The second of an occasional series in which Kingston members and friends of the club choose the player who has most inspired them. Illustration by Theo Esposito Bennett

Like many partially prepared exam students and politicians, my entry into this series on favourite players answers the question I choose to answer, rather than the one suggested by the examiner. As a child (in chess terms) of the early 1970s, I admired Bobby Fischer, who seemed to play the best and most exciting games, and broke the apparent monopoly of the eastern bloc on top-level chess. But he was not the player, or rather writer, who most strongly influenced my development.

Svetozar Gligorić was born in Belgrade in what had recently become Yugoslavia in 1923. He learned to play chess at the age of about 11 from a boarder in his mother’s house.  The family was poor, and his mother disapproved of chess, so he carved his first set with a razor blade out of pieces of cork. During the second world war he joined the Yugoslav partisan army, and ended the war – when he was still only 22 – with the rank of captain and two medals. 

He became a journalist, both as a writer, in Serbo-Croat and later in English, and as a broadcaster for Radio Belgrade. Despite his professional career, he was able to become a grandmaster in 1951. He won the Yugoslav championship on 12 occasions, and reached the Candidates tournaments in 1953, 1959 and 1968. Although he progressed no further in world championship cycles, he did have some individual successes against the elite: +4 -6 =8 v Fischer, for example, and +6 -8 =28 against Vasily Smyslov, a near contemporary. Gligorić was known for sportsmanship, sympathy and integrity. He was a rare player able to have good relations with Fischer, perhaps after showing kindness towards the raw 16-year-old at his first Candidates in 1959, and in 2019 Fide named its fair play award after him. He died in 2012 in Belgrade, aged 89.   

How did Gligoric influence my chess? In my early teens, I had very few chess books, and none on openings. So unsurprisingly, although I had been primary school champion of Southampton at the age of eight, I improved very slowly by today’s standards.  Hampshire was still in the Southern Counties Chess Union in the early 1970s (it had moved to the West of England Chess Union by 1974). Rather strangely, it happened that the 1971 SCCU championships were held in Bournemouth, a remote corner of the southern counties, which enabled me to tie for the under-14 championship with a rating of not much over 1600 in modern terms; all the far stronger London juniors of the same age were presumably deterred by travel distance and accommodation costs. 

My prize was Gligorić’s Selected Chess Masterpieces, a collection of his monthly articles for the American periodical Chess Review (his name is spelt Gligorich in the book, but I prefer to use the more common spelling). With very few chess books to read, I devoured this new one, and soon realised that it was an unusual and remarkable book.

Gligorić was noted for his own deep expertise in the King’s Indian Defence, but he brought the same thoroughness to the opening phase of all the games he presented.  He would comment on individual moves by reference to multiple games played in other recent tournaments, which for me at that age was a more effective way of learning mainstream lines than seeing a specialist opening book with tabulated variations; my memory followed the logic of the games. 

Sometimes these annotations were taken to extremes; he gave 1. e4 an exclamation mark in Larsen-Portisch, Porech 1968, commenting: ”In the middle stage of the match, Larsen came to the conclusion that he could not do much against Portisch’s excellent preparations for the Queen’s Gambit. So here he starts with the king pawn once more in the most important game of the match, even though the open systems are not his forte”. And he commented extensively on each of White’s first five moves in a game starting 1. e4 e5  2. Nc3 Nc6  3. Bc4 Nf6  4. d3 Na5  5. Nge2 Nxc4. In the very next game in the book, Keres-Schmid, Bamberg 1968, he gave Keres, who normally played 1. e4, an exclamation mark for 1. d4, to avoid Lothar Schmid’s French defence. I remember thinking that even I could earn an exclamation mark or two if that was the standard.

This was the peak period for the poisoned pawn variation in the Najdorf Sicilian. Juniors like me were imitating Fischer and playing it with either colour.  So I very much enjoyed the following two games from the book, played around six months apart. In the first game, Fischer, who had already won the tournament, came unstuck against Efim Geller, in a game played in Monte Carlo in 1967.

A few months later, IM Rajko Bogdanovic repeated the line for Black against Mikhail Tal, who was ready with an improvement.

There was real excitement for me – we might nowadays call it a sense of jeopardy – in the idea that in these very sharp positions the evaluation was unclear (in the days before computers, of course), and new discoveries could be made which would change the result. But what if Black did not go for the poisoned pawn? Gligorić showed a brilliancy in ostensibly a quieter line.

