Surrey League division 5 (Minor Trophy) match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 November 20

Kingston 4, the additional Surrey league team we are fielding this season, is designed to help blood new talent, and it was great to see three juniors making up half of the team as a strong Dorking second team came to visit. Kingston went 1-0 up when board 3 was defaulted – Dorking’s captain unfortunately couldn’t find the Willoughby Arms. In his defence, it can be a little tricky: hidden away in a maze of identical-looking streets in north Kingston.

Sean Tay, playing on board 1 for Kingston, tried a knight sacrifice in order to open up a path to White’s king, but his opponent managed to find an escape route and expertly saw out the piece advantage to tie the match at 1-1. Ed Mospan, who has made a welcome return to the club this season, won an excellent attacking game on board 2. He advanced his queenside pawns early, eventually managing to break through and clinching a great win against his higher-rated opponent to make it 2-1 to Kingston.

Normally, it’s the juniors’ games which finish first, but here Kingston’s youngsters were playing with poise and patience. Ethan Bogerd, making his club debut, went a piece down against the experienced Peter Lawrence, but had compensation thanks to a passed pawn on the flank that he managed to advance quickly. Ethan put his opponent under immense pressure, bringing all his pieces into the attack, but Peter held his nerve and defended resolutely, managing to swap off and consolidate, eventually making the piece advantage tell and levelling the match. 

Jaden Mistry, whose chess has progressed rapidly since making his Kingston debut last season, was playing excellently on board 4, carefully advancing his queenside pawns and maintaining a small advantage. But his opponent managed to halt their progress with a well-placed knight, and, while Jaden nimbly switched his attack to the kingside, his opponent was just in time to promote while also stopping Jaden’s pawn, which had reached the seventh rank. That win gave Dorking a 3-2 lead. 

The final game saw young William Lin on board 6, grinding out a rook-and-four-pawns endgame. Completely unfazed by the occasion, the match score and the crowd of onlookers, William played confidently and precisely, creating a passed pawn on the flank and marching his king up the board to offer support. His opponent, in contrast, played too passively, with his king and pawns out of the game, leaving his rook to do all the defending.

William was able to force an exchange of rooks and promote his pawn, securing a 3-3 draw in the match. An excellent performance from the youngster, who after the game remarked that he was more excited to be up way past his bedtime than with his crucial victory. Oh to be young! 

Gregor Smith

Surrey League division 1 match played at the Guildford Institute on 6 November 2023

All good things come to an end. The first team had not lost since the pandemic, but the run perished on a cold Monday away at Guildford. Depleted by the absence of several regulars, we still had the rating edge on the top three boards but were outrated on the lower five.

Your reporter was one of the absentees, but returned from a bridge tournament in Athens halfway through the session.  By that time, Alan Scrimgour had drawn a short game on board 6; an innovative placement of his bishops against the Caro-Kann had not come off, and the tension soon evaporated.

On board 8, Stephen Moss, who had kindly deserted the fourth team to fill a gap, had misplayed the opening against a youngster who was moving very quickly. Stephen was already starting to feel time pressure when he found an opportunity in this position.

He played Nxa7+ Rxa7 Bxb6+, and had hoped this would win the rook outright, leaving him the exchange ahead, having missed Rc7.  The combination still won a rook and two pawns for two minor pieces, and the three connected passed pawns on the queenside looked good. But after White lost an important tempo, the black king was well placed to hold them up without the support of the white rook, while on the other side the black pawn majority supported by the two bishops soon overwhelmed White.

John Foley on board 5 had a fairly short draw. He had had the better of the black side of a Caro-Kann up to the position below. It looked natural to equalise material and attack the white queen with 12… Nxe5.  But it was better to be patient: 12… d4 13. Ne4 (or Na4 Qa5 14. b3 Nf5 and either the g- or e-pawn will fall) Qxb2 14. Nd6+ Kf8 15. Rc1 Rd8 16. Qb5 Qxb5 17. Nxb5 Nxe5 and Black has a significant advantage. Thereafter the game soon petered out as a draw; still a decent result as Black.

