Surrey League division 4 (Centenary Trophy) match played at the Haywain Brewers Fayre, Epsom on 16 October 2023

Epsom were very strong for this home match against Kingston 3 and ran out comfortable 5-1 winners. Charlie Cooke and Adam Nakar fought out tough draws on boards 2 and 3, but by then the damage had already been done.

I lost after being battered on the kingside, where my king was horribly vulnerable. Josh Lea and Ed Mospan’s games could have gone either way, despite each being a pawn down, but both eventually succumbed to strong opponents.

Nick Grey was a rook down, but fought back with a strong attack, helped by the fact that his opponent had two passive pieces. Ultimately, though, the piece advantage proved decisive despite Nick’s aggressive display in which he tested his opponent to the limit before conceding.

Accentuate the positives: it was a good experience against a strong team.

Stephen Daines, Kingston 3 captain

Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 9 October 2023

So near and yet so far, and I fear it is all my fault. Kingston 2 lost 4-3 to Ashtead 1 in a surprisingly tight Surrey division 2 match, and if I had managed to hang on for a draw on board 2 against Dan Rosen we would have got out of the evening with a draw and a half-point. That would have been quite an achievement given that we were substantially outrated on the top five boards.

Still, accentuate the positive: it was a night of some singular personal achievements. On board 1 Jon Eckert made light of a 350-point rating deficit against Phil Brooks and, reverting to his trusty Dutch after a dalliance with the French last season, made a comfortable draw. David Shalom also drew on board 5 against Bertie Barlow – another terrific result on a night when the outgunned Kingstonians fought hard all the way.

Even better, on board 4 Gregor Smith overcame a 200-point rating gap to win against the Ian McLeod. Ian shed a knight in a tactical melee in the middlegame and thereafter Gregor gave him zero chance of counterplay. An accomplished performance and an excellent scalp. We suspected Gregor was underrated and here was proof.

Charlie Cooke and Adam Nakar had solid draws on the bottom boards and Kingston were well in the hunt, but it was on boards 2 and 3 that the problems lie. Dan Rosen and Jon Hinton are extremely good players, and on the night they proved too good for me and Nick Grey.

Nick went wrong early against Hinton’s Wing Gambit, lost the exchange and endured a pretty miserable evening. He battled on, but in truth there could be only one winner. I played unbelievably boringly with White against Dan Rosen, traded everything I could and got to a same-coloured bishops and six pawns endgame which I thought might just be drawing (see diagram below).

With correct play maybe it was, but I was short of time and Dan is a far better endgame player than me and was able to shuffle his bishop and king around in risk-free way until I was pinned on the back rank and pawns were about to start falling. An irritating way to lose and even worse was that at some point in a long-drawn-out endgame, where Black feints with the king to infiltrate on the queenside before switching back to the centre, I resigned myself to defeat. Toughen up!

Defeat was in any case exactly what I deserved for such a negative approach. Against a player who is technically superior to you, you have to mix it and go down with all guns blazing. Here I went out with a whimper rather than a bang. The last time I will ever play so insipidly. I hope anyway.

Well done to Ashtead on a successful start to their campaign – they will surely be favourites for promotion from this division as several of their strongest players were missing for this match. And thanks, as ever, to their captain Bertie Barlow, the nicest and politest man in Surrey chess.

Stephen Moss, Kingston captain in Surrey division 2

Thames Valley division 1 match played at Actonians Sports Club, Ealing on 9 October 2023

We arrived at Ealing to find tables set up for a match, and young Xavier Cowan (ECF- rated 1957), whom I recognised as a strong performer in last year’s Surrey U2050 team, standing at one end of it. Assuming that he was to be Ealing’s board 6, I headed for those tables, to be told that it was for an internal training match, and Xavier was board 1 for one of the teams. 

If the Ealing first team was to have six players stronger than him, we were likely to be up against it, and so it proved.  When a second set of tables was set up, mostly in the dark periphery of the room, and team sheets were exchanged, Ealing were 2139 on board 6; our bottom three were outgunned while the top three looked fairly balanced. 

David Maycock has been making a big effort to improve his time management, and on my first tour of the boards, his game against Martin Smith (2299) was well advanced while the others like my own were still in the early stages. Some complications in the Ruy Lopez which would be hair-raising for those not versed in these lines led to the queens coming off early; David had two pieces and a lot of activity for a rook and two pawns, which Stockfish judges to be a winning advantage. It was, however, not to be so simple. 