Here is the 1959 Candidates game cited by Gligorić.  Fischer was only 16 at the time, but even so, it confirms that Gligorić was no mug. Characteristically, he was too modest to mention in Selected Chess Masterpieces that he had won the game, although g4 would have been less likely to become part of the canon had he not done so.

Those sorts of games appealed greatly to me.  So when in May 1974, in a tournament at Bournemouth, by now rated about 1850, I sat down opposite Marshall Thompson, then the champion of Hampshire, rated 2180 having been 2200 for several years, I knew what to do when he played down the Parma-Bogdanovic line.

That was the most exciting game I had ever played. The time limit was 42 moves in 1¾ hours, and I recorded that at the end my opponent had half a minute remaining for seven moves, while I had less than 10 minutes. That was time trouble by my standards at that age, and I recall in my excitement banging the coffee cup at my right hand rather than the clock at my left, to the mirth of the crowd of spectators which had gathered round the board.  

The round was played in the morning, and as a hungry teenager I raced off to get some lunch before the afternoon round. When I arrived back in the tournament hall half an hour later, I found Thompson still analysing the game with the remaining spectators.  The rest was anti-climax. In the afternoon, I played a boring draw on the black side of an English with a 1750-rated player. And it was infuriating that Thompson’s grade had just slipped below 200 (in old money, 2200 now). It was nearly six years before I managed to beat someone of that strength, and by then I was 2100 myself so there was not the same underdog triumph about it. 

Unfortunately, by the mid-1970s, perhaps influenced by a crushing win by Spassky against Fischer in the 1972 match, fewer players chose the Najdorf with Black, and players on the White side were playing less critical lines against it. In more humdrum lines the Gligorić book was less help, and my progress stalled.  But its impact at a time when I was starting to play stronger adult opposition was unforgettable.

Q&A with Epsom Chess Club’s president Marcus Gosling (pictured above). Kingston’s Stephen Moss, Marcus’s friend and arch-foe in the fight for Surrey club honours, asks the questions

Kingston play in two local leagues – Surrey and Thames Valley. All our rivals in division 1 of each league are dangerous, but some are more dangerous than others. Epsom are more dangerous than most, and in the 2023/24 season they pipped us to the Surrey League title. Their triumph was remarkable in several ways. They had been promoted from division 2 the previous season, so won it at the first attempt. But even more startling is the fact that the club has only existed in its modern form for six years. It was refounded in 2018 by the then 23-year-old Marcus Gosling , the old Epsom club having foundered (like many other clubs) decades previously. In this Q&A, I ask Marcus how he managed not just to get Epsom up and running again, but to turn it so quickly into a powerhouse of Surrey chess.

Q: Cast your mind back to 2018, Marcus. Why did you decide to refound Epsom Chess Club and what did you hope to achieve?

I have always believed I am a creative person, but I probably lack the raw talent, and in truth probably the self-discipline, to be really competent in a particular field. I am always adamant to do things my own way, and that attribute is mainly a curse, but it can also be a blessing. A person’s greatest strength and biggest weakness are rarely far apart. In a competitive sense, my ambition in 2018 was for Epsom to reach Division 1 of the Surrey League within five years. This seemed laughably unlikely, not least after finishing next-to-last in our first season in Division 4.

Q: I believe the old Epsom club had originally been founded in 1929. How long did it exist, what had it achieved, and when and why did it fold?

That’s right. Here, I must pay tribute to the late Surrey League archivist Martin Cath, who was instrumental in helping me delve a little into the history of the original Epsom club, which existed from 1929-67. These records actually dated back to 1931, and it was only thanks to Streatham & Brixton Chess Club sending us a local newspaper cutting from December 1929, heralding the arrival of a new club in Epsom, that we actually managed to trace the club back to source.

The original Epsom club was led almost throughout by a legend of Surrey chess, Hector Marshall. He was quite a strong player by all accounts and was still playing despite failing eyesight until shortly before his death in 2000. I managed to get in touch with his granddaughter, who was pleased to hear that we had reformed. By an unusual twist of fate, the flat where I am living at the moment was built on the site of a large house formerly owned by Hector Marshall. When I looked through the plans before moving in, I could hardly believe my eyes. The only regret is that we don’t have a picture of Hector to hang up somewhere prominent at the club.

It doesn’t sound as though the original Epsom club won much in the way of silverware, only thrice winning the “Waechter Shield” (which may have been the third or perhaps fourth tier of the Surrey League at the time, and is now the trophy awarded to the winners of the Surrey Border League). We certainly never won the Surrey Trophy [the Surrey Div 1 title], our best finish being third in the top tier, or the Alexander Cup, where our best effort was losing to Battersea in the final in 1939.

