Kingston C v Richmond E, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 17 November 2025
This match was in the balance right until the end when Nette Robinson, with Black against Michael Larby on board 3, blundered in a winning position, making Richmond the winners by 2.5-1-5. Rob Taylor lost to the accomplished Abhay Patil on board 1, but there were positives for Kingston on the other two boards: a fine victory for Anqi Yang against Aditya Patil on board 3 and an encouraging draw for Robert Chmiest against Richmond captain Karl Stand on board 4. Thanks as ever to captain Jon Eckert for putting the Kingston team together and overseeing proceedings.
Epsom 5 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 4 match played at Epsom Christian Fellowship on 17 November 2025
This match was played in freezing conditions at Epsom’s church venue. Note to Epsom – that is really not fair to players and you will need to address these concerns as the winter progresses. But the Kingston players managed to rise above the temperature and put in a strong performance, marshalled as ever by the indefatigable Ed Mospan, winning 4-2.
Kingston newcomer Xavier Cowan won an important victory with Black on board 1 against Epsom veteran Michael Wickham, and Adam Nakar shared the point on board 2 with the dangerous Sammy Hedges. Promising junior Ethan Bogerd, who also plays for Kingston, got the better of Seth Warren on board 3, but the wins that took Kingston over the line came on boards 4 and 5, where the experienced Ye Kyaw and David Shalom got the better of their opponents. Fred Marthoz, though outrated by more than 250 points, ensured a clear margin of victory with an excellent draw on board 6. A terrific victory, appreciated by Ed and his team once they had thawed out.
The opening two rounds of the new 4NCL season, spread across two weekends in mid-October and early November, saw CSC/Kingston’s three teams make bold starts
As well as falling leaves, autumn sees the start of treks to Midlands hotels to play the opening rounds of the 4NCL season. CSC/Kingston 1 began with matches against Barbican and Cheddleton, played at the Copthorne Hotel in Dudley on 1/2 November. CSC/Kingston’s second and third teams had been in action a fortnight earlier at the same venue, which was being used by the league for the first time. All three teams performed superbly and, as we see below, are well placed after the first two rounds of the 11-round season.
CSC/Kingston 1 came a creditable seventh in division 1 last year and hope to do at least as well this season. There is a great deal of jeopardy in this very tough division – three of the 12 teams get relegated, a 25% churn. This is one too many in the view of this writer – two down would be fairer – but there is no question that it adds drama to the season.
The first team faced Barbican on Saturday. CSC/Kingston had a slight ratings edge but it promised to be very close, and the match seemed likely to set the tone for the rest of the season. The young Polish grandmaster Jakub Kosakowski, runner-up in last year’s Polish national championship, was making his debut for CSC/Kingston, supported by many of the regulars from last year’s successful campaign. Jakub had White against IM Alan Merry and, as the time control approached, the game became a comedy of errors and missed opportunities.
Barbican’s second IM, Sohum Lohia, came straight to Dudley from a very strong tournament in Coventry, where he had shared first prize with GM Vojtech Plat and IM Hao Wang. Clearly he was a player to be feared. But the CSC/Kingston board 2, FM Ulysse Bottazzi, playing Black, was able to neutralise the threat without undue alarms, and a draw was agreed after 36 moves.
CSC/Kingston’s board 3, Supratit Banerjee (pictured above), had White against FM Martin Taylor on board 3, and boldly gambited a pawn in the opening to get an initiative. For a long time the engine favoured Black, but in this position he erred and Supratit gradually got a stranglehold on the game:
David Maycock, with Black against Jonathan Rogers on board 4, had the advantage early on, but Rogers skilfully fought back and had the upper hand when David blundered a rook in time trouble. At that stage the match looked as if it could go either way, and seemed certain to be very close. But it was about to take a decisive turn.
Roland Bezuidenhout played a superb game in a complicated tactical struggle to win with White on board 5 against Stephen Dishman. Black’s key error comes in this position where he allows an exchange which gives White a powerful pawn centre.
An important win for CSC/Kingston and now we could breathe a little easier. But the result which completely changed the complexion of the match was on board 7, where young George Zhao with Black had a much better position against CSC/Kingston’s Peter Lalić when he inexplicably failed to make his 40th move to reach the time control. He thus lost on time, a tragedy for the promising Barbican junior and an unexpected bonus for CSC/KIngston, who were now winning the match with ease.
