Category Archives: National

Matches and games from National and Regional competitions involving Kingston players

CSC/Kingston 1 win first match in 4NCL Div 1

CSC/Kingston 1 beat Scottish flagbearers Alba to get on the scoreboard in the first division and raise hopes that we might after all survive in this shark pool

Well, we will not be whitewashed. After a tough opening weekend when we lost both matches in the very testing 4NCL division 1, we finally got on the scoreboard on the second weekend in Peterborough. We were beaten 6.5-1.5 by Guildford Youth on the Saturday, but on Sunday we defeated the Scottish side Alba 5-2. We were helped by a weather-induced default, but even without that we would have won the match.

French FM Ulysse Bottazzi made an excellent debut for CSC/Kingston against Wood Green Youth, drawing with the very strong Polish-born FM (surely soon to be IM) Maciej Czopor, winner of the 2024 Kingston Invitational. The prodigious Supratit Banerjee went one better even than that, beating Polish player Tomasz Sygnowski on board 8. Supratit’s game was highly tactical, and it hinged on the position shown below. Sygnowski playing Black is actually on top at this point, but goes wrong in an exchange of pieces and Supratit emerges with a winning advantage.

We had three winners against Alba on Sunday – David Maycock, Roland Bezuidenhout and Supratit again, though this time by default (an Alba player had failed to get down to Peterborough because of a storm on Saturday which disrupted rail links). David’s game against Declan Shafi was brief and brutal, courtesy of two killer bishops.

Roland enjoyed a tremendous win with Black against IM and eight-times Scottish champion Roddy McKay. After positional skirmishing, it suddenly becomes very tactical and White’s position collapses.

CSC/Kingston 2 had a terrific weekend in division 3 (Knights), winning both their matches to put themselves into early promotion contention. On board 1, Peter Finn again won both his games to make him 4/4 so far this season. CSC/Kingston 2 dispatched a strong North West Eagles team with surprising ease on Saturday, but had more difficulty on Sunday, narrowly defeating a Coventry side who on paper were a good deal weaker than their opponents the previous day.

CSC/Kingston 3 had a familiar weekend in division 4, which is a Swiss tournament whereas divisions 1, 2 and 3 (divided into Knights and Bishops) are 12-team all-play-alls. CSC/Kingston 3 won against heavily outrated Barnet Knights D on Saturday, but that propelled them up the table and into a tough match with Iceni 2 on Sunday. CSC/Kingston and Iceni had identical average ratings of 1903, but in a well-contested encounter Iceni squeezed out a win by 3.5-2.5 to leave CSC/Kingston 3 in joint 14th place in the 32-team division.

The next 4NCL weekend is on 15/16 February, with the first and second teams playing in Coventry and the third team back in action in Peterborough.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Tough baptism for CSC/Kingston 1 in Div 1 of 4NCL

CSC/Kingston 1 lose their opening matches on the first weekend of the 4NCL season, but the second and third teams both get off the mark

We knew it was going to be tough on our first weekend in division 1 of the 4NCL – the UK’s national chess league – and so it proved. Played 2, lost 2, though on Sunday against Blackthorne we came within a whisker not just of drawing the match but even winning it. Lessons learned, positives taken, we will come back stronger in January!

On Saturday we were up against the massed GMs of Manx Liberty and a loss by 6.5-15 was about as good as we could expect on rating. The high spot was a draw for 14-year-old Zain Patel (pictured above) against Hungarian grandmaster Miklos Galyas, though 10-year-old Supratit Banerjee almost went one better than that. He had a winning position against Polish GM Lukasz Cyborowski and even turned down a draw to press for the win, but then blundered in the position below.

The match on Sunday against Blackthorn was much closer: seven games were drawn – though Zain, who again played extremely well, and David Maycock had excellent winning chances – and the only win was by FM Dave Ledger against Supratit, a skilfully played positional game by Ledger from which Supratit will again have learned a great deal. We have a young team and hope that this experience of playing against the best in division 1 stands them in good stead for their future chess careers. Though that does not mean we have given up hope of surviving in Div 1. We will come out fighting at Peterborough in January.

