Kingston B v Ealing B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 18 November 2024
This was one of those matches which felt closer than the scoreline suggests. Jon Eckert drew on board 4 without any alarms, but Jameel Jameel let slip a very promising position on board 6 and went down to defeat as both kings came under threat from queens and rooks. Alan Scrimgour was well placed on board 2, but the other three games looked less clear-cut. We had a rating advantage of 100 points a board, so should have felt confident, but there are statistics and there is chess.
Alan castled queenside and went for the jugular with a kingside attack while his opponent tried to mount his own offensive operation against the White king. Alan’s assault was faster and he brought matters to a swift conclusion with a nicely judged combination. “White gained space on the kingside against Black’s Philidor Defence by advancing his g-pawn,” Alan said later. “A couple of minor errors allowed White to create threats on the light squares, with the game ending suddenly after a bishop sacrifice on g6.”
John Bussmann felt he always had an edge on board 3, but nerves were not calmed by a clock malfunction which led to a delay and a resetting of the times. But he did in the end prevail. John’s return to chess action is important to the club, as we have surprisingly few players in the 1850-1900 ECF bracket. Alicia Mason, who has had a good start to her Kingston career, will soon be in that bracket at her current rate of progress. Here she squeezed out a win with Black from a level knight v knight endgame position.
Top board was a match-up between Kingston veteran Peter Andrews and Ealing B’s immensely likeable young captain Xavier Cowan (both pictured in action above at a relatively calm early stage of their battle). It was a thrilling game, here annotated by Peter – at least to the point where both players were in a time scramble.
An excellent victory for Peter over a talented young player. The wins by Peter, John and Alicia came in the last half hour of the match to complete a 4.5-1.5 victory which had not looked on the cards earlier – a victory, moreover, which leaves us flying high in division 2 of the Thames Valley League. For the moment at least.
Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain
The duelling ukuleles: John Saunders and David Maycock, who was celebrating his 21st birthday, duetin the bar
Kingston 3 v Epsom 4, Surrey League division 4 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 18 November 2024
Epsom showed their strength in depth by bringing a very strong fourth team to Kingston, and proved more than a match for Kingston 3. Greg Heath got a solid draw against the higher-rated Robert Fairhall on board 4, and captain Ed Mospan showed how it is done with a cool victory over Oliver Kuzmanoski on board 3, but the other four players went down to defeat against opponents rated on average more than 180 points higher. We will mark this one down to experience.
Kingston B v Maidenhead B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 4 November 2024
This was a very close-run thing. In ratings terms we should have won the match comfortably – we had a big ratings plus on the top three boards and smaller pluses on the bottom three. But a couple of hours into the match, with Kingston 2-0 down after blunders by Peter Roche on board 4 and Jon Eckert on 5, it did not feel like that at all. Maidenhead B had won both their early Thames Valley division 2 fixtures, and I feared they were going to claim another scalp.
The tide began to turn when the ever reliable Peter Andrews, playing Black, defeated Maidenhead veteran Nigel Dennis on board 3.
We were at last on the scoreboard. Board 1 looked tight, board 2 was impenetrable and had been unbalanced from an early stage, but on board 6 Alicia Mason looked like she had an edge with White against Yury Krylov. Could she convert? The match now seemed to hinge on her doing so.
Alicia, who had White, has kindly annotated her game for the Games section. She had a small plus throughout, but her opponent kept very nearly equalising. The game was rich in tactical possibilities, and, as Alicia very honestly admits in her annotation, there were a couple of sacs she missed that would have given her a winning advantage much earlier. But in the end, despite being in short of time, she found a neat combination to mate her opponent with queen and knight to level the match at 2-2. This was the final position after 44. Ne5# (how pleasant to mate with a knight move and get a royal fork at the same time!)
Now all eyes were on boards 1 and 2. David Rowson’s game had been fascinating throughout. He picks up the story after move 6.
The game ended in a draw and, since David has promised to annotate it for the Games section when he has time, I will not attempt to follow its twists and turns here. A draw was agreed in the position below:
David’s summing up afterwards was characteristically disarming: “In retrospect it was a very interesting game. There seemed to be a lot of points where I had to make difficult decisions, and generally I made the wrong ones according to Stockfish, which does, however, assess the final position as only very slightly favourable to Black, despite the bishop on e4 and the grip he has on the kingside. I’ve discovered that maybe my opening pawn grab wasn’t so bad after all – it’s been played by Tiviakov and Smirin. The problem was how I followed it up!”
