Kingston v South Norwood, Lauder Trophy first-round match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 7 October 2024
This was in the end surprisingly easy. South Norwood are canny operators in the Lauder Trophy, a knockout competition played over six boards with a maximum collective ECF rating of 10,500. That rating ceiling levels the playing field – you can’t play six highly rated players; you have to slice and dice – and South Norwood have made good use of their relatively limited resources to win it four times in the trophy’s quarter-century history. But on this occasion, their team was unusually weak, they defaulted a board and Kingston ran out emphatic 5.5-0.5 winners.
With board six already in the bag by default – a (sort of) debut victory for new Kingston junior Anqi Yang – our top two boards went to work to build on the lead. Mike Healey had White against Ron Harris, who as usual blitzed out his moves. But Mike is too strong a player to be intimidated as we lesser mortals are when faced by a very fast player who is always looking to grab the initiative. Ron made the somewhat rash decision to castle queenside in the position below, and Mike launched a ferocious attack that ended in victory after 30 moves.
David Rowson was playing South Norwood stalwart Simon Lea with Black on board 2, and the latter stumbled into a piece-losing tactic as early as the 11th move, in the position shown below.
South Norwood captain Ken Chamberlain held Jon Eckert to a draw on board 4 to save his side from being bagelled 6-0, but that result was enough to take Kingston over the line and confirm the victory. Joe Inch, another promising junior making his debut for the club, then scored an excellent win over the veteran Gengadharan Somupillai with White on board 5, playing confidently in a rook endgame.
Julian Way, with White on board 3 against the resourceful Ibrahim Abouchakra, played the longest and most complicated game of the night. Abouchakra played the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence and was always looking to attack, but Julian kept control of the situation. In the position below he is well on top, but is a little concerned about the exposed position of his king, which might give Black hopes of mate or a perpetual. Julian finds a pragmatic way to win, winning a piece and diverting the Black queen to a defensive role. The engine, which never sees ghosts, opts for something flashier.
Julian’s win, on the stroke of 10.30pm and after a three-hour battle, made it 5.5-0.5, and South Norwood had to face a long and forlorn drive back to south London. The match would have been a different story if they had been at home, where they tend to be much stronger, but that’s the luck of the draw. We now face Wallington in the semi-final, and this time we have to travel to that distant location. An advance party will be setting off immediately.
Dorking 2 v Kingston 4, Surrey division 5 match played at Crossways Community Baptist Church, Dorking on 3 October 2024
Kingston has a new third- and fourth-team captain in the Surrey League – one of the most demanding roles at the club – and Edward “Ed” Mospan started his tenure with an excellent 3.5-2.5 win at Dorking in a closely fought match. The future, as we always knew it would be, is safe in Ed’s hands.
Just getting to Dorking from Kingston is a battle, especially in a week when the Great Dorking Sinkhole had made entering the town by road almost impossible. But Ed’s team managed it and proceeded to play with great aplomb.
David Shalom (pictured above, right, in action at a recent blitz tournament at All Saints church in Kingston) had a terrific success on board 1 against Pablo Telford. The game was very sharp, with David proving that the more mild-mannered a person is the more aggressive they are likely to be at the chessboard. His aggression paid dividends when his opponent went horribly wrong in the position below.
David Bickerstaff also enjoyed an excellent win with Black on board 2, finding a neat tactic in the position below which as good as sealed the deal.
Aziz Sannie was the third Kingston winner on the night, with White on board 5, and Mark Sheridan got a crucial draw with Black on board 6 to ensure that Kingston went home (avoiding the sinkhole of course) with the points.
Rob Taylor lost on board 3 – we accidentally played him out of board order, but Surrey tournament controller Graham Alcock kindly forgave us the early-season slip and told us to sharpen up our act – and Captain Ed lost with Black on board 4, despite having both a time advantage and what he believed was a winning position. “If helpmate was an actual competition,” he remarked on the club’s WhatsApp group, “I would be a grandmaster.” Don’t fret about it Ed. As a person and a captain, you are already at super-GM level!
Streatham v Kingston, Alexander Cup first-round match played at St Thomas’s Church, Streatham, on 1 October 2024
In one sense this was groundhog day. We had played Streatham at exactly this time of the year last season at the same venue and come out on top by 7-3. But there were also significant differences: this was a revamped (and we hope renewed) Kingston team, with no fewer than four debutants – Peter Large, Sam Walker, Ash Stewart and Peter Hasson. We had been working through the summer to reinvigorate the squad – a team that stands still is doomed to fail – and this would be the acid test: would we be Man City, recruiting wisely, or Man United, living on past reputation?