Liwia Jarocka, with Black, secured an important draw with Peter Sowray on board 6, and Zain Patel battled magnificently with Black against Emma Hng to hold a rook and pawn endgame two pawns down which for a long time he looked destined to lose. That gave CSC/Kingston the match 5.5-2.5 and made the Saturday-evening dinner a very pleasant affair, but it was hard not to feel sympathy for George Zhao, who had played very well to secure a potentially winning advantage against Peter Lalić before his brain fade.
On Sunday, CSC/Kingston 1 faced Cheddleton, with their three GMs and three IMs. We were outrated by an average of 100 points a board. I did not expect us to win the match and thought 5-3 was a likely score. I would happily have settled for 4-4, which one spectator predicted after the match had been under way for a couple of hours. To win it by 6-2 was simply extraordinary, and I couldn’t help reminding people on the Kingston WhatsApp group that the average age of our team was 21. A group of very talented and highly motivated youngsters had walloped some of the cream of British chess.
Jakub Kosakowski was always pressing against David Eggleston on board 1 and duly converted. Cheddleton’s Mark Hebden equalised with a nice attacking game against Liwia Jarocka. Ulysse Bottazzi once again played solidly to draw with GM Simon Williams on board 2, and Supratit Banerjee defended superbly to hold a rook endgame against GM Nick Pert when two pawns down. Supratit’s was the last game to finish, and it is worth studying the endgame and marvelling at the 11-year-old’s mature and resourceful defence.
The other four games were all won: Zain Patel beat Nina Pert with a powerful attack with White on board 8; Peter Lalić performed one of his characteristic escape acts to convert a losing endgame into a winning one with Black on board 7; and on the critical middle boards David Maycock beat Richard Pert with White on board 4 in a rollercoaster game and Roland Bezuidenhout recorded his second victory of the weekend by beating IM Ezra Kirk, who played an ambitious knight sacrifice which proved to be unsound.
David’s game was a dizzying one which left both him and his rival exhausted. He had a winning plus as the 40-move time control approached, but then made a mistake which gave Black a potentially decisive advantage. To have blundered away his second game of the weekend would have been crushing, but he showed remarkable resilience to fight back and turn the game around. This is the position in which David went wrong:
David’s win and Supratit’s draw ensured a convincing 6-2 win for CSC/Kingston, a remarkable result given Cheddleton’s strength and experience.
These two wins left CSC/Kingston 1 sitting proudly on top of division 1 (see table below), jointly with Wood Green, who on paper are the strongest team in the division. We face Wood Green in round 4 on the weekend of 10/11 January, and happily the match will not be played on paper but on eight chess boards.
CSC/Kingston 2 also had a fantastic opening weekend in division 3 (knights) and also ended up on top of the table (see below), half a game point ahead of Sussex Martlets and Ashfield 1. It is very pleasing to see our neighbours Surbiton also going well.
Matches in divisions 3 and 4 comprise six boards, compared with eight in the top two divisions. CSC/Kingston 2 beat Warrington Mates 3.5-2.5 in a tight struggle on Saturday, with wins by the ever reliable Peter Finn on board 1, Ewan Wilson on board 4 and Adrian Wallace on board 6, and a crucial draw by Clive Frostick with Black on board 2.
Sunday’s victory against the self-deprecatingly named Poole Patzers was slightly more emphatic at 4-2, but could still have gone either way. There will be no easy matches in this highly competitive division and winning promotion to division 2 – two teams go up from each 12-team division 3 pool – will be far from simple. The success on Sunday came courtesy of wins by Peter Hasson, Giampiero Amato and Adrian Wallace, who had an excellent weekend with two victories, and top-board draws against two highly rated players by Peter Finn and Clive Frostick.
It was a tremendous team performance across the weekend, with every player contributing. Peter Hasson, who was White on board 4 against Mark Collinson, has kindly supplied a detailed analysis of his fascinating king and pawn endgame.