These division 1 matches were played on the weekend of 23/34 November in Daventry. CSC/Kingston 2 and 3 had made their seasonal reappearance two weeks earlier in Peterborough, both winning on the Saturday and losing on the Sunday. The personal high spots were Peter Finn’s two wins from two games in Div 3, debutant Sanjit Kumar’s draw against the very strong Sussex Martlets player Russell Granat (also in Div 3), and a truly tremendous weekend for Petr Vachtfeidl, who beat Adam Cranston to secure the match win for the third team against Celtic Tigers on Saturday and then drew with the 2213-rated Ethan Norris in Sunday’s match in Div 4. A wonderful effort by Petr, who is a talisman for the CSC/Kingston team.

Thanks to all the players who took part in both weekends – these matches involve long treks to motorway hotels in the Midlands and east of England – and to Kate and Charlie Cooke for organising the teams with their usual calm efficiency. Now for 2025 and weekend 2! You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

CSC/Kingston 1

CSC/Kingston 2

CSC/Kingston 3

CSC/Kingston 1 reach dizzy heights of 4NCL Div 1

An extraordinary and stressful final 4NCL weekend of the season saw CSC/Kingston 1 win promotion to division 1 and CSC/Kingston 2 go down to division 4, leaving tricky questions for the squad for next season.

What drama there was in Daventry and Telford at the denouement of the 2023/24 4NCL season. At Daventry, CSC/Kingston 1 played superbly to win all three of their matches and secure second place in the final table and promotion to division 1 of the league, where teams with clusters of GMs await. Anyone fancy playing Alexei Shirov next season? Actually all our leading players will fancy it – and will give a very good account of themselves.

IM Vladyslav Larkin, who made a brilliant debut for CSC/Kingston 1, beating GM and three-times British champion Jonathan Mestel and scoring 2.5/3, would certainly be up for the challenge. As would CM David Maycock (pictured above), who scored 3/3 over the final weekend to complete a tremendous 4NCL season in which he scored 9.5/11 and racked up a rating over the 11-round competition of 2550-plus. It was more than enough for a nailed-on IM norm, except that one of the opposing teams at the final weekend managed not to give him the titled player he needed to satisfy that requirement. Very disappointing for David, and indeed infuriating for the entire team. That we did not let our fury destabilise us and kept our eye on the promotion prize made the success all the more admirable.

At Telford, valiantly though CSC/Kingston 2 battled, all the results went against us and we were relegated from division 3 (knights) to division 4. Having such a gulf between the two teams makes squad management difficult, and it is imperative that we work hard to get a team back into division 3 next year. Division 3 is perfect for players rated 2000-plus – highly competitive, with good games guaranteed in every round. Division 4 can be more hit and miss, with a big gap between the strong teams and the rest.

A word for CSC/Kingston 3, who performed creditably all season in division 4 and ended in the top half of the 27-team table (might there be scope for making 4NCL a five-division league?). Jon Eckert should be mentioned in dispatches: he played every round and drove thousands of miles to ensure that he and his team-mates were at the venues in good time. On a given Saturday or Sunday, especially when the team was playing in Telford, he would spend five hours playing and more than that driving up from London and back. Utterly exhausting and truly selfless. It is not just the first team that has heroes.

The three teams were as always excellently managed by team captains Kate and Charlie Cooke, who handled the logistics of getting 20 players per round to distant motorway hotel locations with aplomb. How they do it I have no idea. It requires the motivational powers of Alex Ferguson and the operational nous of a food distribution company. Well done to them and well done to the players who got CSC/Kingston 1 to the top of the mountain. Now, how do we set about establishing a serious foothold there?

All the results from the weekend’s three rounds are shown below, as well as the final tables.

Stephen Moss, Kingston Chess Club secretary

CSC/Kingston 1

CSC/Kingston 2

CSC/Kingston 3

CSC/Kingston 1 suffer dual loss at 4NCL

The promotion push by CSC/Kingston’s first team suffers a double blow and the second team continue to struggle, but at least the unsung thirds are holding their own

Not the best of 4NCL rounds (held over two different weekends at two different venues) for the CSC/Kingston squad. The biggest sufferers were the first team, playing in Telford, who lost both their matches – by the same margin, 5-3 – to two strong fellow promotion-chasers in division 2, The Audible Checks and Barbican.