We like to believe it is the former, though the home team fought hard to expose us as the latter. We outrated Streatham on every board and ran out 6.5-3.5 winners, but it was a tense evening nonetheless, and there were some anxious faces in the Kingston support group as 10pm approached and we started to enter time scramble territory.
The first game to finish was Julian Way’s on board 8. He was playing White against promising junior Qixuan Han, and in the following position Julian believed his opponent could have struck a critical blow. The move Julian feared was 20…c5, because of the threat from the Black queen to the pawn on g3 – the f2 pawn is pinned. The engine concurs that Black is better, but it takes a fair amount of manoeuvring to prove the advantage. As it was, Han chose a quieter line and a draw was agreed a few moves later. White has a slight advantage in the final position, but Julian was 20 minutes down on the clock and admitted his mind was still dwelling on the potential for Black of 20…c5.
Kingston’s first win came courtesy of club president John Foley on board 10. His opponent had fallen into a trap in the opening, leading to the loss of a vital pawn, and looked singularly dejected for the rest of the game. This is the game, with comments from John:
There was more good news soon after when David Maycock defeated Streatham veteran Graham Keane’s Pirc Defence on board 2, a tremendous win which showed that David has superb positional sense as well as sharp command of tactics. He has annotated his success in the Games section.
David Maycock (left) enjoyed an impressive win on board 2 against Streatham stalwart Graham Keane
That made it to 2.5-0.5 to Kingston, and things became even better shortly afterwards when Sam Walker – one of Kingston’s new recruits and playing off a handy ECF rating of 2272 – won with Black on board 3. White had had a slight edge for most of the game after playing the English Opening, but the game swung suddenly when Sam landed a neat tactical blow in the position below. Watch how the apparently strong knight on d6 suddenly becomes a key target.
We were now 3.5-0.5 up and surely it was plain sailing. But not so fast: the team’s non-playing captain Alan Scrimgour thought we stood worse on boards 1 and 5, and Peter Andrews was under pressure on board 9. This was by no means over yet.
Sam Walker (left), flanked by Peter Lalić, recorded a vital win on board 3 on his Kingston debut
The next game to finish was on board 6, where another Kingston debutant, Peter Hasson, drew with Antony Hall. This was the key position in which Peter opted for a drawing line:
“I misplayed the opening and ended up in a slightly worse position but kept it in balance,” Peter explained afterwards. “At the end I wanted to stop Black posting a knight on c4, which is a bit awkward so used the exchanging combination starting with 24. Nxa7. If he plays 24… Bxb4, I have Nc6. I was probably slightly better at the end [a draw was a agreed a few moves later], but given the state of the match at the time I felt it simplest to secure the half-point which was close to taking us over the line.”
Peter Andrews, left, does battle with Streatham captain Martin Smith in a pivotal encounter on board 9
A good choice as it turned out, but there were wobbles on the way. On board 5, Ash Stewart was behind on time and, playing on the 10-second increment (the control was 75 minutes per player plus 10 seconds added on every move), went down fighting in a scramble. That made it 4-2. With Peter Large having the worst of it on board 1, the board 9 clash between Peter Andrews and Streatham captain Martin Smith now became crucial.
The Streatham player opted for an interesting line in the Catalan, with 7. Ne5, but Peter played accurately and established a small advantage out of the opening. Then a thunderbolt in the position below:
Fine indeed. Critical in fact, because just as Peter A took a draw another of our four (!) Peters, IM Peter Large, was losing to Phil Makepeace, who had played a impressively forceful game, on board 1. Had both Peters lost, it would have been 4-4 – such are the fine margins in team chess. As it was, we were still ahead by 4.5-3.5, so another point would do it (having lost on board 1, which counts for 10 points in the event of a tie, the higher maths of board count in the event of the match ending 5-5 did not appeal).
We were now confident David Rowson was winning on board 7, though he said later he was nervous of blundering away his advantage in a long-drawn-out endgame. But as so often it was Peter Lalić who took us over the line. His game on board 4 against Matthew Tillett was closely contested, but, with time and the pressure of the match situation no doubt taking their toll, his opponent blundered in the position below in which Black’s bishop on d4 is directing affairs.
That made it a match-winning 5.5-3.5 to Kingston, and David Rowson on board 7 duly added the point that made the win look a little more comfortable than it really was. David’s victory came courtesy of the “nervy endgame” he described, but the game had really been decided by the middlegame sequence shown below.