CSC/Kingston 3 played in Dudley on the same weekend as the second team, 18/19 October, and also had a successful start to the season. We drew 3-3 against Oxford 3 on Saturday, with wins for Mike Cresswell and your correspondent, and then won 5-0 on Sunday against War and Piece B, one of whose players failed to show, leading to the deduction of a point.
These results left us joint seventh in the 29-team division 4, which is played as a Swiss tournament . The current table, showing the leading nine teams, is below.
Four teams are promoted from division 4, but there are some very strong outfits among the leading contenders and it is safe to assume that we will not be one of them. But this was nevertheless a pleasing beginning.
Well done to all three teams on their excellent starts; thanks to all the players who made the Great Trek to Dudley in north-west Birmingham; and thank you as ever to team captain Kate Cooke, who keeps the whole show on the road. We now have 43 CSC/Kingston squad members, and juggling that number of potential players and getting them to the various Midlands hotels we will play in during a long season is a complicated logistical undertaking.
Kingston 4 v Epsom 6, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 10 November 2025
You have to hand it to Epsom – even their sixth (!) team plays a mean match. On paper this looked like a strong Kingston 4 team, playing in the Minor Trophy (effectively the fifth division of the Surrey League). But it wasn’t strong enough for the solid and experienced team Epsom brought to the Richard Mayo Centre, with the visitors prevailing 4-2.
First the positives. New Kingston members Martyn Jones and Alexander Chmelev recorded excellent wins on the top boards. They will no doubt soon be appearing in higher teams. Martyn was a strong junior who has recently returned to chess; Alex is a great enthusiast, a strong player and a qualified arbiter. Both are becoming important presences at the club.
Things did not go quite so well on the lower boards. On board 4, Jaden Mistry lost with Black to Sammy Hedges in a Queen’s Gambit Declined; on board 6, Sam Wilcox was defeated by the capable Robert Fairhall in a Danish Gambit; on board 3, Epsom veteran Michael Wickham had too much nous for promising Kingston youngster Ethan Kim; and on board 5 David Bickerstaff (pictured above, right) lost to Venkatash Subramoniam. Kingston captain Edward Mospan described the latter game as “ping-pong chess”, and said David had good chances before eventually succumbing.
Well done to Ed, who, as well as captaining Kingston in this match, ran a large number of rated friendlies and looked after the social chess while several of his regular co-organisers were playing in an away match at Hounslow. And congratulations to Epsom on running a large number of teams in the Surrey League and making them all so competitive. The sign of a very healthy and dynamic club.
The final of the Wernick Cup, played at Surbiton Chess Club on 17 September 2025
The Wernick Cup is tier 4 of the Surrey League individual championship, which takes place each summer. Fourteen-year-old Jaden Mistry, a promising Kingston junior, had swept through his qualifying pool, winning all eight of his games . He then defeated another of the four pool winners, Qutbuddin Syed, to reach the final against Epsom junior Maalav Chhaya. This is the game which secured Jaden his well-deserved title. The photograph above shows him receiving the (slightly battered) Wernick Cup from Ashtead captain and south-west London chess stalwart Bertie Barlow at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 3 November. Many thanks to Bertie for bringing the trophy over to Kingston and making the presentation to Jaden.
Kingston C v Hounslow C, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 20 October 2025
Kingston C were outrated by Hounslow C in their opening Div X match of the season, so to emerge as 3-1 victors was quite an achievement. The team had been assembled by Jon Eckert, but was captained on the night by Genc Tasbasi, as Jon had to leave once the preliminaries had been conducted.
Genc (pictured above), who has had a tremendous start to the season after returning to chess earlier this year, defeated the veteran David White on board 1. Genc was a pawn down and under pressure early in the game, but he stayed calm and, with time trouble in this 65+10 game starting to kick in, he turned it round to beat his very capable opponent. The fact he had Black, in line with the rule that the away team in Thames Valley matches always take White on board 1, made the victory all the sweeter.
On board 2, Rob Taylor, with White, downed his higher-rated opponent Steve Hall. Anqi Yang lost on board 3 to another Hounslow veteran, Barry Fraser, whose Ruy Lopez prevailed against Anqi’s stern resistance. But on board 4 Nette Robinson made sure Kingston took the spoils with victory against Andrew Cleminson. A top-notch start to the season for Jon Eckert’s team.