Jon Eckert on board 7 came under some pressure in the opening as his king was forced to d7. But he found some counter-chances, and his opponent’s sacrifice of a piece for two pawns, although dangerous, looked unsound. However, Jon ignored a routine recapture in favour of a move which he wrongly thought was winning, and found himself two pawns down in an ending. Bishops of opposite colours gave him a chance, but his opponent lost or sacrificed his bishop for another pawn, and Jon’s bishop could not hold all the pawns.

David Rowson’s Alapin Sicilian resulted in an IQP (isolated queen’s pawn) position with which he never felt comfortable, as he struggled to get middle game play sufficient to compensate for the long-term weakness.  He felt under pressure before the point at which Stockfish first felt his position was materially worse. In the position below, David played the natural Be3, when Qe3 was recommended.  After 22… Bb8 23. Rc5 Qd6 threatening mate in two, 24. f4 was forced, but that left the white king far too exposed and Black soon won decisive material.

David Rowson’s game was nevertheless still alive for long enough that we had chances to hold the match if our top three scored heavily.  Peter Lalić, who has recently threatened some “slowdown” chess, holding level middle games and grinding his opponents in endings, stayed true to his earlier “rushdown” principles against Surrey county captain Clive Frostick, gambiting an early pawn for free play. Eventually that free play led to regaining the pawn, but that left too little tension in the position and a draw was agreed.

When I first toured the room, I found it difficult to understand the games on the top two boards.  And having played them through with help from electronic intelligence, I still find them difficult!

David Maycock played an early g5 in front of his castled king which most of us would not have considered, and which encouraged his opponent to play h4.

I was surprised when David accepted the pawn sacrifice, apparently opening up his king, but it seems to be the best move.; White is too undeveloped to exploit the open files, the h4 pawn is well protected, and for the moment controls g3.  The advantage fluctuated until White finally regained the lost pawn with 25. Rxh4, which misplaced his rook.

David found 25…Be4, which contains the sort of trap which often wins games.  Any sensible rook move roughly holds the balance. Instead the natural 26. Bxe4 allowed Rxe4 pinning the knight on g4 to the rook on h4.  After 27. f3 f5 (the point of Be4 was to clear the way for this pawn, in turn opening an attack by the queen against the rook on h4 while the pawn hits the knight on g4)  28. Rh1, David could have won two pieces for a rook with Rxe2 followed by fxg4, but instead played a crushing exchange sacrifice; after 28… fxg4 29. fxe4 Nxe4 he was dominating the board, and with Qg5 and Rf8 set up an irresistible attack. 

In the position below, Black is threatening Bf4+ and g3, trapping the K. White could only find Ng3, giving up the knight and losing in short order.

Mike Healey’s game with White against Roger Emerson on board 2 was even harder to follow, not helped by extreme time pressure. Computer analysis shows that it was only in time pressure that he wriggled out from being slightly worse, and at one point lost, to winning.  The last 20 moves, which is when much of the action happened, have had to be reconstructed.

This was the position after White’s 30. Kh2, close to the point when he stopped recording (ie had less than five minutes on his clock): 

It seemed to me that White now had the edge, with more room for manoeuvre, and Black’s queen’s bishop even sillier than White’s. But Black has a strong plan here: Bb7 followed by Bc8 lines up a dangerous attack against White’s king.

In the position below, White is lost. Black can play 34… Nxe4, and Qxe4 is not possible because of Qxh3 mate.  The white pawn on d5 is weak, and Black can play Nd2 to swap off the white king’s bishop, which would otherwise be activated by the loss of the d4 pawn.