The draw on board 2 left the match tied at 2.5-2.5. Could Peter Hasson, with Black on board 1, put the ball in the back of the net on his home debut for Kingston. His doughty opponent, Majid Mashayekh, seemed intent on parking the bus and playing for a draw – he may have looked at that 2-0 scoreline early on and decided a draw would be enough to win the match for Maidenhead. He was also heavily outrated, so a draw with White would have been a perfectly acceptable result, but Peter had other ideas, as he explains below:
Thanks to Peter’s clever combination, we were home and had survived that early scare. Well done to Maidenhead B for making such a fight of it given that they were heavily outrated and had lost their top board just hours before the match. We were mighty relieved to get the win, and are now 2/2 in Thames Valley division 2. It is, though, far too soon to be dreaming of glory. This eight-team division, with matches home and away, is going to be a long slog.
Kingston B v Maidenhead B, Thames Valley division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 4 November 2024
This was the board 6 game in the match between Kingston B and Maidenhead B in Thames Valley division 2. In many way, it was the pivotal game in the match. We were 2-1 down when it was reaching its conclusion, and Alicia’s opponent appeared to have reasonable drawing chances. But under time pressure she played superbly to convert the small advantage she had nursed for most of the game, drawing admiration from Peter Andrews, whose own board 3 game had just finished and who was watching intently as Alicia’s queen-and-knight mating net closed on her opponent. Her win tied the match at 2-2, and a win and a draw by Peter Hasson and David Rowson on boards 1 and 2 then saw us over the line for a 3.5-2.5 victory. A blessed relief after being 2-0 down earlier in the evening.
Kingston C v Maidenhead D, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 4 November 2024
Maidenhead sent two teams to Kingston on Monday 4 November – their B and D sides – which is no mean feat considering the distance and logistics. They would have managed to get all 10 players over to us, too, but for a late dropout from the B team, which left them one short and meant their D team top board had to move up to the Bs. That default was important in ensuring a Kingston victory in a four-board match.
We had juniors Jaden Mistry and William Lin on boards 1 and 2, and both played forceful games to win against decent opponents. Rob Taylor lost on board 3 and looked at bit disconsolate – “take the positives”, as they say, Rob, the wheel will turn – and Colin Lyle won by default on board 4 to complete a welcome 3-1 TVX victory. Kingston have half a dozen promising juniors, and they are very important to the future of the club.
Surbiton B v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at Fircroft, Surbiton on 30 October 2024
This was a very satisfying evening. We had set out with a clear strategy in this match: to win with White and draw with Black, and that is exactly what we did across all six boards, giving Kingston an emphatic 4.5-1.5 victory against our neighbours and kicking off our Thames Valley division 2 campaign in style.
The first game to finish was on board 4, where Alan Scrimgour – with Black – and Andrew Boughen agreed a draw after 13 moves in the position below. Black has certainly equalised and may even have a small plus, but given the team strategy this was a perfectly satisfactory start.
Board 6, between Surbiton legend Paul Durrant (how good to see him back playing competitive chess) and Jon Eckert, also ended in a draw. Paul was a pawn to the good, but Jon had an initiative which Paul considered sufficient compensation, and peace was declared in the position below.
The critical board 2 game between Will Taylor, with Black, and Joshua Pirgon was also drawn after a dry, technical struggle in the Petrov Defence. We had identified Josh as a dangerous young player likely to turn out for Surbiton on board 2 or 3, and Will was the perfect opponent to steer him away from the sort of tactical melee in which he excels. The final position, with White to play, is stone-cold level.
Half the mission had been accomplished. Now could the Kingston players with the White pieces keep their side of the bargain? Peter Andrews, up against old adversary and Surbiton captain Nick Faulks on board 3, certainly could. He had the upper hand from an early stage and we were confident he would convert, which he did after a couple of hours’ play.
Kingston were now 2.5-1.5 up and we were feeling comfortable. Board 5 was looking good for us, and board 1 perhaps drawish. On board 5, Stephen Lovell was making one of his rare appearances for Kingston. It is always very welcome when he does have time to turn out, because he is a strong player whose rating would most likely be 2000-plus if he played regularly. Here he played an excellent game against the very experienced Graham Alcock. Things were level until Graham made a slip in opening up the position on his 26th move.
That was the match done and dusted, and David Rowson on board 1 then made it the perfect evening by winning against Liam Bayly – these two are also old adversaries – as Liam’s clock started to run down.
Hounslow C v Kingston C, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 28 October 2024
I intend to pass very quickly over this match. We lost 4-0 to a much higher-rated Hounslow team, and you may think anything I say constitutes sour grapes, but in fact the match was played in what we considered unsatisfactory conditions – a noisy bar area which was certainly not an appropriate environment for rated chess.