After a hectic summer of challenging norm events, Peter Large is back in the old routine – winning the Kingston autumn Blitz with a perfect score of 6/6
September dawns and with the change in the weather comes the first stirrings of the new chess season. This opening blitz tournament, ably organised by Ed Mospan and Julian Way, got the juices flowing in good style. It was competitive but friendly, involving not just Kingston members but a smattering of welcome guests from other local clubs.
It was won, as these events usually are, by resident Kingston IM Peter Large, who had just arrived back from playing in the Sussex University Invitational – his third tough norm tournament in successive weeks. Peter had had a challenging summer, but his love of chess is unquenchable and he said this was a chance to get back into the winning groove.
So it proved, though he had plenty of testing games and said afterwards that he had had inferior positions in quite a number of them. His round 4 game against Richmond’s Maks Gajowniczek and round 6 clash with Jasper Tambini were especially nerve-racking, but Peter came through them both. What a competitor he is.
Maks took second place with 4.5/6, beating your correspondent with some ease in round 5, while Jasper was among a group of four players in joint third on 4/6. That group included strong juniors Zain Patel and Ethan Bogerd and new Kingston member Martyn Jones, who was a strong junior a few decades back and has now returned to chess after a long break. All in all, an excellent evening to get the 2025/26 season under way.
Thames Valley Knockout final played at Harrow High School, Harrow on Thursday 19 June
It felt a little strange to play a major chess match on the longest and hottest day of the year so far, with several players in shorts and complaints that the air conditioning was too effective. But two strong teams, albeit missing the prodigious Bodhana Sivanandan on the Harrow side and the infectious Peter Lalic on ours, contested a tense match containing some high-quality chess. Kingston had a rating advantage on all boards except board 1.
First to finish was Will Taylor, with Black on board 6 against Jagdeep Dhemrait. In a Four Knights Opening, White had played Nc3 and Bc4, allowing a classic Nxe4 idea, ready to fork with d5 if White plays Nxe4. Instead White played Bxf7+ to dislodge the black king before recapturing on e4. In my youth, that was regarded as unclear, but modern computer assessments suggest the two bishops outweigh the loss of castling. Will seemed to have an edge for much of the game, based on more centralised major pieces, but his attempts at a winning attack were frustrated by back-row mate threats and a shortage of time, so a draw made sense.
The game on board 2 between Manmay Chopra and David Maycock (pictured above) quickly exploded.
Our other Black game, Ash Stewart on board 4 v Nigel Alldritt, went less well. Ash’s pawn structure was seriously damaged in the early middle game. He got some activity for it, but after the queens were exchanged it was soon clear that the ending was hopeless.
On board 1, two FMs were in combat. To this spectator’s eye it was not quite clear that Supratit Banerjee’s kingside attack would outweigh the queenside initiative of Tanmay Chopra, but Supratit is familiar with the line and was confident that he had it all in hand. He was never worse, and after a less-than-obvious error by Black he outplayed his opponent, proving that the division of Black’s army – with his king’s rook unable to assist the battle on the queenside – was crucial.
2.5-1.5 up and with board count in our favour, things looked good. John Hawksworth on board 5 had not been able to break through against Harrow captain Nevil Chan, but in the major piece ending he seemed to have a space advantage. He found afterwards that the computer assessment was level – no breakthrough was available. And the downside of the space advantage was that his pawns were a little more extended. Nevil found a tactic, winning a pawn and coming down to a rook ending in which he controlled the only open file, so one pawn soon became two, which was fatal.
So the score was level at 2.5-2.5 and it was all up to Peter Large on board 3 against Steven Coles. Peter had allowed his c-pawns to be doubled, but in compensation had pressure down the half-open b-file against Black’s queenside-castled king, which looked promising even with the queens off. He “mislaid” the pawn on c3, and then temporarily sacrificed a rook, exploiting the position of the black king to win the material back and come down to an ending with rook and knight v rook and bishop, with one extra pawn but with his passed a pawn harder to defend than Black’s passed d-pawn.
With both players very short of time, the decisive phase of the game was not recorded, which was probably just as well for those of a nervous disposition. Peter had thought we were winning board 5 so could try to win this game without risk to the overall result, and he turned down at least one draw by repetition. But from being a little better, his position deteriorated to be level and then probably losing.