After Black had missed that chance, this position was reached, with White to play his 43rd move:

Now White is on top, and after 43. Nxb5 g5 (hoping to exploit the pin on White’s f-pawn) 44. e5 set problems (an attack on the queen and on the knight on h7) which Black failed to solve. (Remarkably, Stockfish says this position is equal, whereas White could have won with the highly unnatural Na7).  Why, when White is winning a piece? Because the black counter-attack is dangerous. The last critical position arose after 49. Kf1:

Now 49… Rh2 followed by 50. d7 Bxd7.  51. Qxd7 f2  would have forced White to play for perpetual check by 52. Qc8+ Kg7  53. Rxg5+ Qxg5  54. Qg8+. Instead Black played 49… Rg3, and after 50. d7 Bxd7 51. Qxd7 Kg7 52. Qd4 Qxd4 53. Nxd4 Black resigned; the three extra pawns do not compensate for two extra pieces. 

This was the last game to finish, and by the end it was clear that it was only a consolation goal for Kingston, but to have games of this originality and excitement on the top boards is indeed consolation for lovers of our game who can look beyond mere results. For the rest of us, we hope to do better when Epsom come to Fortress Willoughby at the end of the month.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in Surrey League division 1

Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 30 October 2023

Hammersmith paid us the respect of bringing a very strong team to Kingston. An example of this was that their board 6, Bajrush Kelmendi, had been on board 1 when Hammersmith played Wimbledon in their first match of the season. We could still be quietly confident, however, especially as on top board we were delighted (and very thankful) to have a new club member, namely IM Ameet Ghasi, with an ECF rating of 2608.

Unfortunately for Hammersmith, their board 5 did not make it to our venue, so at 8.30pm (the default deadline) we were already a point up. That, however, was the only easy point we would gain. My own game was the next to finish. Over the years I have played Bajrush much more often than any other Hammersmith player, so I know that his idiosyncratic opening play (a kind of Hippopotamus Defence this time) is allied to a very quick sight of the board (he doesn’t waste much time between moves) and a sharp tactical awareness. Having said that, I have to own up to not coming up with a decent plan. My confidence coming out of the opening soon drained away, and I was on the back foot when we reached this position:

Black has just played 28…Ng4 threatening mate. I replied 29. Bg3, overlooking the clever
29…Rxe1. I now, belatedly, saw the combination, but had nothing better than to go along with it. 30. Bxd6 Bd4+ 31. Qxd4. Sadly, I have to return the queen as 31. Kh1 loses to Nf2+. So Black won the exchange, and I resigned four moves later when it was clear that my passed d-pawn was no compensation.

The battles on the top four boards were all lengthy and (to my eyes at least) tense. Lalić-Skulte opened with an unusual line of the Centre Game (1. e4 e5 2. d4 Nf6 3. dxe5 Nxe4). The two players castled on opposite sides, with Black’s kingside perhaps looking more vulnerable, though in exchange he had pressure against White’s central pawns. Peter sacrificed his e-pawn on e6 to open up the long diagonal for his black-squared bishop, and this position was reached:

Here 22. Ne5, threatening a fork on g6, was a strong possibility. Stockfish then recommends this line: 22… Qg5+ 23. Kb1 Bxd4 24. Ng6+ Kxh7 25. Nxf8+ Kg8 26. Nxe6 Bxe6 27. Rxe6 Bf6 with some advantage to White. Instead, Peter played 22. Bc3, which was also good, but he probably should have followed this up with Rxd5, eliminating the dangerous d-pawn. After 22…Qc7 23. Ne5 Rf2 24 Rd2 Rxd2 25. Kxd2 Nf8 25. Ng6+ this was the position:

There followed 26…Nxg6 27. Qxg6 Bg4 28. Qxh6, taking advantage of the pin on the g7 pawn, but 28. Qxg4 Kxh7 would have kept White in the game. Black’s next move, 28…d4, interfered with the pin and left Black with a won game after 29. Qh4 dxc3+, because Black has the resource g5 diverting the White queen and allowing Black’s queen to take the bishop on h7.

This made it 2-1 to Hammersmith, and with David Maycock’s position looking very difficult I was starting to get worried about the overall result. David had played the English Attack (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3) against his opponent’s Sicilian Najdorf, but had weakened his kingside by playing f3 and h3 and Thomas Bonn took full advantage of this.