We got back to Kingston close to midnight, but it was worth it. A potential banana skin – Streatham are a very well-run club with a powerful squad of players – had been sidestepped, and the pursuit of our fourth successive Alexander Cup was successfully launched. Next up, probably in the New Year, dangerous wannabes Epsom. Even now, Epsom President Marcus Gosling – the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of Surrey chess – will be plotting our downfall from his heavily fortified lair somewhere on the North Downs.
Streatham v Kingston, Alexander Cup first-round match played at St Thomas’s Church, Streatham, on 1 October 2024
Kingston ran out 6.5-3.5 winners against a spirited Streatham side, who were outrated on every board, in the tense first-round Alexander Cup match in which this impressive game was played. David Maycock (pictured above left) on board 2, playing his first rated game for four months, carried on where he left off last season with this victory over Streatham’s experienced Graham Keane.
Kingston become inaugural holders of the Alan Marshall Memorial Shield
Don’t get too excited. Not a blow has been struck in anger yet in the new season, which for the Kingston club begins with a tough away trip to Streatham in the first round of the Alexander Cup on Tuesday 1 October. But we do have a new trophy – the Alan Marshall Memorial Shield, awarded by the Thames Valley League to the winners of division 1. The photograph above shows me receiving the newly minted shield from Ealing’s Alastair Johnstone (right), a senior Thames Valley official of long standing.
The shield replaces a rather unassuming little cup which never quite caught the magnitude of winning division 1 and seeing off the likes of Hammersmith, Ealing, Richmond and Wimbledon. The new trophy is a great improvement and honours Alan Marshall, who died last year. Alan was a member of Harrow Chess Club for more than 40 years, long-time secretary of the Thames Valley League, and a dedicated and much-loved servant of the game. Naming the trophy after him is a worthy tribute and will make the winning of division 1 even more coveted.
The Thames Valley League was founded in 1947, and a plaque on the back of the new shield lists (in challengingly small type) all the previous winners. The first winners were the Teddington-based National Physical Laboratory – a club which, as far as I know, no longer exists; it certainly doesn’t field teams in the Thames Valley League. Kingston (then called Kingston and Thames Valley) triumphed in 1948/49 and 1949/50, and we have won the first-division title on four occasions since. We were champions in 2022/23 and 2023/24, and a hat-trick of titles would be tremendous … but we must not tempt fate.
Richmond and Twickenham have been the most successful club overall, but Ealing, Wimbledon and Surbiton have all enjoyed periods of dominance (one of the attractions of local club chess is how the pendulum swings) and Hammersmith have been powerful in recent years, winning the title in 2018/19 and 2021/22.
The National Physical Laboratory is not the only past first-division winner which no longer features in the league. Pinner, Hayes and Harlington, Slough, Acton and Thames TV have also fallen by the wayside. Sic transit gloria mundi. Or do I mean Memento mori? Either way, it happens to many chess clubs. (Put down roots, folks, and don’t rely on one or two overworked organisers, or this too will be your fate.) What fun it must have been to play at Thames TV. More glamorous surely than a trip to Hounslow (nothing personal, Hounslow – we love visiting you!)
The engraver has made an error on the plaque, showing Kingston as winners alongside Hammersmith in 2018/19. But we weren’t even in division 1 that year – we were champions of the second division. Before the pandemic – a watershed in the history of the Kingston club as well as in all our lives – we tended to bounce back and forth between divisions 1 and 2. Only in the past few years have we been able to mount a consistent challenge for the title.
We hope to continue vying for the crown (or, rather, the shield) with the big guns for a while yet, but we know that the glory days will eventually pass and we will find ourselves back in the chasing pack, though we fervently hope to avoid the fate of Slough, Pinner and Thames TV. Gritty long-term survival – we celebrate our 150th anniversary next year – means more than glittering short-term success. Better to be a planet than a meteor.
Peter Lalić scored a perfect 6/6 to win the final blitz of the summer break, with David Rowson and newcomer Zubair Froogh taking second and third
In the absence of his usual high-class adversaries David Maycock, Vladimir Li, Peter Large and Graeme Buckley, Kingston’s third summer blitz proved something of a walk in the park – or perhaps a stroll in the Willoughby Arms garden – for Peter Lalić. He dispatched his six opponents (including your hapless correspondent) with his usual aplomb, his toughest game perhaps being his first, when Homayoon Froogh had excellent drawing chances which he would almost certainly have converted but for the exigencies of time – the control was three minutes with a seven-second increment.