In the position below, David played the innocuous-looking 15. Nc3, but it is an error which allowed his opponent to roll his pawns and “win” a piece for three pawns.

The game proceeds 15…c5 16. Bg5+ Kc8 17. Nxe4 b5 18. Nxc5 bxa4 19. Nxa4 Kc7 20. Re1 Rhe8. David now had one pawn for the exchange and was worse, with little material left. But his opponent’s king was the more exposed, and David managed to create a mating attack despite having only a rook and two minor pieces to work with on an open board. A few moves later, this was the position and David went for the kill.

The game proceeds 26. Nd7 Rac8 27. a4+ Ka5 28. b4+ Kxa4 29. Nb6+ Kxb4 30. Rb3+ and checkmate is imminent. A crucial victory for Kingston.

Vladimir Li was on the black side of a Torre Attack against fellow FM Rick McMichael (2256) in which the queens are exchanged early, giving Black doubled pawns on the b-file. That can be double-edged, but Vladimir mixed up different parts of his preparation and was significantly worse by move 12. As sometimes happens, the opponent taking the pawn that his play has earned gives compensation and clarity to the other side.  Vladimir had drawing chances by move 19, and had equalised by move 23. 

Then his opponent blundered into a psychological trap, set by 23…b6, allowing Vladimir to win material, and the rest was mopping up. The game proceeded 24. e4?? Bf4 25. Rc3 Rac7 26. g3 Bd6 27. Rac1 Ba3 28. R1c2 Bb4 29. Nd2 f6 30. Kf2 Be8 31. d5 Bxc3 32.Rxc3 Bxa4 0-1

I had Black against Alan Perkins (2177), who was well over a grade of 200 in old money for many years, and we had a rather intense game which made it difficult to stay abreast of what was going on elsewhere. He got nothing from the opening, a solid line in the Queen’s Gambit Accepted, but we both had plenty of possibilities to manoeuvre things around and try ideas, most of which would have been unsound.

I spent an age here on move 19 considering plans with Nb6-a4 and Nf6-d5, but White had too many ways to disrupt them. I decided to refrain from speculation, especially after my disaster in the Lauder Trophy last week.  In the final position (see diagram below), I offered a draw with both players down to five minutes. My structural disadvantage of doubled isolated b-pawns doesn’t matter too much when they are not on an open file; he no longer has bishops, which like attacking loose pawns, and the front pawn keeps his knights out of c5. 

John Foley played a London System against John Quinn (2171). They first played each other in 1969 when John Quinn, the newly crowned British under-21 champion, came to Salvatorian College to give a simultaneous display. Not much seemed to be happening from the opening when suddenly there was a tactical melée. Our John offered an exchange sacrifice which the other John declined with a clever counter-sacrifice. The position got tricky but, after the smoke had cleared, John Quinn had a winning advantage. The last occasion that Kingston played Ealing was in April, the final match in the Thames Valley league. Kingston won the match with the sole result being the victory by John Foley over Andrew Harley. On this occasion, John’s result was the only defeat for Kingston. Swings and roundabouts.

Alan Scrimgour played carefully against Andrew Harley’s c3 Sicilian, finding a line which liquidated the major pieces and led to a quick draw.  So when my game finished we were 3-2 ahead, with Peter Lalić’s game on board 3 against the strong junior Nischal Thatte (2178) still in play. Peter played the Exchange Variation against the French Defence, and on my first tour of the room I was surprised that for one of his games the position looked fairly normal – material balanced, no unusual pawn advances. Peter had more open development to compensate for an isolated queen’s pawn, and his manoeuvres gradually induced Black to huddle his pieces on the queenside, where they were largely immobile and could do little to defend the king. 

An exchange sacrifice opened up the black king, and then with players short of time a little sequence won a rook, leaving Peter ahead and with mate imminent.

The game proceeded 26…Rd7 27.Qg6+ Kf8 28.Qxh6+ Kg8 29.Qxg5+ Kf8 30.Qh5 Kg7 31.Qg4+ Kf8 32.Qxd7 1-0

A really tough match and, with Ealing having an average rating advantage of 50 points a board, a very gratifying result against the odds. Kingston’s defence of the Thames Valley title is off to the best of all possible starts, with an away victory against one of the club’s fiercest rivals.