As far as I am aware, our downfall began when a new chess club in Stoneleigh entered the fray in the 1960s, masterminded by “an ambitious and flamboyant man with a penchant for self-promotion”. Hmm, sounds familiar…

Q: Was there a community of chess players in Epsom eager for the club to be reformed, or were you taking a shot in the dark?

I had no idea, but I figured that there must be dormant chess players lurking somewhere. There are plenty of chess aficionados, and surely Epsom was no exception. The initial plan was to rely on a mixture of loanees from other clubs and home-grown players to get the club off the ground, before gathering enough momentum to stand on our own two feet. Within a couple of seasons, we were able to wean ourselves off the multi-club players and greatly expand our number of teams. We recommended this approach to Chessington Chess Club when their club was launched during the pandemic, and that has brought them moderate success too.

Q: I believe there you have one member who played for the old Epsom club. He must be very happy to see the club back in business.

Yes, that man is Mike Wickham, who is an absolute delight. Mike played briefly for the original club in the 1960s when it met at the Cricketers pub on the fringes of Epsom, before heading off to university. By the time he’d completed his degree, the club had folded. A mere 52 years later (surely some kind of record), Mike attended our reformation celebration at the Rising Sun pub and played in our first match in 2018 against Dorking. I am pleased to say that Mike has been instrumental in our rise as a club, overseeing our monthly blitz events as tournament controller, captaining various league teams, representing his county, attending the occasional congress and generally being as reliable and supportive a member as any club could hope for.

Q: You could have joined another club and happily played there. Why did you feel the need to start (or perhaps restart) a new club?

After returning from Russia [Marcus speaks and teaches Russian] a second time in 2017, I swiftly joined Surbiton Chess Club on the recommendation of Chris Briscoe, who had run the lunchtime chess club at my school. Surbiton are a fantastic entity, led by the inspirational Paul Durrant and supported by a host of other aficionados. I consider the one season I played for them in 2017-18 to have been an important step, as I was able to observe from the backbenches how a successful chess club is run. Midway through that season, the thought of setting up a new club was already germinating in my mind.

Q: Did you find other local chess clubs unsatisfactory in some way? Best not to name names – we want to keep on friendly terms with all our rivals! But was there really no other Surrey club that suited you?

Surbiton were great, but I would say that almost half the clubs in the Surrey League are poorly run and deeply unappealing to potential newcomers. I could probably go on a long rant here, so here is a short one instead.

Without wishing to appear ageist, many clubs, both in Surrey and around the UK, are in desperate need of a fresh perspective. Many seem to be run by middle-aged men, probably ex-bank clerk types, Luddites trapped in loveless marriages, lacking liveliness, libido and enough holes on their belts, angry at what they believe the world owes them. They use chess as a counterbalance – a way of taking out their frustration and disdain for everyone and everything. Running a chess club is, for them, a power trip rather than a community project and God forbid that anyone should try to challenge them. Everything they touch turns to ice. Now imagine a twentysomething woman in this environment. How long before she turns around and walks straight back out the door? This sounds harsh I know, and I am playfully exaggerating, but I really do think there are clubs who exist like this.

Q: What were your founding principles?

To be the polar opposite of what I have mentioned above. It is very important to me that Epsom Chess Club is a hospitable place with community spirit at its very essence. When a new player rocks up, we try to welcome them with open arms.

Q: What makes a good chess club?

That is certainly a harder question. I think it has to be something to do with meeting the needs of all members and this is certainly an area that Epsom can improve. Some clubs are very competition-orientated with no social element, whilst others are effectively social clubs who happen to play chess. The key is finding a good balance and regularly consulting members to hear what they have to say.

Q: Your Surrey League success has, I think it’s fair to say, been founded on having three IMs – Peter Large, Graeme Buckley and Susan Lalić – on boards 1, 2 and 3. Did you go out of your way to recruit what might be called these “bedrock players”?

It was quite funny when IM Peter Large walked into the club one day, modestly introducing himself and telling us he “played a bit online”. After challenging him to a handful of games and losing all of them, I dared to ask who was the strongest player he had faced in a tournament. “I drew with Smyslov once” was the reply. Safe to say we had a talent on our hands and it wasn’t long before the unfortunate board ones in the Surrey fourth division were finding that out too.