David Rowson put in an excellent performance, scoring 5/6 and losing only to the tournament winner in round 4, and Zubair Froogh (son of Homayoon) came clear third on 4/6. There were a host of players on 3/6, including Alicia Mason, juniors William Lin and Jaden Mistry, and former club chair Peter Roche, making his first appearance at the Willoughby since the pandemic. Peter plans to make a welcome return to league chess next season. Charlie Cooke and Dominic Fogg also put in solid performances to finish on 3/3.
The tournament was played in the beach huts in the Willoughby garden – a brave decision on the part of co-organiser Greg Heath given the autumnal evening temperatures. The real hero of the evening was Malcolm Mistry, who volunteered to do the pairings and run the tournament when it became clear that club secretary David Bickerstaff (stranded somewhere by an unexpected tide) would not make it to the pub in time. Given that Malcolm stepped in at the eleventh hour, he conducted the tournament with exemplary and (since he has now proved his efficiency for future tournaments) dangerous aplomb.
Malcolm was awarded one of the four prizes, with the leading trio taking the other three. The prize fund – a box of chocolates and three high-class chocolate bars – was the edible equivalent of £12.65. Never let it be said that we don’t know how to incentivise our players at Kingston.
Final standings – top three
Peter Lalić 6/6 David Rowson 5/6 Zubair Froogh 4/6
On Saturday 27 July we brought Hnefatafl and giant chess to the centre of Kingston – and the success of the move exceeded our wildest imaginings
Image: The Mayor of Kingston visiting the Kingston Chess Club stand
Kingston Chess Club will celebrate its 150th anniversary in the 2025/26 season, but last Saturday we decided to delve a little deeper into the history of both Kingston and chess. Several members of the club participated in, or attended, the Kingston Saxon Fayre organised by the Kingston Heritage Service. We had two locations – one in the ancient market square and one in the churchyard of All Saints Church. The day exceeded our wildest expectations. For a start, the weather was glorious – the weather gods are more interested in Saxon history than Parisian sports events – and we were extremely busy at both locations from the start at 11am until the end at 5pm.
Alicia Mason on the large chess board and John Foley on the Hnefatafl board
Market Square
The town’s market square was the centre of the Saxon celebrations. Managing our stall was club president John Foley, who arrived early to set up our gazebo. This housed a trestle table on which was a splendidly large demonstration chess set and a game from the Saxon period – Hnefatafl. The name of the club was prominently displayed on two menu stands. All Saints church had kindly provided the trestle table and four chairs as well as several posters to bring attention to the regular chess social activity which takes place at the church on Wednesday mornings.
Our stall sat prominently within a circle of Saxon-themed stalls, including live sheep and goats, a forge, stained glass-making, some nasty-looking weapons, craftwork, Anglo-Saxon clothing, falconry, historic recreations, music and so on. Also attending were organisations closely involved in research into Saxon history and culture, including the Kingston Society, Surrey Archaeology, the Dark Ages Society and Malmesbury Archaeology.
The set of large pieces attracted considerable interest from the public, proving that chess can be a tactile as well as an intellectual experience. So many youngsters queued up to play that Jaden Mistry was tasked to fetch another chess set which we squeezed on to the trestle table. Jaden was there for most of the day and played chess against all-comers.
Jaden Mistry (front right) takes on the Man in the Suit. Alan Scrimgour plays Dominic Fogg on the second board
John took responsibility for demonstrating the game of Hnefatafl. This was necessary for historical authenticity because the Saxons never played chess – they got it from the Vikings. A brief history of the Saxons is required.
John Foley teaching Hnefatafl
When the Romans left Britain in 410 AD, the Saxons started to arrive in numbers from Germany. Kingston Council runs the Saxon Fayre to reclaim its history. Seven Saxon kings were crowned at Kingston, starting with Æthelstan in 925 – the 1100th anniversary of that event next year promises to be a very big event in the royal borough. Æthelstan was followed by Eadred in 946 and Æthelred the Unready, who we like to consider the patron saint of the Kingston club, in 978. Kingston was the capital of England in the 10th century after Æthelstan effected a merger of the kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. Kingston is a crossing point on the Thames between the two kingdoms.
The Saxons mixed with the local Britons, resulting in a hybrid Anglo-Saxon culture. The Anglo-Saxons continued to play Roman games such as Nine Men’s Morris and Ludus Latrunculorum. It was only with the Vikings that new games came along. Lindisfarne Priory was famously sacked by the Vikings in 793 AD – not the best way to introduce a new game.