On board 3, queens were exchanged early on and the position looked fairly level, or even a bit better for White, with Silverio Abasolo having to defend an isolated pawn on e6. However, he calmly and cleverly kept improving the position of his pieces, seizing open files and diagonals and not allowing Carsten Pedersen any real play. In this position he made good use of the e5 square:

18…Nce5 19. Nxe5 Nxe5 20. Ba2 Ba6 (seizing a key diagonal) 21. Rfe1 c5 22. Rd6 Bc4 23. Bb1 (probably not the best choice, but White was in time trouble) Rf8 (now taking the open file) 24. c3 Ng4 25. Ng3 Ref7 26. Rdd1 Rf2 27. Bd3 Bb3 28. Rd2 Rxd2 29. Bxd2 Rd8 (switching to the d-file) 30. Be2 Nxh2. Here Kingston had a stroke of luck, as Pedersen resigned with almost no time left on his clock. However, he could have played 31. Be3 (or, indeed, Bc1 or Bf4), leaving Black’s knight in serious trouble. Instead, 30…Rxd2 would have been clearly winning for Black.

So 3-2 to Hammersmith with only the top board game to finish. Ameet, playing the King’s Indian Defence against Marco Gallana, had achieved a strong central position. He won a pawn through an error by his opponent on move 20, and after that patiently but masterfully improved his position. This is how the game went:

I think it says something about the progress the first team has made in the last few seasons and our expectations these days that a draw with a very strong Hammersmith team almost feels like a loss. Nevertheless, we want to keep winning.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in Thames Valley League division 1

Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 30 October 2023

This was most definitely a match of two halves. Kingston B had a clean sweep on the top three boards, courtesy of Peter Andrews, Julian Way and John Foley, all of whom have ratings comfortably above 2000 – luxury casting for a second-team match. But Hounslow B roared back on the bottom three boards, winning all three to draw the match 3-3. It was something of a triumph for Hounslow B, who were outrated by an average of almost 250 points a board.

The first reverse for Kingston was on board 6, where Charlie Cooke blundered in the endgame and went down to defeat. 1-0 to Hounslow and it was clear that the evening was not going to be quite as straightforward as we had hoped. NIck Grey was up against the very capable (and doubtless underrated) junior Vibhush Pusapadi on board 4, and David Shalom on board 5 was engaged in an increasingly messy struggle against Barry Fraser.

Peter Andrews was well behind on the clock against Hounslow captain Frank Zurstiege on board 1 and serious time trouble was looming – the two players were playing an all-moves-in 90-minutes guillotine finish. But Peter had established a well-defended passed pawn in the guts of his opponent’s defences on c6, and that pawn was ultimately destined to win the game.

Peter pinpoints the position below as a significant one, where he made a distinctly counter-intuitive choice.

“I looked at whether e5 does anything,” he says. “The answer is no. So I considered Bb2, which Stockfish thinks is best, letting him take on e4, which sorts out my structure and dooms his pawn on d4. And then it occurred to me that exf, wrecking my structure, might be a good idea, because recapturing is wrong (as soon became clear in the game), and if he doesn’t take it he will need to put something else on f6 and the pawn might become a nuisance for him. A bad structure is less of a problem when he doesn’t have the two bishops and when his pieces are short of squares.”

Engines don’t much like exf because of the two sets of doubled pawns, but Peter was drawing on a series of lectures entitled “The Myths of Positional Chess” which Kingston FM Vladimir Li is in the course of giving at the club. “I was confident Vlad would approve of this anti-positional dynamic decision,” Peter explains. “I hope Vlad doesn’t mind being blamed for some dynamic anti-structural moves which don’t work out over the next few months.”