Graeme and Susan are more recent acquisitions, who were perhaps attracted to the story behind our revived club and wanted to be part of it. I would imagine they also saw Peter in our ranks and realised we had at least one player who would give them both a decent game. The trouble is bridging the gap between the IMs and the mere mortals, although with Peter leaving the club soon there may not be a gap to bridge.

Q: You also lured former British champion Peter Lee, who is now 80 years old, back into chess after a 50-year gap in competitive play. How did you manage that?

That was mainly down to Graeme and Susan, who know Peter quite well and live close to where he does. Many thanks to them for their efforts, not least with providing the former British champion (of both bridge and chess) with a lift to matches. As I mentioned previously, strength tends to attract strength, so having three well-known top-class players at Epsom probably had some positive effect.

I am proud that Epsom Chess Club has been able to welcome Peter and reignite his passion to compete as part of a team. He even played on top board for the Surrey Open team earlier in the season, albeit off a Fide rating dating from the early 1970s. For an octogenarian, this is nothing short of magnificent.

Q: Was your intention to grow through proactive recruitment or organically – waiting for players to come through the door?

With the exception of Peter Large, strong players rarely just walk through the door of any club. I reckon in another life I could have been a football scout – part of the fun of running a club is sourcing talent. This is helped by the fact that I am just looking for chess enthusiasts, not necessarily master-level players.

Personally, I enjoy playing in tournaments outside of the Surrey League umbrella, so get to meet quite a few players that way. In the first round of one Kensington Rapidplay event, I was paired with the brilliantly shirted and effervescent GM Stuart Conquest. The game quickly went south, but of course I did not pass up the opportunity to try to reel him in. A bit of a long shot, given that I think he lives somewhere near Heathrow airport (and was probably tempted to jump on a plane following our conversation, or even in front of it), but I would like to think I was playing the long game. Not on the board though of course.

Q: What marketing methods did you use?

A mixture of 21st- and 20th-century methods. It is of paramount importance for a modern chess club to have a strong online presence, including good SEO (search engine optimisation) and this is an area I was keen to get on top of back in 2018. Thanks to another keen member, Anthony Hunter, our website has recently been revamped, and we also have an active Twitter/X feed and a Facebook page. That said, we need to start uploading match reports like Kingston do. Maybe setting up TikTok and Instagram pages will be next.

But equally, we have relied a little on printed flyers and strategically placed banners outside the club on match nights, as well as the occasional public event. Last summer, we set up a few boards in Epsom town centre, but that wasn’t particularly successful. However, one of our most active and supportive members, David Flewellen, was recruited at a sort of village fête.

Q: What innovations did you introduce? I recall your club videos and also your electronic scoreboard at matches. Were you always determined to do things differently?

We can certainly do more in this area, but for sure I am determined for Epsom to remain a lively and innovative club. I always imagine myself as a new member stepping through the door for the first time – would I see a vibrant group of people or a glorified morgue? When I enter the club, would I be warmly greeted and introduced to other members or just ignored? From next season, we hope to bring back a projector screen and also a “welcome board” by the front door, explaining in writing what is going on at the club that night. I also want to introduce club merchandise for extra publicity, which is something that London clubs such as Battersea and Hammersmith do well. Maybe we could even shell out on the odd DGT board.

Q: With so many very strong players, where does that leave the rest? How does a club satisfy the needs of both the elite player and the less strong player? How can a club appeal successfully to IMs, 2000-strength players and 1500-strength players. Can it be one club, or is it a club with two or even three layers which in reality rarely intersect?

In all honesty, that is something Epsom is yet to master and we have paid the penalty by losing one of our IMs [Peter Large] and a few of our beginner-level members. I think Kingston are the gold standard in the Surrey League in this area, in the sense that top players are catered for with invitational events and all other members can attend lectures on a fairly regular basis. Our most successful whole-club events have been our blitz tournaments and Christmas meals, which bring together the whole club. A big thank you to Mike Wickham and Susan Lalić (and not forgetting her husband Graeme Buckley), who have been in charge of those events.

Q: Where do juniors fit in the club? I know you have a junior club and teach chess yourself. Are you satisfied with the club’s junior offering – something which at Kingston we are still striving to get right. Do you feel you have cracked the puzzle?

From unveiling a new Epsom Junior Chess Club with barely a dozen children in October 2019, we now have over 70 pupils attending our junior sessions, which I run with support from our punctilious club secretary David Flewellen and upcoming teenager Maya Keen on Thursday evenings. Both classes have been fully booked every term since the pandemic, and there are even more pupils on the waiting list. I am constantly staggered by the amount of interest, and without wishing to toot my own bugle I am immensely proud of this – it is a very pleasing endorsement of my chess teaching.