The first record of chess being played in England dates back to Cnut, King of Denmark and England, who learned to play chess while on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1027. The famous Lewis Chessmen found in the Isle of Lewis in Scotland have been dated to the 11th or 12th century. William the Conqueror was already playing chess in 1060, before the Norman Invasion of 1066 which, according to historians, is the official end of the Anglo-Saxon period.
We may infer that the Anglo-Saxons may only have been playing chess for a decade or so before they were conquered. What is certain is that they were playing the game of northern Europe and Scandinavia spread by the Vikings. This game is known as Hnefatafl, which translates as “fist table” where “fist” represents a “king”, giving us the most common translation: “king’s table”.
According to the chess historian Richard Eales “Chess did not become popular in the 11th and 12th centuries because it came to people who thought it wholly original or had never seen board games before. Rather, chess succeeded by displacing the existing range of games; because it was inherently more complex and interesting or because it was introduced as one aspect of a new dominant culture.”
Never a quiet moment at the stand
For this event, we procured from Regency Chess a beautiful Hnefatafl set of reconstructed pieces made from resin and stone powder, with a historically accurate wooden board. John was surprised to find that the queue for Hnefatafl was just as long, if not longer, than the queue for chess. There was no break for lunch.
Hnefatafl is a tabletop game played by both the Saxons and the Vikings, and can be seen as a precursor of chess. The king sits in the middle of the board and attempts to escape to one of the corners, as the monarch’s guards do battle with the berserkers of the chasing army. It all seems rather insurrectionary and politically provocative for the early medieval period – is the king trying to flee his realm? But it proved a big hit in the marketplace, alongside the falconry, forge and flax spinning, and President Foley is now talking about renaming us Kingston Chess and Hnefatafl Club. After all, he argues, nobody challenges the full name of the All-England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
A Saxon playing with his trusty staff
John did a huge amount of work to ensure the day went well, even dressing up in appropriate Saxon clothing, which may well now become his standard uniform at club matches. At one point he was able to join a passing procession of friars and minstrels without anyone batting an eyelid. With all due respect, a man born a thousand years too late.
Saxon procession from All Saints Church
All Saints churchyard
Stephen Moss managed the giant chess set in the church grounds. His challenge was to find some way to hook the audience. Nobody was going to wait around for Stephen and his able assistant Dominic Fogg to finish their game lumbering over the giant chess table. So he came up with the brilliant idea of borrowing another trestle table from the church and a couple of sets that we use for Wednesday chess. This served as the Beginners Corner, with fascinated children and more especially ultra-competitive dads playing throughout the afternoon.
In the All Saints churchyard
The giant chess set was hampered by the fact that we were four pawns short of a full set – a description which could be applied to the club generally, one wag said unkindly – but we ingeniously got round the problem by wrapping bean tins in plastic bags. At one point we also pressed a young man dressed in chain mail into service as a knight, though the fact that he was smoking was not ideal and it was in some ways a relief when he was captured. One very strong player came by and said he found trying to calculate variations on a giant set where four central pawns were represented by bean tins wrapped in blue and white plastic bags very tough, but who said chess was meant to be easy?
Stephen Moss had been rather doubtful about the day. He was only wearing regular suburban T-shirt and shorts, not the Saxon garb. Even though a cynic, he had to admit it had been splendid. He may have been influenced by the supply of free oat and honey cakes (made using an original Saxon recipe apparently), and by the fact that none of the vigorous battles between small children using swords and shields that were taking place on the lawn where the giant set was located resulted in hospitalisation. He admired the children who stuck with the chess when they could have been plunging vicious-looking plastic weapons into their friends and siblings. A happy day and a peaceful knight.
Credits
Club activators: John Foley, Stephen Moss, Alicia Mason, Malcolm Mistry, Jaden Mistry, Dominic Fogg, Alan Scrimgour, Leila Raivio Club visitors: Vladimir Li, Colin Lyle, David Shalom, John Bussmann, Leon Mellor-Sewell, Ergo Nobel
Peter Lalić says the key to doing well when you give a simul is to bore your opponents to defeat. Here he explains how he approached one he gave recently at Kingston
As part of Kingston’s Summer Programme, a number of our strongest players have kindly consented to give simultaneous displays (“simuls” in chess parlance). First up was IM Ameet Ghasi, who annihilated all-comers, helped by what he felt was an overly generous time differential. For the second simul, given by CM Peter Lalić (pictured above), the clock settings were adjusted and the play was a little less one-sided.