Peter goes on to recount how his slightly anti-positional thinking paid off. “Stockfish says Black should play Nf6 21 Bb2 Qd7 22 Bxd4 Qxf5, and the position is level; the pawn on d5 falls soon. As played, Rxf5 allows Qg4, after which (when the rook retreats) he can’t play Nf6 because the loose bishop on h4 would hang; he will need to play Bf6 to hold the d4 pawn, and then the knight has no good squares while my queen is dominant.”

The sequence led to this position after 23…Rc8:

“The tempo-gaining 24. Rxc8 Qxc8 25. Rc1 which I’d envisaged from afar is perfectly fine (+2),” says Peter. “But I soon realised that Rc6 is much better. It threatens to double on the c-file; he can’t get at the rook (the knight on d7 is pinned by the queen on g4 against the rook on c8), and if he captures dxc6 gives me a winning advantage in any ending, as was soon demonstrated.”

Peter propped up the pawn on c6 with one on b5, traded off the heavy artillery. and that was that. How simple chess can be sometimes – establish an immovable pawn and win. That made it 1-1 to Kingston, but by now Nick Grey and David Shalom were sinking and it was apparent that the best we could do was draw the match. Fortunately we had two stalwarts capable of doing just that.

John Foley had a many-moves game against Eugene Gregorio, who puts pressure on the Kingston president by playing very quickly – John was well behind on the clock. The principle behind John’s eventual victory was not dissimilar to Peter’s game: insert an impregnable rook in the heart of your opponent’s position and dare him to take it, as shown below after 36. Re5.

Engines recommend 36…g5 here, but White would still retain an edge. Black chooses to simplify straightaway by exchanging rooks, leading to this position a few moves later:

The situation is unpleasant for Black, though not immediately terminal. But it became so soon afterwards when Black unaccountably gave up his d-pawn. White manoeuvred to exchange queens, and after doing so established this overwhelming position:

3-2 to Hounslow. Now it was all on Julian on board 2 to win his game and share the match. Julian played the King’s Indian Defence, and his opponent JJ Padam went for an unusual set-up that left the e-pawn somewhat marooned on e2. The position was level until on move 18 the Hounslow player exchanged his dark-squared bishop for a knight, evidently feeling that doubling Julian’s pawns on the b-file was compensation for giving up the bishop pair. Engines respectfully disagree. This was the resulting position, in which Black now has a definite edge:

It was all about piece mobility and king safety after this point, with Julian largely immobilising White. By move 36 (see diagram below), skilful play by Black had assured a winning advantage, with the connected b- and c-pawns ready to run for home and the black king sheltering behind a bishop, untouchable by the white king.

Julian gave up his e-pawn and expertly converted, helped by the rather random 38. g4 (38. Qc4 would have been a better try, but still loses). The text continued: 36. Qe7 c5 37. Qxe4 b4 38. g4 Bxf1 39. Nxf1 b3 40.cKg2 b2 0-1. The b-pawn cannot be halted. We had drawn the match, but Hounslow could feel the happier of the two teams given the rating differential. Whatever the numbers say, there is no room for complacency in chess.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 23 October 2023

This season the Thames Valley League brought in a major new rule change: there is no longer the ritual pre-match toss for colours; instead, home teams always have Black on odd boards. There has been some discussion as to whether this enables better opening preparation, as all the players now know in advance whether they will be White or Black. However, what no one knows beforehand is the composition of the other club’s team. You may find yourself playing the same opponent as last year (this was more or less my situation on Monday, but with colours reversed and on a higher board) and you may find that the other club is deploying all their strongest players in exact rating order. On the other hand, it’s quite likely that neither of these two situations will occur. In the Thames Valley it’s also possible for teams to order their players more flexibly, less predictably, than in the Surrey League.

On Monday Wimbledon turned up at the Willoughby with their strongest possible board 1, Alberto Suarez Real, an IM with a Fide rating of 2408. However, their team overall was missing some of its stalwarts from previous years. In the circumstances, facing a Kingston team which outrated them by an average of 141 points per board, Wimbledon put up a good showing, and it was only near the end of the three-hour session that Kingston’s win was assured.