One thing I should mention is that I have always run the junior club independently, ie as a business opportunity, and parents pay me directly. I then feed the strongest juniors into the adult club setup (without saturating it). Currently we have around half a dozen children regularly competing in the Surrey League and doing very well. All the adults are immensely supportive of the juniors who play alongside them. This is different to at many clubs, where the junior wing is more closely tied to the adult club and is used as a money-making scheme for it, while the person in charge of teaching the kids is often an underappreciated volunteer.

I have enjoyed writing chess books for children too – probably the best ones I have written are Rambunctious Rooks and Quixotic Queens and Lunar Octopuses Can’t Play Chess.

Q: You have been successful at attracting women players. How have you achieved that?

Yes, I think we have more female players than the rest of the league combined. Just treat women with respect, involve them fully in club events, listen to what they have to say, meet at a comfortable venue in a well-lit area and they are more likely to enjoy coming along regularly. We are pleased that our club treasurer and diversity officer, Lucy Emery, has been asked to join the Surrey League board – a long overdue decision – and I am satisfied that positive steps are being taken to diversify the decision-makers in the SCCA.

Q: What can chess clubs – and the sport generally – do to become more female friendly?

Shut down the bigots more effectively. Unless misogynistic and abusive players and fans are identified and excluded, progress will remain slow and insignificant.

Q: How has running the club affected your own chess? My sense is that you haven’t progressed quite as much as you would have done if you were just concentrating on your own game.

It is certainly true that my own game stagnated some time ago, although that is in part due to teaching chess for a living. After teaching the beloved game five days a week, studying it in the remaining hours feels like a busman’s holiday. That said, I do immensely enjoy playing and I think there is progress still to be made, if only I could be bothered to set my mind to it. I know I won’t reach master level, but I enjoy the game nonetheless.

Q: Do you ever think you made the wrong choice: that you should have concentrated on your own play rather than on running a club?

Chess has never been the most important thing in my life – I have a number of other interests and hobbies – but it is somewhat true that I have neglected many of these to put plenty of effort into running Epsom Chess Club. That said, I get almost as much pleasure out of seeing my students and team-mates play well as I do from my own games. This is probably because my games aren’t especially pleasant to witness.

Q: What are your ambitions now for your own game? To get to 2000 ECF? To beat your eternal rival Peter Lalić?

Yes to both. Reaching 2000 ECF is a realistic target and I am almost within touching distance now. Whether I get there in the near future is another question, but I reckon it can be done. As for failing to beat Peter Lalić, that is surely one of the three certainties of life, along with death and taxes. It is a rivalry that dates back many years to our school days and Friday-evening matches in the Briant Poulter League. Peter and I are similar in some ways (other than sharing a birth year, 1994): I think he is very creative on the board but I am much more creative away from it.

Q: You are very much all or nothing when it comes to running Epsom. You have high standards and want it to succeed. You have strong administrative allies at the club, but I think it is fair to say that much of the dynamism at the club relies on you. You have admitted that this can be draining. Does the amount it is taking out of you worry you?

I don’t particularly see the point in accepting mediocrity. Creating a chess club was the easy part, but making it successful is a different kettle of fish. I could take the easy way out and leave the dirty work to everyone else, but that isn’t really my style. However, the Epsom committee is superb. I have already mentioned Mike Wickham’s evergreen tendencies, but David Flewellen is absolutely tremendous at putting the club philosophy into practice and engaging with members in a positive way. I should not forget Lucy Emery too, for her hard work behind the scenes, namely managing the club’s finances. I could also mention many more members.

If I were to have a meltdown and step away from Epsom, there would be a plethora of dynamic members willing to drive the club forward. That is immensely reassuring and allows me to delegate responsibility a whole lot more these days, which is a lot better for my own well-being.

Q: Running a club and really trying to push it forward is something of a Faustian bargain: one enjoys the challenge but knows that it is exhausting and often frustrating. Do you ever reach a point of wondering if it’s all worth it?

Winning trophies brings a lot of joy to members, as everyone at the club is invested in how all of our teams are getting on, no matter what level they are. Usually at least one person is able to provide live updates on a particular match via our club WhatsApp group, and members regularly chip in with humorous and encouraging comments. I am fortunate not to be the only Epsom member with drive and determination, so together we are able to share the workload and continue to push the club forward.

Q: The Dutch GM Hans Ree said chess was a game “worth wasting your life on”. Can the same dictum be applied to running a chess club?