Peter had an hour and a quarter with no increment; his 15 opponents had 20 minutes with a 10-second increment. Peter eventually emerged triumphant, with 14 wins, a single draw and no losses. But there were a few hiccups along the way: Peter only realised late on that he had no increment and had to start running between the three or four boards where his time was in danger of running out.
Several games were won with seconds to spare on his clock. He conceded a draw to Kingston stalwart Ed Mospan, which was a source of great satisfaction – to Ed and the rest of us, if not to Peter. Ed was ecstatic and punched the air in delight, saying he would frame the scoresheet. Peter has an ECF rating close to 2300. Ed’s is more than 700 points lower, so this was a significant achievement.
It is the nice point about simuls that players who do well remember their games forever. I was in touch recently with a 67-year-old club player now retired from over-the-board chess. He sent me a game he had played almost 50 years ago against Britain’s first GM, Tony Miles. My correspondent hadn’t won or even drawn the game, but he had played well and Miles had congratulated him. That memory burned bright half a century later.
Peter takes such exhibitions very seriously and, to my surprise, said afterwards that he was “more proud of this performance than of any of my classical games, especially because I played with the black pieces and had no increment”. I asked him to explain why it mattered so much to him. “I thought I had an increment, but I was watching one of the kids and when I watched the clock I panicked because I realised I didn’t have an increment and all of a sudden I thought ‘I can lose half of these on time’. I had only minutes left on some of them., and when I managed to be unbeaten it was a great relief.”
Peter had opted to play Black in all the games, and says his strategy was to bore his opponents to defeat. He played 1…d6 in all games, regardless of White’s opening move, and says that he was generally able to control the pawn structure which ensued. Eighty per cent of the games had the pawn structure shown in the first diagram below; a third of the games had the structure shown in the second diagram, with queens exchanged (a Lalić speciality); in a third of the games White advanced a pawn to d5 (diagram 3), and in a fifth of the games Black was able to construct the pawn chain shown in diagram 4.
“I was able to race around the room on the opening moves because I was playing the same thing,” Peter explains. “They are the equivalent of pre-moves. Even after five moves, 33 per cent of my games had the same position (see diagram 2 above). It’s the Lalić system! I’m sure that if I’d played anything that was less systematic I would have dropped a couple of losses. It could even have been worse than that because if you have a couple of difficult games there can be a domino effect. I could easily have scored only 60 per cent with a different opening. It’s the fact that the games are so boring that excites me!”
Peter Lalić working the room at his simul at the Willoughby Arms, He ended with 14 wins, a draw and no losses
Peter says calculation is difficult in a simul and it’s easy to lose the thread of a game. He had asked his opponents to keep score and says he sometimes had to remind himself what had been played by sneaking a look at their scoresheets – and this is a player with a phenomenal memory! “That’s why I had to play on autopilot,” he says. “I wanted to avoid chaos, and my study of these opening structures and my ability to force my opponents on to my territory meant I had virtually no chaos.”
He says the only player who brought him close to the anarchy he was seeking to avoid was John Bussmann, as shown in the game below. ” It’s no coincidence that he, being the most highly rated player, was the only one to create chaos,” says Peter. “He knew good simul technique and shows what a challenger should do.”
Ed Mospan was justifiably proud of the game he played against Peter and deserves his framed scoresheet:
Peter notes the two players’ accuracy in this game was down at 91 per cent. In the game against Emma Buckley, his accuracy level was 99 per cent! Emma’s accuracy level was a more than creditable 93 per cent, she battled on for 64 moves, and in the course of the game set this nice trap:
Emma played 25. c5 here, which appears to invite Kc3. The latter would lose the knight to b4 – easy to overlook in a simul. Peter dodged the bullet and went on to win the endgame. Emma is Peter’s half-sister, which made the competition all the more intense; on move 22 she told Peter the position was “dead drawn” – familial trash talking!
Generally Peter’s “boring is beautiful” strategy worked. “I tried to make sure there was nothing going on,” he says, “and the games hinged on one or two static weaknesses in my opponents’ positions.” This is often what happens in simuls: the master-level player isn’t necessarily looking to blow you away over the board, but instead to gain a technical advantage and then squeeze. So when you’re next facing a superstar in a simul, be ready to trade blows and create as much chaos as possible. Even if you lose you will have a lot of fun and, who knows, you might even win.
