to a single second, but he punched his clock just in time. When he went down to the minimum again, however, he was less fortunate and his clock ticked down to zero before he made his umpteenth queen move. A horrible moment. Poor Will had lost a game in which he deserved at least a draw and we had lost the match 4.5-2.5. Now an attritional winter trying to fight off relegation from Surrey Div 2 awaits.
But perhaps I should not despair too much. Worried that Will would be losing sleep over the disaster and keen to send him my commiserations, I sent a supportive email soon after the conclusion the match. “Thanks for asking,” he responded, “but I’m fine. It’s just a game of chess.” Am eminently sensible and rational attitude, and one we sleep-deprived obsessives would do well to replicate. Whatever legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly might have said, it really is a game – and not a matter of life and death.
Epsom 4 v Kingston 6, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Epsom Christian Fellowship, Epsom on 2 December 2024
This was one of those unfortunate evenings that one prefers to forget. Mark Sheridan, who was due to play for the Kingston team, slipped, injured his leg and was in A&E when he should have been battling it out on board 6. Apologies to Epsom for the default.
Losing a board to a default was critical in a well-contested match. David Bickerstaff and Sean Tay lost on boards 2 and 3, but Jaden Mistry (pictured above, in red top, playing in an earlier match) won well on board 4; captain Ed Mospan continued his run of good form with a solid draw; and it was reassuring to see Adam Nakar back playing again and drawing with wily Epsom veteran Michael Wickham on top board.
The best news of all was that Mark was discharged sore but with no broken bones and planned to make an immediate return to the fray. Thanks as ever to the players for making the long trek to Epsom on a chilly December evening.
Hounslow B v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 25 November 2024
Kingston B made it 4/4 so far this season with a convincing 4.5-1.5 victory away to Hounslow B. The two young Hounslow players on the top boards did well to get draws against the experienced and highly rated pair of David Rowson and Alan Scrimgour, and Hounslow’s JJ Padam drew on board 4 with Jon Eckert, but the other three games were wins for Kingston.
John Bussmann continued his winning return to competitive action, winning on time against Frank Zurstiege (although the game was already positionally won); Alicia Mason (pictured in action earlier in the season) continued her rich vein of form with a well-played refutation of Barry Fraser’s French Defence; and I (making a thankfully rare appearance) won against Steve Hall, despite an odd incident when I thought my opponent had resigned after he expressed disgust at what looked the losing move, and held out my hand to mark the end of the game, only to be told that he had not actually quit. On we played, but only for a few more rapidly executed moves – I was very short of time and Hounslow use non-incremental clocks! – before I forced mate.
CSC/Kingston 1 lose their opening matches on the first weekend of the 4NCL season, but the second and third teams both get off the mark
We knew it was going to be tough on our first weekend in division 1 of the 4NCL – the UK’s national chess league – and so it proved. Played 2, lost 2, though on Sunday against Blackthorne we came within a whisker not just of drawing the match but even winning it. Lessons learned, positives taken, we will come back stronger in January!
On Saturday we were up against the massed GMs of Manx Liberty and a loss by 6.5-15 was about as good as we could expect on rating. The high spot was a draw for 14-year-old Zain Patel (pictured above) against Hungarian grandmaster Miklos Galyas, though 10-year-old Supratit Banerjee almost went one better than that. He had a winning position against Polish GM Lukasz Cyborowski and even turned down a draw to press for the win, but then blundered in the position below.
The match on Sunday against Blackthorn was much closer: seven games were drawn – though Zain, who again played extremely well, and David Maycock had excellent winning chances – and the only win was by FM Dave Ledger against Supratit, a skilfully played positional game by Ledger from which Supratit will again have learned a great deal. We have a young team and hope that this experience of playing against the best in division 1 stands them in good stead for their future chess careers. Though that does not mean we have given up hope of surviving in Div 1. We will come out fighting at Peterborough in January.
These division 1 matches were played on the weekend of 23/34 November in Daventry. CSC/Kingston 2 and 3 had made their seasonal reappearance two weeks earlier in Peterborough, both winning on the Saturday and losing on the Sunday. The personal high spots were Peter Finn’s two wins from two games in Div 3, debutant Sanjit Kumar’s draw against the very strong Sussex Martlets player Russell Granat (also in Div 3), and a truly tremendous weekend for Petr Vachtfeidl, who beat Adam Cranston to secure the match win for the third team against Celtic Tigers on Saturday and then drew with the 2213-rated Ethan Norris in Sunday’s match in Div 4. A wonderful effort by Petr, who is a talisman for the CSC/Kingston team.
Thanks to all the players who took part in both weekends – these matches involve long treks to motorway hotels in the Midlands and east of England – and to Kate and Charlie Cooke for organising the teams with their usual calm efficiency. Now for 2025 and weekend 2! You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Wimbledon 1 v Kingston 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at St Winefride’s Church Hall, Wimbledon on 21 November 2024
If we had been offered a 4-3 loss at the start of this match, we would have thought that perfectly acceptable. Wimbledon are a first-division team who find themselves stuck (almost certainly only for this season) in division 2 of the Surrey League. We were heavily outrated, yet came tantalisingly close to at least drawing the match. With a fair wind, we might even have won it. So in the end a 4-3 defeat actually came as a disappointment.
Ye Kyaw, in his debut season for Kingston, had a tremendous draw on board 6, where he was outrated by 270 points by Owen Phillips. Charlie Cooke also had a good draw against Anik Fonseka on board 7. Alan Scrimgour and Ian Heppell reached an early draw on board 4, and Kingston president John Foley also made a draw on board 3 with White against promising Wimbledon junior Shahvez Ali, though when he analysed the game later he realised he had had a winning opportunity, as he explains in the annotation below.
So 2-2, with three games in progress. Luca Buanne (pictured above) was better against Peter Lalić, our first-division bulwark moonlighting for Wimbledon in Div 2, on board 1; Will Taylor a little worse against Russell Picot on board 2; Jon Eckert certainly no worse and possibly with a slight edge against Neil Cannon on board 5. Against all the odds, we really thought we were going to get away with this.
Luca played superbly and converted the better position he had out of the opening in excellent style, thwarting all Peter’s trickery.
Luca’s victory was countered by Russell Picot’s win with White for Wimbledon on board 2 against Will Taylor. Will had the better of the opening against Russell’s Catalan and established a small plus, but Russell equalised and then pounced on a tiny slip by Will to win a pawn. That was enough. Russell made the pawn count in an endgame with bishops of the same colour.
That left the score at 3-3, with Jon Eckert seemingly having good chances to draw the match by holding on board 5, but he was in time trouble and went wrong in the position below.
Kingston C v Richmond E, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Adelaide, Teddington on 19 November 2024
This was a terrific night for captain Jon Eckert’s Kingston C team. Jaden Mistry fell into an early trap and lost to Richmond veteran Barry Sutton on board 2, but Sean Tay smoothly converted his advantage with White on board 1, Rob Taylor had a much-needed win (after a runs of losses) on board 3 and junior Zhixing Bai, on his Kingston league debut, drew by threefold repetition with Richmond captain Karl Stand to complete an encouraging 2.5-1.5 win for Kingston.