The shortest game was in fact on board 1, where Peter Lalić played the Scandinavian Defence, except not as a defence, but as a gambit, giving up a pawn for quick development. His Spanish IM opponent used up a lot of time on the opening, and the players agreed a draw after just 12 moves. A very good result for Peter and the team.

The next game to come to a premature end was on board 6, where John Foley reached this position from what chess.com non-committedly calls “Indian Game”.

Stockfish evaluates this as roughly equal, but Black needs to be careful as White has a massive threat. Stephen Carpenter overlooked this, playing 25….Rg8 (Ne7 or Qe7 was necessary), and John was able to play the satisfying 26. Nxe6! If Black takes the knight White mates in two with Qxg6+. If he doesn’t take he’s lost the exchange (and more) in addition to the e6 pawn, so Carpenter just resigned. 1.5-0.5 to Kingston.

Three of the remaining four games involved a lot of slow manoeuvring. The exception was on board 2, where David Maycock won two pawns early on against Ian Heppell’s Philidor Defence and castled queenside. In the position below he decided to give up the exchange in order to maintain his strong centre. 22. Ne2 instead would only have given White a slight plus.

The game continued 22. Be3 Bxd1 23. Qxd1 Qc6 24. Nf4 Bb4 25. Rg1 Qb7. White’s pieces are gathering ominously on the kingside.

David now played 26. Ka1, presumably so as to be able to move his knight to f5 without allowing 26…Qe4+, forcing White to interpose with his queen, 26. Nf5 Qe4+ 27. Qd3 Qxd3+ 28. Nxd3. It seems that this position would still have been better for White due to his pawn centre and the threats to b4 and g7. Black’s only defence, 28…Bf8, allows 29. Nh6+ Kh8 30. Nxf7+ winning another pawn.  After 26. Ka1 the game actually continued 26…Bf8 27. h4 Rb8. Now Black is starting to have his own threats against White’s castled king.

Meanwhile, things were much less double-edged on the other boards.  Will Taylor had played a Petrov Defence and both sides were gradually trying to develop their pieces to their best squares. On board 4 I had won the minor exchange (bishop for knight), but with a symmetrical pawn structure was having difficulty making anything of it. In the position below, Black controls the d-file, but can’t make effective use of this, so I played 24. Kf2 (overprotecting my f-pawn) in anticipation of Black’s next move.

After 24…Qd3 25. Qxd3 Rxd3 26. Rc1 I am going to force Black’s rook out with Bf1 and then try to increase my slight advantage on the queenside. I probably didn’t find the best way to do this (Stockfish recommends a quick advance of White’s a-pawn), as by move 38 it was clear that Black was at least equal and we agreed a draw.

The Ingle-Way game, in which Julian played a King’s Indian Defence, featured a similar symmetrical pawn structure. However, the position opened up around move 25 and Julian gained the advantage. In time trouble the tactics became harder to calculate and both sides missed chances before Sean Ingle committed the final mistake and soon after lost on time. This was actually the last game to finish and it assured Kingston’s victory in the match.

Meantime, the board 3 Cannon-Taylor game had ended with both sides being content, or obliged, to repeat moves. There was also a repetition in the board 2 Maycock-Heppell game, but this was much less pacific. Black’s queenside attack became more dangerous than White’s kingside one, with the consequence that the position below was reached.

The game finished 37…Nc2+ 38. Kb1 Na3+ 39. Ka1 Nc2+ 40. Kb1 Drawn. However, Black could have continued with his dangerous attack instead of repeating. A forcing line is very hard to see unless you are a chess engine, but 38…Qe4 is difficult to meet.

Thus Kingston won 4-2, but Wimbledon had fought hard and the match would probably have been even closer if one of their top players had not had to drop out on the morning of the match: another reason why guessing the opponents’ line-up is often a toss-up, so to speak, though we can still try.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in Thames Valley League division 1

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

This was a good result for Kingston’s newly inaugurated fourth team away to Chessington 2 – a victory by 4-2, capped by some fine displays on both sides.