I don’t feel I am wasting my time at all, and in fact I am hugely proud of the community that has flourished at Epsom Chess Club – a group of people who otherwise would never have met or be playing chess at all. What matters most to me is that members look forward to attending the club – for some it is perhaps the highlight of their week. As for chess itself, I regularly dream about those cursèd 64 squares and playing in imaginary tournaments in made-up places that have been amalgamated in my mind – I cannot escape chess’s grip for long. I sometimes even “sleep-teach”, where I start reciting the Lucena position to an imaginary audience whilst half-asleep. Perhaps I should be worried!

Q: You have suffered considerable problems with venues since the clubs was reformed. Can you briefly explain the problems and do you feel you now have a venue, the Epsom Christian Fellowship, which will offer long-term stability for the club.

Yes, we have been round Epsom more times than Lester Piggott. The struggle to find a suitable venue is an issue that every chess club knows all too well. Until recently, I was of the opinion that pubs were the most natural stomping ground for chess clubs, with serious matches played in a separate function room and casual games in the bar. However, pubs tend to be more profit-orientated than places like church halls and community centres and of course chess players are naturally ascetic and stingy when it comes to buying drinks.

We were initially hampered by a lack of funds, having opted to keep our annual membership fees low, so I often orbited Epsom searching for quid pro quo agreements with down-at-heel pubs, who were desperate for extra trade. This once led to an embarrassing situation where we spent less than a month at one venue, which turned out to be entirely unsuitable for our needs. However, things are finally looking up, as our current venue – Epsom Christian Fellowship – is ideal.

Q: Is it fair to say that half (perhaps even more than half) the secret of running a chess club is finding a good venue?

Yes, that is probably true. An ideal venue would be close to the town centre and a railway station, quiet, well-lit, not too expensive, accessible to disabled players, junior-friendly, with separate areas for serious and casual games. But of course, it can be nigh-on impossible to tick all those boxes. “The Fellowship” (as we call it) is as close to perfect as we are likely to get.

Q: As you know, Kingston has just completed a hat-trick of victories in the Alexander Cup. Four other clubs have completed that hat-trick – Clapham Common, Richmond, Mitcham and Redhill. Of those, only Richmond still exists and even they are now based in Teddington. I sometimes dwell on this memento mori. Chess clubs come and go. Does that worry you and how does one future-proof them? What is the secret of creating a sustainable club?

Ultimately it comes down to how many people are willing to shoulder the administrative burden. If one key member leaves, does the club have enough cylinders to run on, or will it conk out and splutter to a halt? Moreover, as I have mentioned previously, involving younger members in running the club and listening to their ideas is the best way to prevent stagnation. At Epsom, we also fundraise whenever possible – for example, we regularly make £40-£50 in donations at our blitz events and cleared £70 with an impromptu raffle at our AGM last month.

Q: You have said that winning the Surrey League is just the beginning for Epsom. What are the club’s ambitions now?

Next up is the 4NCL, which is a decidedly tougher world to conquer. The club has agreed to fund the entry fee and there are quite a few takers already. We will have to start at the bottom, but should rise fairly quickly if our stronger players are keen to take on the challenge.

However, we are looking at what other clubs in the Surrey League are doing better than us. For sure, there will be an Epsom Invitational event sometime in the next couple of years, following in Kingston’s footsteps, and we have plans to launch an Epsom Congress in 2025 to counter Guildford’s latest venture.

I also think it should be possible to re-establish a national club knockout competition, perhaps with regional early rounds and culminating with a semi-final and final at a central location. No doubt there are other ideas I have neglected to mention.

Q: You are on the verge of turning 30. Will you be running Epsom with the same energy and will to succeed at 40, or will others have to step up with their own vision for the club? I sometimes jokingly refer to you in match reports when we play you as President-for-Life, but are you?

I never like to look too far ahead actually. I don’t like the feeling of being on train tracks towards a specific goal – my interests and ideas change on a daily basis. I did laugh when you called me “president-for-life” in a recent match report, although I think that is less true nowadays with such an armada of brilliantly supportive members at Epsom. When we reformed in 2018, the joke was that everyone would vote on something and then I would make the final decision. Nowadays, I try to refrain from being too precious about my vision for the club. Maybe one day I will get off the Epsom merry-go-round for good. I just hope I don’t morph into the bitter, cantankerous ex-bank clerk type that I mocked earlier on. If I do, just shoot me.