Kingston captain Jon Eckert decided to proceed with the match – in conditions really only suitable for friendly, beer-fuelled blitz – on the grounds that his players had made the long journey over to Hounslow and were there to play chess. But the Kingston club has made representations to the league about the conditions in which the match was played, and will be seeking assurances that they will not be repeated against a visiting Kingston team.
Wallington 1 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 4 match played at Wallington on 23 October 2024
We always knew this would be tough. Kingston 3 were up against Wallington’s first team, and they had strong players (including a certain Mr P Lalić) on boards 1 to 3. That we ran them so close is testimony to the fighting spirit of the team and bodes well for future battles in Surrey division 4.
David Bickerstaff and Kingston captain Ed Mospan had good wins against lower-rated opposition on boards 4 and 5; Jon Eckert had an excellent draw with Black against the strong Wallington (and indeed Coulsdon) veteran Nick Edwards on board 2; while on board 4 Ye Kwaw miscalculated in a Closed Sicilian and paid the price against Robert Davies.
The board 3 match-up between Alicia Mason and David Jones was a tough battle that was resolved in Jones’s favour after just shy of 60 moves. Alicia played aggressively and was ahead for much of the game, but she made some errors in the endgame – time trouble was inevitably a factor – and let her advantage slip.
Despite that, she had good drawing chances until a misjudgement on her 52nd move. The position below looks tricky for White, with the Black king about to snaffle the white pawns, but with best play it is drawn. As it was, there was no way back from the move which Alicia chose. Such is the precision required in endgames, where every tempo is a matter of life and death.
Board 1 was a battle of the Kingston Peters – Peter Lalić (moonlighting for Wallington) and Peter Roche, a former Kingston chair now happily restored to competitive action after a five-year break. Facing the mighty Lalić is always a challenge, but Peter R gave him a good run for his money in a well-contested game.
Congratulations to Kingston member Ameet Ghasi on his tremendous achievement in gaining the grandmaster title at the age of 37
Earlier this week came the heartening news that IM Ameet Ghasi had secured (subject to Fide ratification) the third and final norm he needed to be awarded the grandmaster title. He got the all-important final norm at a very strong tournament in Fagernes, Norway, where he came joint third with 6.5/9 and recorded a tournament performance of 2609.
It will have pleased Ameet that his good friend, 21-year-old IM Jonah Willow, with whom he has recently trained, secured his first GM norm with 7/9 and a tournament performance of 2630, which gained him joint first place alongside Kazakh grandmaster Rinat Jumabayev, a two-time champion of Kazakhstan and a player with a peak rating above 2650.
Ameet is England’s 42nd GM and the oldest to win the title in active competition (Jonathan Penrose was awarded the title retrospectively in 1993 at the age of 60). It marks a neat double this year, as in August 15-year-old Shreyas Royal became the UK’s youngest ever GM.
The oldest and youngest English GM title winners: Ameet Ghasi and Shreyas Royal at Hastings last Christmas
Ameet would have achieved the GM title decades ago were it not for the fact that he prioritised getting a degree and working full time as an accountant. What is remarkable about his achievement is that he has made it to GM as an amateur player and after taking an eight-year break from the game. His great natural talent was underlined when in 2000, at the age of just 13, he shared first prize in the British Rapidplay Chess Championships. In 2015 he again shared the title, this time with Mark Hebden, and in 2023 he won it outright.
Chess journalist John Saunders dug out his British Chess Magazine report on the 13-year-old Ameet’s remarkable performance back in 2000: “About 400 players took part in the British Rapidplay Championships at Leeds Metropolitan University over the weekend of 18/19 November. There were five grandmasters among the 47 entrants in the Open, which had been won by Michael Adams in 1999. There was a two-way tie for first place between Aaron Summerscale and 13-year-old Ameet Ghasi. This was a sensational performance by the youngster from Birmingham, who plays for Slough second team in the 4NCL. After a steady start, during which he drew with experienced IMs Ferguson, Turner and Williams, he reeled off four successive wins in the final rounds, including the scalps of grandmasters Arkell and Hebden.”
Saunders was delighted by confirmation 24 years later of the Birmingham schoolboy’s prodigious talent. “I’ve been following Ameet’s progress avidly via the [English Chess] Forum these past few days. It was on the 65 bus from Richmond to home, browsing the Forum on my smartphone, that I first read that Ameet had achieved his title. I surprised myself (and my wife Elaine rather more) when I punched the air with pleasure on reading the news. Yesterday I sent Ameet a congratulatory message, mentioning his remarkable feat in defeating Hebden and Arkell on the same day aged 13. That should have counted as a GM norm in itself!”