It is not often I would highlight the opposition play, but credit where credit is due – Meena Santosh, who is due to give birth in less than two weeks, bombarded James Kerr’s kingside with an unrelenting attack. James was steadfast until the end and had opportunities of his own early on. A good old-fashioned kingside attack. The 19th-century masters would have been proud of both performances.

Solid wins by Sean Tay, Josh Lea, Ergo Nobel and me took us into an unassailable 4-1 lead. It was a great first win for the club by Ergo, who joined recently and has already proved his worth with a crucial draw in the Lauder Trophy victory away to South Norwood. Sean and Josh continued on their upward trajectory, and have also become important components in Kingston’s teams.

My game saw me win two pawns in a swashbuckling opening in which my opponent’s aggression but held at bay by a solid pawn formation. This new strategic awareness was a notable improvement in my game. A series of exchanges saw my two-pawn advantage manifest itself in two potential passed pawns. My opponent resisted doggedly until the promotion of one of the pawns finally forced resignation. 

Ed Mospan continued his Kingston comeback with an attack which at one stage saw him go several pawns to the good. But alas time trouble and a durable display by his opponent (whose ECF grade is 1686) saw the game hijacked at the eleventh hour. Nevertheless a solid performance by, to quote Julian Way, a great Kingston stalwart. Julian had come along to support the team, and his advice on the bus home was much appreciated. An enjoyable night of chess.

Stephen Daines, Kingston 4 captain

Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 16 October 2023

Coulsdon has such a large membership that there is always an element of mystery about their team selection.  But as Surrey and TVL champions we can expect opposing clubs to try to put out a strong team against us, and so it was in this encounter, when our opponents were considerably stronger than they had been when we visited Coulsdon in April. Nonetheless we still outrated them on every board and were relieved by the absence of Supratit Banerjee, currently representing Scotland in the World under-10 Cadet Championships.  We also set up an element of mystery, rotating our top boards to frustrate opposing preparation.

On top board, Peter Lalić’s rushdown strategy, sacrificing a pawn via the Morra Gambit and later the exchange for dynamic piece activity, ran into the superb calculating ability of Rahul Babu (whose ECF rating of 2169 makes him one of the country’s top juniors).  Babu fended off all the potential tactics, kept his head through Peter’s time shortage, and simplified to a king and pawn ending in which he had one extra pawn. Although doubled, that pawn was critical in allowing him to lose a move and thereby bring about zugzwang.

As at Ealing last week, David Maycock’s game once again progressed faster than others, and by the time I could tour the room he had already set up a strong attack on the kingside against Mark Smith (rated 2120). Smith played the Trompowsky Attack and allowed David to take the so-called “poisoned” pawn on b2. In the diagram position below, one might think White’s kingside pawns a bit fishy, but it is hard to believe that the game only lasted another nine moves.  

David played 14…h5! and opened the h-file. Then after 18…g6, White was expecting f5 but had missed David’s idea of Kg7, making room to pile major pieces down the h-file. 

In the final position (see below), White resigned because mate is avoidable only with ruinous material loss. Black is threatening Qh8 followed by Rh1 mate, and the bishop on g3 prevents escape via f2. If White moves the knight on g2 to put the queen there to guard h1, the game might go 24. Ne3 Qh4 (the knight was protecting that square) 25. Qg2 Bh2+ 26 Kh1 Bd7 and the arrival of the other rook on the h-file mates quickly.  White explained afterwards that he was trying out some more dynamic positions. David in his current form is not an opponent against whom to experiment.

By this time there had been a couple of draws on the lower boards. Alan Scrimgour nullified pressure from Nick Edwards with some timely exchanges, while I learned a useful lesson against Ian Calvert. In an English that had turned into a sort of Catalan, I aimed to place rooks on the d- and c-files, when it turned out that the e- and d-files would have been better. That gave Black just enough time to liquidate to a queen and bishop endgame in which neither side could penetrate without allowing the other to do so, and the game petered out.