Peter Andrews

South Norwood v Kingston, Lauder Trophy, West Thornton Community Centre, 5 October 2023

This was always going to be a tough match and so it proved. The rules of this excellent competition dictate that the collective ratings of the six players in a team must be less than 10,500. This tends to make for very close and exciting matches, and this was no exception.

South Norwood have won the Lauder four times in its 23-year history and are expert at bringing in their team just under the 10,500 threshold to maximise their chances. They had the strong Tariq Oozeerally on board 1, the dangerous (and underrated) Simon Lea on 2, and solid players all the way down to captain David Howes on 6. We knew this was a difficult assignment.

Jon Eckert, playing with the black pieces on board 3, drew first blood for Kingston with a fine win over Kaddu Makusa, opening up the g-file and using his queen and rook to inflict an irresistible mate. It looked very good for the away team because Dieter McDougall, making his debut for Kingston, was a piece up against John Ganev on board 5 and seemed nailed on to make it 2-0. But he got into horrendous time trouble, tried to play for an age on the increment and eventually blew up, falling into a mating net. South Norwood were back in the hunt.

Another new Kingstonian, Ergo Nobel, drew with the experienced Howes on 6 and Sean Tay was doing fine against Ken Chamberlain on 4, but Peter Andrews was in trouble against Simon Lea on board 2, having played what he later admitted was an unsound sac of piece for two pawns. Everything pointed to the match hingeing on the heavyweight clash on board 1 between Oozeerally, with White, and the ever reliable (indeed inspired) Peter Lalić, who has often been Tariq’s nemesis in these clubs’ encounters in the past.

This was a tremendous game, later described by a veteran Kingstonian as “one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen”. This was the position after White’s 14th move:

Four moves later, Black’s queen was trapped in the opposite corner:

But in moving between prisons, it had managed to account for both White rooks. Tariq resigned in a position which was hopeless, despite Peter’s queen still resting on h1. A quite extraordinary game, over in 19 moves.

Peter’s win and Sean’s eventual draw on board 4 took Kingston to 3-2, which guaranteed victory on board count – the top boards are given higher numerical values in the event of a tie and Kingston had won on boards 1 and 3. Peter Andrews battled on and got a pawn to the seventh, but with knight and two rooks against queen and two rooks it was going to take a miracle to get it any further. No miracle was forthcoming, so the match ended up tied at 3-3. But the wins by Lalić and Eckert were enough to secure a 12-9 win on board count, and Kingston march on to the next round, where we will face Coulsdon or Dorking.

Stephen Moss, Kingston Lauder Trophy captain

Thames Valley division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 2 October 2023

It is fair to say that this was not the optimum start to our 2023/24 season – a 4-0 whitewash at the hands of visitors Maidenhead C. But fair play to Maidenhead for bringing a strong team, and well done too for getting to the club in excellent time despite a long journey. The match actually started two minutes early, which is unheard of in the Thames Valley League. The Maidenhead captain, Yuri Krylov, said he was new to captaincy and that no one had told him how far it was from Maidenhead to Kingston. Such naivety.

Kingston junior William Lin on board 4 had a sharp encounter with Pierre Roy, who looked a more than capable player. Roy got the better of the tactical battle, and the two players retired to the garden of the pub for a friendly post-mortem, with William’s father watching intently. “We know where we went wrong,” he said as the analysis ended, which is surely the point both of junior chess and of this important training division.

On board 1, Colin Lyle essayed a French Defence against Krylov, but the result was far from joli for the Kingston player as Colin went the exchange down and the Maidenhead captain smoothly converted. Jaden Mistry on board 2 and Ergo Nobel, making his club debut on board 3, fought hard in games which went to the wire, but both eventually succumbed in tight rook endgames. Things can, to coin a phrase, only get better.

There was a tremendous attendance on the night by social players, including two who had come along in the wake of the opening of the concrete chess tables at the Fairfield recreation ground in central Kingston, and in an effort to lift the spirits after an opening-match drubbing here’s an attempted arty picture of night-time chess in the incongruous beach huts in the garden of the Willoughby Arms. Enticing, don’t you think?

This week sees a hugely significant away match in the first round of the Alexander Cup against a strong Streatham team as Kingston start their defence of that coveted title, as well as the opening Lauder Trophy match against South Norwood (a tricky draw in both competitions). And next week we begin our Thames Valley division 1 title defence. There will be no hiding place in a tough eight-month campaign comprising more than 70 matches. Frankly, we feel exhausted just thinking about it. Back to the beach huts and roll on summer!

Stephen Moss