The final long weekend, on 4/5/6 May when the first team will be in Daventry, now promises to be very tense, with CSC/Kingston 1 third in the table (three go up to division 1) but with five other teams snapping at our heels. Barbican and Audible Checks, first and second in the table, look nailed on to get promoted.

We outrated Audible Checks, so to lose that match on Saturday was disappointing. IM Martin Jogstad’s loss to Steven Jones on board 1 was a key defeat. Martin has been the side’s talisman and performed brilliantly over the past couple of seasons. Losses for Peter Finn and Luca Buanne, who had been winning for much of the game, sealed our fate, though there were high spots, notably a win for David Maycock (pictured above) against FM Jonathan Blackburn and a draw for Helen Frostick against the highly rated Lewis Turner. Peter Lalić and Vladimir Li, two Kingston Chess Club stalwarts, also secured solid draws, as did Ewan Wilson on board 6.

The loss on Sunday to league leaders Barbican was less surprising. Barbican are a division 1 team in all but name. David Maycock got a draw with grandmaster Jonathan Parker on board 2; Helen Frostick had a good win on board 8 to complete an excellent weekend for her; Martin Jogstad drew with Black against strong IM Alan Merry on board 1; Peter Finn and Peter Lalić drew against strong opponents; but losses for Vladimir Li (who erred in a level endgame), Ewan Wilson and Luca Buanne meant a second 5-3 loss of the weekend. Now we have to prepare for epic battles in Daventry in the final round of matches.

The second team won on Saturday, beating Sussex Martlets 4-2, but an unfortunate 3.5-2.5 loss on Sunday to Rhyfelwyr Essyllwg leaves the team second from bottom in division 3 and facing the fight of their lives to avoid the drop to division 4. Plaudits, though, to Tom Farrand for winning both his games, and to Mike Cresswell, who stepped in as a reserve on Sunday and got a tremendous draw against a player rated 300 points above him. Surely one of the performances of the weekend.

Meanwhile, playing in Warwick on the previous weekend, the third team continues to chug along in mid-table, losing 3.5-2.5 to Oxford 3 on Saturday but bouncing back to beat She Plays to Win Uni on Sunday. I missed a clear win (in time trouble, he adds hurriedly) on Sunday against youngster Navieinaah Haridas, but, having been under intense bombardment earlier and only narrowly managing to survive, I can’t really complain. The 4NCL is tough, as the whole CSC/Kingston outfit continues to discover.

Stephen Moss

CSC/Kingston 1 goes top of 4NCL Division 2

Our first team continued their impressive run in the second division of the 4NCL with two victories this weekend whilst our second team are feeling the heat

The Four Nations Chess League (4NCL) third weekend took place on 10/11 February 2024 over two locations. Our first team, CSC/Kingston 1, played at the Mercure in Telford, whereas the second and third teams played at the Delta Marriott Hotel in Warwick. Our top team won both their matches and now sit atop the second division. There are only two weekends to go and bookies have stopped taking bets on whether we will get promoted to the first division. Team manager Kate Cooke played down the prospect, wisely taking one weekend at a time, especially as we have yet to play our main competitors.

For those unfamiliar with 4NCL, it is for national chess teams conducted over four divisions. It is played to the highest international standards, with strict rules about mobile phones. Players are randomly scanned for electronic devices as they enter the playing hall. Players are not permitted to visit the bookstall nor their car, for which the penalty is a default. The time control is 40 moves in 100 minutes followed by 50 minutes for the rest of the game. For each move there is an increment of 30 seconds, which means that players must always write down their moves, even if there is less than 5 minutes left.

Saturday 10 February

The first team line-up was strengthened by the addition of IM Graeme Buckley on board 1. In Saturday’s key game against rivals The Sharks 2, Graeme had a convincing victory over IM Peter Roberson. The match was won 5.5-2.5.

CSC/Kingston 1 riding high in the second division

Although CSC/Kingston 1 are riding high, a print of which should be framed, it should be noted that we have yet to play the teams in second, third and fourth places. Hence, the rigorous training sessions for the team conducted at our secret base in Surrey will be even more intensive.