As a proponent of the English Opening, I was delighted to see Vladimir Li using it to play a reverse Sicilian.

A move order slip gave Vladimir’s opponent, Balahari Bharat Kumar (another improving junior, rated 2070), a momentary opportunity to play e4, after which best play would have been 10. dxe4 Qxd1 11. Rxd1 Bf6  12. e5 Nxe5 13. Nd4 O-O-O with a substantial advantage to Black. Fortunately, Black missed this and stuck to his preconceived plan with f6. We rejoin the action after 17… f5.

White’s knight on e5 is attacked, and if it moves the bishop on c5 will be undefended.  The obvious 18. Bxe7 leads to an edge for Black after fxe4 19 Bxf8 exf3, with the black pawn munching white pieces like a runaway draught piece. 18. Nd6 is only slightly better for White. But Vladimir had seen in advance that the subtle temporary sacrifice 18. Neg5 gives a winning advantage. 

After 18… Bxc5 19. Nxe6 Qxe6 (Black has nothing better) 20. Ng5 simultaneously attacks the queen and uncovers a second attack on the knight on d5. That forces the recovery of the piece, and White will arrive on d5 with check. Black has to defend both the bishop on c5 and against a subsequent Nf7+. The white bishop is in any case about to hoover up the pawn on b7, and Black will lose material. In the end, in understandable time pressure, he lost a terminal amount of material as White’s e-pawn approached the queening square.

So a 2-1 lead for Kingston, with Messrs Rowson, Way and Foley involved in long and murky games. Julian seemed to have a fractional edge for much of his game against Martin Faulkner until his 20… Nd4 allowed f5, trapping the bishop on g4 (see diagram below). 

Thankfully after 21. f5 gxf5 22. Qg5+ before h3 was a slight slip; Julian got three pawns for the marooned piece and a position which was solid enough to hold on.

David Rowson’s King’s Indian Defence came under a little early pressure from Shivam Agrawal, but he reached what he described as “a defensible position, even if it was rather crablike”.  Both sides did indeed move sideways for a while without closing their claws, and mutual attempts to open the game up in time trouble led to it fizzling out into a draw. 4-3 to Kingston.

That led to a crowd gathering around John Foley’s game with Matt Darville, and they had full value for money. In a Nimzo-Indian type position, John had sacrificed his front c-pawn for free play. For a while the compensation was not quite enough, but John was able to open up his opponent’s king and there was a momentary opportunity.

In the position above, after 28 moves, both sides were focused on the weakness of f6 and the value of the pawn on g6 if it could be reinforced; John played h4 with that in mind. Instead Rd5! would have won, with the idea of Rh5, and Black’s other weak spot at h6 leads to the defence being overloaded. Play might continue 29… Rh8 30. Kh2 Kxg6 31. e5, when Rxe5 would block the queen’s defence of e6, and if instead Rf8 the brilliant Rd8 overloads the defence.

Of course it’s easy for Stockfish to sacrifice pawns and rooks with no match result on the line. In the real world, the game continued to the position below in which Black has a slight edge but both players were so short of time that notation stopped. 

Black was even shorter of time than White, and visibly under pressure from the possibility of getting a result against a higher-rated player. He had already offered a draw, which John didn’t hear! John was unable to reconstruct the exact sequence of the next 20-odd moves with a few minutes and eventually seconds on each clock. 

The spectators saw Black force White to give up his bishop and a pawn for the black queenside pawns when the c-pawn reached c2. That should objectively have been drawn, but the white king came up the board and attacked the black rook on e8 with the king defending it on the f-file. Then Rf4+, Black picked up his K, realised that his intended move left the rook undefended, and dropped his king, somewhere between exasperation and resignation, as his last seconds expired. An appropriate end for an exciting match, won 5-3 by Kingston. An important result against a dangerous Coulsdon side.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in Surrey League division 1