However, to deal with the white a-pawn the black king had gone over to the queenside and was therefore out of reach when the game crystallised to rook and one pawn each on the kingside. Even though Peter’s pawn was the h-pawn, he managed to place his rook behind his king on the g-file, and the black rook could not stop the pawn unaided, forcing Black to resign.
A 3.5-2.5 win for Kingston gave us our seventh trophy of the season, although given the difference in ratings the closeness of the match also reflects well on the home side.
Richmond B v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Adelaide pub Teddington on 3 June 2025
Richmond wanted to prove a point in this match – that their B team could live with our title-winning side – and they proved it emphatically, running out winners by 5.5-0.5. We are champions of the division, but we were humbled by this result – the second team’s first defeat of the season in its final match. Indeed, the club’s final match of the season. All that remains is the Thames Valley Knockout final away to Harrow on 19 June – a tough assignment.
Richmond B, under their determined and resourceful captain Alastair Armstrong, put out an extremely strong team, spearheaded by the 2200-plus Maxim Dunn. We competed for a large part of the evening, but in the end as time pressure kicked in – Richmond use a tight control of 65 minutes plus 10-second increment – we crumbled.
Peter Andrews, with White against Maxim on board 1, was level (indeed felt he was slightly better when Maxim rebuffed his draw offer), but was outmanoeuvred as time took its toll. “Maxim found a plan and I didn’t,” was Peter’s succinct summing up. The litany of our woes on the other boards is almost too painful to recount. On board 2 Will Taylor, with Black, had fought valiantly against the Richmond captain and had a draw for the taking, but he had to find the correct move in the position below:
Homayoon Froogh, with White against the durable Sampson Low on board 5 (the two are pictured above, with Homayoon on the left), also blundered in time trouble in a position that was probably winning, and John Foley let at least a draw slip with White against John Burke on board 3. This really wasn’t our night. Jon Eckert, Black on board 6, lost the exchange against Pablo Soriano, and the Richmond man was in the box seat thereafter, smoothly converting in a well-played game.
Zubair Froogh, with Black on board 4 against the accomplished John Bass, saved us from the humiliation of a whitewash, getting a draw to cap an excellent first season for the club. The arrival of father Homayoon and son Zubair at Kingston this season has been one reason why we have ended up as champions of division 2 (see the final division 2 table at the foot of this report). It has been a truly fantastic season for Kingston B, and once we get over the pain of this defeat we will celebrate winning the title in appropriate style. For the club to win both Thames Valley division 1 and 2 is a truly remarkable achievement and surely a first in Kingston’s history.
Kingston B v Richmond B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 2 June 2025
In the penultimate league match of the season, Kingston B held on to their unbeaten record with a reasonably comfortable victory against a battle-hardened Richmond B side, who were in with a chance of promotion if they could beat us in the final two back-to-back matches of the season.
Jon Eckert recorded a rapid victory against Richmond newcomer Polina Popovtseva on board 6, when White rounded on Black’s uncastled king in a French Defence that went badly wrong. Alan Scrimgour, playing White, took an early draw against distinguished Richmond veteran Richard James on board 2, while Stephen Lovell (Black on board 3) and Zubair Froogh (White on board 4) had rather more extended and exhausting draws against Sampson Low and Bertie Barlow, two tough opponents. Indeed, Stephen’s game did not finish until 10.30pm after three hours of hard-fought struggle.
On board 5, Homayoon Froogh had Black against Simon Illsley. Homayoon was always well ahead on the clock, but he was the exchange down and it looked like the Richmond player had at least a draw. Indeed, if the match had not been swinging Kingston’s way, he might well have offered one. But he played on and, with time short, blundered when under attack by queen and bishop, and was mated.
On board 1, in a high-class struggle between Richmond captain Alastair Armstrong, with White, and Kingston stalwart Peter Andrews, this was the complicated and double-edged position after Black’s 27th move, with time trouble already looming:
A satisfying win for Peter and a fine victory for Kingston B by 4.5-1.5, setting up the return match away to Richmond B due the very next day and with many of the same personnel likely to be involved.