Peter makes the point that Dutch grandmaster and acclaimed writer and aphorist Jan Hein Donner was on to this more than half a century ago. “Play aggressively,” Donner advised. “Ninety-five percent of all victims in simultaneous displays usually owe their defeat to their own passivity. The simul-giver lacks the time to work out variations, but doing so is more important when defending than in an attack. On psychological grounds, too, aggressively approaching the simul-giver is a sound and very effective strategy.”
Peter is now looking forward to the simuls which will be given at Kingston by his friends and team-mates Vladimir Li and David Maycock in the next month. It would surely be too cynical to suggest that he is offering this advice to their potential opponents in order to make life harder for them. Peter just doesn’t think in that Gore Vidal-type way. (Vidal’s famous quip was “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”) At Kingston we value togetherness, and such oneupmanship simply doesn’t enter our leading players’ calculations. At least I don’t think it does….
Forty years ago, Kingston player Mike Tebb died at the board while playing for Kingston. It took a surprise visit from his widow Kate to recall that dreadful night – and to remind those who knew him of what was lost
A couple of weeks ago a woman dropped by at a chess mentoring session for under-11s which Kingston president John Foley and I were running at a local library. She had a pile of old chess books, mostly dating from the 1970s, so ancient they used descriptive notation. But they had clearly been carefully chosen and included Nimzovich’s My System and other classic texts which suggested the owner has been a discriminating book buyer and serious player.
As we talked to our visitor, whose name was Kate Tebb, an extraordinary story emerged. Her husband Mike Tebb (pictured above with his son in the year of his death) had played for Hampton in the 1970s, Kingston in the 1980s and also represented Surrey. John Foley did some research later and found old Surrey team lists which showed him keeping very respectable company in high-level county championship matches, and in the starting line-up for the Surrey Congress in the summer of 1976 his grade is given as 169. He was clearly a very capable player.
Kate told us that Mike had died from cardiac arrest at the board while playing for Kingston in November 1984. She had kept his books for 40 years and now wanted to donate them to the club. What was remarkable was that John Foley, who has been part of the Kingston club for almost 30 years, had never heard a word about this dramatic and appalling night when a routine home match against Slough had ended in tragedy. I have been associated with Kingston for 20 years and had certainly never heard it spoken of. Somehow this tragic event had been hidden away, too grim to contemplate or even recall. Now, on the 40th anniversary of Mike’s death and prompted by Kate Tebb’s visit and her donation of Mike’s beloved chess books, we want to properly remember him.
We turned to Peter Roche, who is a life member of Kingston and has given more than 50 years of dedicated service to the club, and asked him what he remembered about Mike Tebb. Not only did he remember him well and very fondly, but he had been playing alongside him on that fateful night in November 1984. Here are his recollections, spurred by Kate’s visit but perhaps suppressed for all these decades because he felt the remembrance so painful.
“Yes I remember Mike Tebb very well,” says Peter. “He joined Kingston from Hampton and quickly became a popular and well-regarded member. He played mainly in the first team and was very dependable. He helped arrange the summer programme (he was a devotee of five-minute chess). I am sure he shared the captaincy duties. I was present when Mike collapsed. We were playing Slough at Kingston and much to my surprise we had to start without him (he being very reliable). After about 20 minutes he rushed in [the match was being played at the now demolished Quaker Hall in central Kingston] with a hurried apology. He had thought the match was at Slough, where he worked. He started his game. Suddenly there was a commotion as he collapsed at the table.
“Immediately people sprang into action. One of the Slough players attempted resuscitation. We roused the caretaker to get an ambulance and from what I remember it came very quickly. There was a meeting in the next room and some senior police officers came to see if they could help. We contacted his wife to warn her that she must go to the hospital immediately. She had a young family so she had to arrange for them to be looked after.
“John Adams, a member of the club though not playing that evening, was a good friend of Mike’s, and he rang to tell me that Mike had passed away and asked what had happened, so I gave the description I have set out here. A number of us including Chris Clegg, James Pattle and Richard Harris, and I think Chris Carr attended the funeral. Your enquiry has prompted a very sad memory, though I should say that I have often thought over the years about the catastrophe and what a terrible waste of a fine life it was.”
Peter’s recollection of the evening chimed with what Kate had told us. Mike had been feeling slightly fluey a couple of days earlier, and an inquest suggested this had made him susceptible to cardiac arrest. The coroner’s report gave the cause of death as viral myocarditis, which can develop when the flu virus (on very rare occasions) attacks the heart muscle. He had played squash on the day of the Slough match and this, plus the need to rush to Kingston when he discovered the match was not being played in Slough, may have increased the susceptibility, though Kate says this is a moot point.