Meanwhile, on Saturday over at Warwick, another recent recruit to the team, 15-year-old Luca Buanne, was top board for CSC/Kingston 2. The opponents were the hardy Hull and East Riding team, strengthened by some Ukrainian players. Luca made short work of his opponent in a sharp Pirc. The match was drawn 3-3.

Our third team played She Plays to Win, a training team for girls run by IM Lorin d’Costa. Although the girls were heavily outrated, they fought hard and drew the match. Nick Grey rued that he had lost to a 13-year-old, a common lament from the older generation.

Sunday 11 February

Our first team continued their winning ways beating the dangerous Anglian Avengers in the sixth round. The match was in the balance until going home time when Tom Farrand obtained a draw to secure victory. Plaudits to two first-team players who led the way with two wins each for the weekend: Peter Lalić and Clive Frostick. David Maycock launched a powerful attack against the Classical Caro-Kann.

Over at Warwick, our second team were facing the Wessex A team. The teams were evenly matched and the match score was level until the last game in which Wessex’s Allan Pleasants beat Julian Way with a tactical flourish.

The second team at the start of the match.
Left foreground: Roger de Coverly facing John Foley, Julian Way to John’s right

CSC/Kingston 2 are now struggling not to be relegated from Division 3. We have lost three matches by the smallest of margins 3.5-2.5. There are still five rounds to go conducted over a weekend in March and a long weekend in May. Unfortunately in March both the first team and the second team are playing in Telford and we have found it difficult to get our best teams together for the cross-country trip. We face the dissonant prospect of having one team in the first division and two teams in the fourth division next season.

Meanwhile, our third team battled The Full Ponty, which included in-form Tony Hughes on board 5, winner of the recent All Saints Blitz. We were outrated by an average of 200 elo points per player. However the team played out of their socks with wins for Petr Vachtfeidl on board 1, the newcomer Fabio Buanne (father of Luca) on board 6 and, at well past going home time, Nick Grey on board 4. Nick’s position did not look convincing, but he played the endgame well and pulled a victory out of the hat against a player he first faced in 1979. The drawn match means that CSC/Kingston 3 remains mid-table with little prospect of promotion unless we do exceptionally well in the next two weekends.

New recruit Fabio Buanne on the left scored 75% on his first 4NCL weekend

Tal’s rook lift

CSC/Kingston 1 surge into promotion contention at 4NCL

CSC/Kingston 1 enjoy a tremendous second weekend in division 2 of the 4NCL and CSC/Kingston 2 get off the mark as they seek to consolidate in division 3

CSC/Kingston 1, marshalled as ever by Kate and Charlie Cooke, put out a powerful team at the second weekend in 4NCL’s five-weekend cycle, and it did not disappoint, winning both matches on Saturday and Sunday to grab second spot in the highly competitive division 2. CSC/Kingston 3, meanwhile, went down to its third successive defeat on Saturday, but rallied to win impressively on Sunday to fuel hopes that it can hang on to its place on division 3.

These were rounds 3 and 4 of the 11-round competition, so still early days, but the signs were very promising for both teams. All the matches were played at the Delta Hotel, Warwick, and happily all the CSC/Kingston players were able to get to the venue in good time despite major disruption on the trains from London because of a landslip.

FM Martin Jogstad had flown in from Germany to play board 1 for CSC/Kingston 1, and he scored 2/2 across the weekend. But he had a major scare on Saturday in the 7-0 thrashing of Cambridge University 1 (Cambridge defaulted a board and were penalised a game point – hence the odd result in an eight-board match). Martin was Black against Daniel Gallagher and had a theoretically lost queen and pawn v queen endgame. But Martin kept fighting and his opponent blundered horribly to allow mate. Mr Gallagher please avert your eyes now. This was the final position:

On board 2 David Maycock played with great aggression against Andrew McClement’s Sicilian, and this tactically rich position resulted after White had played 18. f4.