Ameet in league action for Kingston against IM Peter Large, then at Epsom but now happily a Kingston player
Kingston club president John Foley also expressed his delight at the news in the October Kingston Chess Club Bulletin, publication of which fortuitously occurred on the very day Ameet secured the title. “This is a remarkable achievement for an amateur player who, in the real world, is an internal auditor for an American pharmaceutical company, which leaves him little time to devote to chess,” he wrote. ” It is a tribute to Ameet’s grit and determination that he carried this personal project though to a successful conclusion.”
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Ameet. “It’s like a huge milestone, and one that was challenging enough for me. But I can’t say I’ve been celebrating. It’s more just a relief, to be honest. I’ve been given a tag for many years, since I won the British Rapid event at the age of 13, of being a rapid and blitz specialist who should be a GM. Covid didn’t help, and I’ve always been basically working full time. I also took a long break from chess, so there were reasons for the delay. It’s been frustrating, but It’s good that it’s done now. That’s the main thing.”
Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain
* Thanks to John Saunders, former editor of both British Chess Magazine and Chess, for allowing us to use his photographs of Ameet playing Shreyas Royal at the 2023/24 Hastings Congress and in action for Kingston against Epsom. John also kindly allowed us to quote his BCM report on the British Rapidplay Chess Championships in 2000 at which Ameet first came to national prominence.
** Note to GM-elect Ghasi: Are you by any chance available for the first-team match against Coulsdon on Monday? 7.30pm start and we might be able to go halves on your ticket from Clapham Junction as conditions for playing.
Kingston 2 v South Norwood 1, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 14 October 2024
For the second week in a row, Kingston hosted a team from South Norwood. The result was the same as last week, when we triumphed in the first round of the Lauder Trophy, but this time it was much tighter, with three knife-edge games still being vigorously contested as the three-hour playing session drew to a close. In the end, Kingston emerged as 4.5-2.5 winners, but that relatively comfortable margin by no means tells the whole story.
IM John Hawksworth was making his league debut for Kingston on board 1 – John has returned to chess after a break of more than 30 years – and was up against a tough opponent in Marcus Osborne. The two showed each other a good deal of respect and an early draw was agreed in the position below (with Black to play). A good result for Marcus with Black; a good result for John on his return to competitive action.
Half an hour later Kingston went one up when Julian Way defeated the ever combative Ron Harris on board 3. Black blundered in the position below and ceded White a material advantage that was sufficient to win the game 15 moves later.
Peter Andrews, with Black against South Norwood captain Simon Lea on board 4, pushed Kingston further ahead with what he afterwards called (in the nicest possible way) “a very pleasant crush”.
Peter’s win put Kingston 2.5-0.5 ahead and that soon became 3-1 when Alan Scrimgour and Kaddu Mukasa agreed a draw in the position below after a very solidly played game that had always been level.
David Rowson and South Norwood’s Paul Dupré also drew on board 2, but their game was more of a rollercoaster, and David felt he had let winning chances slip. “I was clearly winning after Paul played some inferior moves and I won a pawn,” David said afterwards, “but in time trouble I got confused and was glad to get a draw when I only had about 10 seconds left.”
That made it 3.5-1.5 and we couldn’t lose the match – always reassuring. But could we win it? We thought initially that it was in the bag, but Peter Roche (back in league chess after a five-year absence) was short of time and running out of good moves on board 6, and, while Alicia Mason (pictured above) was better against South Norwood stalwart Ken Chamberlain on board 7, she was also in a time scramble. The possibility of a drawn match flickered across our collective consciousness.
Peter Roche’s game was a tragedy of sorts. He was completely level after 50 moves and in other circumstances his opponent, Ibrahim Abouchakra, would have been tempted to take a draw. But given the match situation he had to play on and, with Peter very short of time and playing a little too passively (perhaps deeming the draw inevitable), White was able to manoeuvre his king into an active position and forced the blunder which cost Peter the game. A defining moment came on Black’s 51st move, where Peter makes a slight error which allows the White king to penetrate, From there, things rapidly went downhill.
That made it 3.5-2.5, and now it was all down to Alicia Mason, making her Kingston debut with White on board 7. She did not let us down, securing the win with both players running short of time. After the game, Alicia said she felt her opponent’s key error came in the position shown below.
A very satisfying start to the season in this tough division where the Kingston second team will be up against three first teams – South Norwood, Surbiton and Wimbledon – as well as a strong Guildford second team. We will need to perform as we did here in every match to ensure survival in this battlefield.