The first of an occasional series in which Kingston members and friends of the club choose the player who has most inspired them. Illustration by Theo Esposito Bennett

One of the first chess books I ever owned was not really a book at all, but a very slim booklet, produced by the Soviet press, with minimal production values, which somehow found itself in a bookshop in London in 1969. It contained the games of the recently concluded world championship match. The contenders were the ninth champion, Tigran Petrosian, and his successor, Boris Spassky.

I understood few of the moves, but that added to the mysterious fascination of the event. If the play of these two masters had been at all comprehensible to me it would have meant that there was nothing exalted about it. Likewise, I felt somehow – or rather read somewhere – that Petrosian was himself a player of special mystery. The American chess writer Irving Chernev, in another of my early chess books (The Most Instructive Games of Chess ever Played), had encouraged this belief by his comment on the game Petrosian-Korchnoi, 1946: “Petrosian must have the spark of genius! How else could he, with a few mysterious moves, cause the quick collapse of so eminent a player as Korchnoi?” I wasn’t aware at the time that in 1946 Korchnoi was only 15 years old.

In 1946 Petrosian himself was only 16 or 17. His already exceptional talent had its roots in a very tough childhood, as described by the man himself in an interview in Life magazine in April 1969. According to this, his Armenian parents were illiterate and he was orphaned at a young age. Growing up in wartime Tbilisi, Georgia, he had to work as a road-sweeper to earn some roubles, or perhaps kopeks, to survive. This was clearly a formative experience.

“I started sweeping streets in the middle of winter,” Petrosian recalled, “and it was horrible. Of course, there were no machines then, and everything had to be done by hand. Some of the older men helped me out. I was a weak boy. And I was ashamed of being a street sweeper – that’s natural, I suppose. It wasn’t too bad in the early morning when the streets were empty, but when it got light and the crowds came out I really hated it.”

Petrosian was one of the golden generation of Soviet players who peaked in the 1960s. This also included Viktor Korchnoi, Mikhail Tal, Spassky and Efim Geller. All of them grew up in hard times: the second world war and the final years of Stalinism. To those of us who followed the chess of that era, each player seemed to have a distinct personality and style, but Petrosian’s style was probably the most singular.

One might speculate as to whether the experiences of his early years had an influence on this. With the kopeks saved from his road-sweeping he had bought Nimzowitsch’s My System, and he often afterwards stated how significant that positional chess manual had been for him. In his games there is usually an emphasis on the permanent features of the position – pawn structures, strong and weak squares, the long-term relative values of the pieces and so on. Curiously, like Mikhail Tal, Petrosian was known for his sacrifices, but, unlike Tal, Petrosian’s were often defensive, the most famous being his exchange sacrifices. Again, in contrast to Tal, Petrosian sacrificed material not to gain time but for long-term positional reasons.

As an example, here is the position after White’s 25th move in the game Reshevsky-Petrosian from the 1953 Candidates’ Tournament, Zurich:

However, with Petrosian it can sometimes be difficult to say whether a sacrifice like this is defensive or offensive. His game against Czech (and later German) grandmaster Vlastimil Hort from the 1970 European Team Championships is an example. Petrosian is Black and plays the Winawer Variation of the French Defence.

One reason Petrosian’s style attracted me was that commentors often referred to his deep understanding of the mysteries of positional chess. Of course, as a novice player, I was far from understanding even some basic aspects of the game, let alone its deep mysteries, but I was hopeful that studying Petrosian’s games might initiate me into some of these.

One aspect of his play which I could hope to find myself copying at my own undistinguished level was his pragmatism, in particular his readiness to make the moves required by the position even if they looked ugly or humbling. Petrosian seemed to be saying that it was OK to retreat a piece or to repeat a move if necessary. The following position in the fourth game of the world championship match against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1963 is an example of this.

In retrospect, I think another reason why I was drawn to Petrosian’s style of play was my misconception that if you were a master of strategy you didn’t need to worry so much about tactical details – and I was weak at tactics. In fact, as many commentators have noted, Petrosian was actually a superb tactician. You can’t base your game on strategy if the tactics are wrong.  In addition, it’s been pointed out that Petrosian’s image as a purely defensive player is false. He could also play attacking combinations and, according to Spassky, “It is to Petrosian’s advantage that his opponents never know when he is suddenly going to play like Mikhail Tal.”  

The 10th game from Spassky’s world championship match with Petrosian in 1966 must have been the kind of thing he had in mind. Petrosian has White against Spassky’s King’s Indian Defence.