She says Mike was effervescent, exuberant, enthusiastic, ebullient – “all the E words!”, as Kate puts it. He was clearly dynamic: who else would play a game of squash so soon after feeling fluey? This assessment of Mike’s personality is borne out by Kingston stalwart (and current first-team Thames Valley captain) David Rowson’s recollections of him.
“It is very touching that Kate Tebb brought the books,” says David. “I didn’t know Mike very well as I went to work in Spain in 1981, but I still remember him quite distinctly as a very warm and sociable character with a great sense of humour. In particular I remember that when I returned to the club in the summer after my first year in Spain he joked about how annoying it was that I followed every move with a shout of ‘Ole!’ ” Kate says David Rowson’s anecdote is “absolutely typical of Mike’s humour”.
A few days after that first meeting, at my suggestion Kate visited the small group of us who meet every Wednesday morning to play some friendly social chess at All Saints Church next to Kingston Market Place. Kate talked with Peter Roche for the first time in many years and also gave me a batch of Mike old scoresheets, from which I have extracted the game shown later in this article. The other document she brought was a set of testimonials to Mike she had gathered after his death, and again what comes across is his exuberance and joie de vivre – qualities which make his loss all the more poignant and painful.
“I was really shaken at the dreadful news of Mike’s death,” wrote Hampton player David Mabbs. “Unusually for a chess player, Mike always found time to take an interest in other players as people, He wasn’t one of the intense or introverted players, as are so many of us. He was friendly, gentlemanly and good-humoured. He was also a good player and enjoyed his chess, and he will be greatly missed by his chess counterparts.”
Malcolm Groom, another former Kingston stalwart who now turns out for neighbouring club Surbiton, wrote: “Mike was one of those rare people who are somehow able to inject a sense of good humour and fun into any group of people. He even made turning up on a dark winter’s night after a hard day at the office in order to spend three-and-a-half hours playing chess enjoyable (well almost). I shall miss him very much.”
The then Kingston chair Bill Waterton, in a letter of condolence to Kate, referred to Mike’s “exuberant personality”, and that seems to have been the key to his character. As David Mabbs says, some chess players can be myopic and mean-spirited, soulless and self-obsessed. Mike was the opposite: full of energy and delighting in the game for its own sake, which perhaps explains his love of blitz chess.
Now we have firmly put Mike back in the club’s collective memory bank, we shall continue to celebrate his life and will set up a blitz tournament in his memory. Here are two games – both played at classical time controls – which show how good and resourceful a player Mike was. The first game, a victory in 1970 over the very strong Stephen Berry (who later became a Fide master), is taken from John Saunders’ collection on BritBase. The second I selected from the pile of scoresheets handed to me by Kate Tebb. The succinct annotations in the latter game, written in pen in a small, neat hand on the scoresheet, are Mike Tebb’s own.
The opening blitz tournament of the summer was a cracker, with Peter Large, Vladimir Li and Peter Lalić tie-ing on 4/5
They say quality will out, and that was certainly the case at the first Kingston Blitz tournament of the summer at the Willoughby Arms. The three titled players in the field – FM Vladimir Li, CM Peter Lalić and IM Peter Large (pictured above, left to right) – could in the end not be separated, each finishing on 4.5.
The three took games off each other: Vladimir beat Peter Large in an exciting duel; Peter Lalić was at his mesmerising best in overcoming Vladimir; and in the final round Peter Large toppled his namesake, who was leading the tournament at that point, with a beautifully played game (complete with neat exchange sac) as Black.
Expertly organised by Kingston’s new secretary, David Bickerstaff, the event included a host of good performances from lesser-ranked players: Dominic Fogg’s 3/5 demonstrated his great promise; Robin Kerremans. following on from his fine performance at the London Clubs Championship the previous week, again showed that he is ludicrously underrated; and new member Ye Kwaw and welcome returner Aziz Sanni also performed well.
Further down the list Mark Sheridan, Homayoom Froogh (another newbie), Alicia Mason (back from the US) and Jaden Mistry also had their moments, and it was great to see some of the club’s new juniors getting involved against expert players. An excellent event played in the garden of the Willoughby in the warmest weather of the summer so far. Well played everyone and thanks to David for organising so brilliantly. The second summer Blitz is scheduled for Monday 15 July.
Final standings – top 7
Peter Large 4/5 Vladimir Li 4/5 Peter Lalić 4/5 Dominic Fogg 3/5 Robin Kerremans 3/5 Aziz Sannie 3/5
