Kingston B v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 6 October 2025

On Monday 6 October Kingston B (nominally the home team) and Kingston A did battle again in Thames Valley League division 1. Clearly shaken by their relatively narrow 4.5-1.5 win in the first encounter, Kingston A felt impelled to draft in yet another titled player, Supratit Banerjee, to their team, which already contained two international masters and one Fide master. Plucky Kingston B were strengthened by the welcome additions of Peter Hasson and FM Julian Way.

For the second week running I found myself playing an international master, this time on board 5. Wishing to avoid being bested by John Hawksworth’s positional skills, I chose a double-edged line of the Old Indian. It turned out that both of us were improvising from move 6, and I managed to get a promising position. However, a few moves later John made a tactical offer of a draw, which I cravenly accepted, fearing that for the second week running I might throw away a good position against a very strong player.

Shortly afterwards the board 6 players also agreed to share the point. The opening had been a Ruy Lopez, Morphy Defence, and Alan Scrimgour probably had some advantage over Jasper Tambini in the final position, though there was still plenty of play. So Kingston B were all square with Kingston A after the first two results, but unfortunately for the Bs there would be no further early draws on the remaining boards.

The next game to finish was the battle of the FMs on board 2. Julian Way chose the Rossolimo Variation against David Maycock’s Sicilian Defence, and the game was level during a lengthy manoeuvring phase. This was the crucial position:

Kingston B were now a game down. On board 1 there was another close contest in a Sicilian. Eventually Supratit’s queenside pawn majority overcame Peter Hasson’s resistance, as Black could only prevent White promoting to a queen by giving up material.

This result meant that Kingston A were sure of another victory unless the remaining two games went the B team’s way. The board 4 game might be described as relatively uneventful, but IM Peter Large succeeded in making his pieces more active than John Foley’s, and when White made a slight mis-step with his rook Black forced the win of the a pawn, which eventually moved on to a7, leaving John with no choice but to give up a piece for it. Thus Kingston A, 4-1 ahead, were assured of victory.

The last game to finish, between two of the four Peters involved in the match, was closely fought and went down to a time scramble. Peter Andrews played yet another Sicilian Defence and Peter Lalić chose to counter it with an aggressive form of the Closed Variation, boldly advancing his kingside pawns. In this position he sacrificed a pawn to force Black to move his king:

Thus the match ended in an anticipated, but I think not entirely easy, victory for the extremely strong A team, by a margin of 5-1. The B team wish them success in their task of achieving a fourth straight Thames Valley League title. Our own goal is more modest, to see if we can avoid relegation back to the second division. At least we have now got our matches against the strongest squad in the league out of the way.

David Rowson is Kingston B captain in Thames Valley League division 1