Interestingly, Petrosian had perpetrated a very similar combination 10 years before on Vladimir Simagin (Petrosian-Simagin, Moscow Championship play-off 1956):

For more than a decade Petrosian fought his way through zonals, interzonals and candidates tournaments against his peers, until he finally qualified to play Botvinnik for the world title in 1963. He won this match convincingly 12.5-9.5. It might be said that he was fortunate that Botvinnik’s right to a return match had been abolished by Fide, but Petrosian proved he was a worthy champion by defending his title against Boris Spassky in 1966 with a score of 12.5-11.5. He lost to Spassky in 1969, but he remained one of the top players in the world until his death in 1984 at the early age of 55. He won the Soviet Chess Championship four times; the only players to record more wins were Botvinnik and Tal with six titles.

The ways in which Petrosian is sometimes described make it seem as if he inhabited a chess world of his own. This could be seen as implying either his limitations (he is often regarded as too cautious, with a very high percentage of draws) or as a sign of his unique understanding of the game. I have to accept that he did draw many games, but he also lost very few (his record playing for the Soviet Union in 10 Olympiads was +78, = 50, -1).

To conclude, in my view, playing through his best games can enrich any player’s understanding of chess’s infinite possibilities. This was brought home to me again recently when Kingston’s head of training, FM Julian Way, led an online discussion of the fifth game of the match with Botvinnik. It was a great choice;  there is so much to learn from it.

John Nunn (left) with the Provost Lord Mendoza

Grandmaster John Nunn has been made an honorary fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, the highest award that a college can make. It symbolises recognition of the enormous contributions John has made to chess as well as his academic achievements. John can place this honour alongside that of honorary life vice-president of Kingston Chess Club. The college interviewed John Nunn last October, and he explained that the difference between playing chess as a young man and now is that once it was about improving and learning whereas now it is managed decline.

John played for Kingston Chess Club as a junior, winning the club championship in 1969 and 1970. He went up to Oxford in 1970 to read mathematics at the age of 15, the youngest undergraduate since 1520. He became a grandmaster and was awarded his doctorate in the same year, 1978, when he was aged 23.

John kindly returned to play for Kingston in the 2018 Alexander Cup final. He won his game in a narrow defeat to Surbiton. The previous time John had played for us was in 1974, a golden period for the club when it won both the Surrey Trophy and the Alexander Cup. The gap of 44 years in games played for the club must be a record. Kingston finally captured the coveted cup again in 2022.

John Foley

Chris Briscoe v John Nunn, Alexander Cup Final, 2018

A grandmaster class in defence. Chris Briscoe goes all out in a kingside attack, but John Nunn has it covered.

John Nunn v Matthew Sadler, Lloyds Bank, 1993

John Nunn at his peak at brushing aside the 19-year-old Matthew Sadler, who went on to be one of England’s strongest grandmasters.

See also: Why I gave up chess because of John Nunn

John Foley

We are delighted that Mir Sultan Khan has been officially recognised with the title of international grandmaster. He played at the highest levels from when he arrived in England in 1928 to 1933, becoming British champion in 1929, 1932 and 1933, and was top board for England in three Olympiads. He returned to his native Punjab in Pakistan in 1933, leaving the international chess scene.

Image: GM Sultan Khan (right) playing against his patron Sir Umar Hayat Khan

The international grandmaster title was launched in 1950 by Fide, which granted the title to the leading players in the world who were still alive at that date. There was never any question regarding whether Sultan Khan deserved the title. He was regarded as one of the strongest players in the world during his playing years. He defeated José Raúl Capablanca, world champion from 1921 to 1927 (see game below), at the Hastings tournament in 1930/31. Capablanca described Sultan Khan as a genius.

In a meteoric career, Sultan Khan also beat Rubinstein, Marshall, Yates, Menchik, Colle, Thomas, Alexander, Tartakower, Flohr, Johner, Grob and Bernstein. The issue in 1950 was a practical one – Fide officials were unable to contact him. He had stayed in England as part of the household of his sponsor, Sir Umar Hayat Khan, who had also then returned to his home country.

The Pakistan Chess Federation lobbied Fide during 2023 and finally, on 2 February 2024, Sultan Khan received retrospective conferment of his honorary international grandmaster title during a ceremony with the president and prime minister of Pakistan in Islamabad.

Sultan Khan had been a member of Kingston Chess Club and played for Surrey for a period towards the end of his stay in London. The club pledged its support to the president of the Pakistan Chess Federation, Hanif Qureshi, when he visited London as part of the London Chess Conference in 2023.

Sultan Khan v J R Capablanca Hastings 1930/31