Vladimir Li won in 24 moves against Alistair Hill, winning a piece with some neat tactics. Peter Lalić won a 137-move game with Black against Robert Starley after much patented Lalićian time-building. Ewan Wilson played cannily to beat Nigel Alldritt. Zain Patel had a hard-fought draw with the prodigious Bodhana Sivanandan in the battle of the juniors, and Helen Frostick had a short draw with a repetition on move 19 against the experienced Nevil Chan. A very professional job by CSC/Kingston 1.

Sunday was tougher against Warwickshire Select 1. Helen was unlucky to lose a theoretically drawn queen v queen and pawn endgame (such endgames were very much the theme of the weekend) with Black against highly rated junior Elis Denele Dicen. The position below is drawn, and Black should just keep checking, but Helen played Kg7 and then Kg6, allowing a trade of queens a few moves later. After six hours’ play, exhaustion sets in.

Peter Finn lost to IM Chris Baker in a complicated line of the English, and there were draws for Peter Lalić, Ewan Wilson and Zain Patel (against a player with a rating close to 2200). But victory in the match was secured thanks to wins by Martin Jogstad, David Maycock and Valdimir Li on the top three boards. Martin got the better of highly rated junior Jude Shearsby; David got his second win of the weekend when John Pitcher fell into a nasty trap that lost a rook; and Vladimir Li eventually got on top in a complicated struggle against Finlay Bowcott-Terry’s Dutch.

CSC/Kingston 2 lost 4.5-1.5 against a strong Crowthorne A side on Saturday, but bounced back on Sunday to beat Poole Patzers 5-1, thus chalking up a much-needed first win of the 4NCL campaign. Just staying in this division would be perfectly satisfactory for CSC/Kingston 2, preserving the spread of the three CSC/Kingston teams across the divisions and allowing us to offer long-form 4NCL chess at all levels. In that emphatic Sunday victory, there were wins for Chris Fegan (who survived a knife-edge tactical battle), Giampiero Amato, Maurice Lawson and Harry Evans, who found this nice tactical sequence to finish off his game as Black against Martin Clancy.

Stephen Moss

Round 3

Round 4

Saturday night and Sunday mourning for CSC/Kingston 3

Decidedly mixed fortunes for CSC/Kingston 3 at the team’s second 4NCL weekend, held in Telford, with a 6-0 win followed by a 5.5-0.5 loss

This was the ultimate weekend of two halves. On Saturday CSC/Kingston 3 whitewashed a team of juniors from Barnet Knights – apologies to the youngsters, best treat it as a learning experience. But the following day – and we really weren’t celebrating too late into the night – we got a taste of our own medicine, suffering a 5.5-0.5 hammering at the hands of Ashfield 3.

The latter was a very disappointing result because on paper the teams looked fairly evenly matched. The drive back to south-west London from Telford, in Shropshire, is already extremely long, but on this occasion it seemed to last forever. Well done to Mike Cresswell for saving us from what in tennis is called being bagelled – that horrible 6-0 drubbing.

The one saving grace for me is that I found my Sunday loss to Robert Taylor very instructive. I have always struggled against the Colle System and loathe the position we reached here after White’s 10. Qf3.

Clearly, something has gone wrong, and my “bad” bishop on b7 is a nightmare. I played 10. Nxe5 here and then retreated the knight to d7, giving myself a horrible game. Capturing the knight on e5 is fine, but the black knight must then be placed on e4. After bishops are exchanged, White can’t win a pawn because of the check from the black queen on h4. With best play, White still has a small advantage, but nothing like the plus he had in the game where I was on the back foot throughout, consumed outrageous amounts of time and eventually collapsed in a heap. A horrible day at the office.

Let’s hope CSC/Kingston 1 and CSC2/Kingston 2 fare better this weekend at Warwick in the second phase of these rounds (3 and 4) of the 4NCL. The divisions and weekends are split because 4NCL has not been able to find a venue large enough to accommodate everyone at once. There may also be issues with recruiting enough officials. It is very unfortunate that the players are split up in this way because it gives the people overseeing the teams more logistical headaches and robs the weekend of the sense of occasion it would have if everyone was gathered in the same place on a single weekend. One day perhaps.

Stephen Moss

Mixed fortunes for CSC/Kingston on 4NCL opening weekend

Difficult start for newly promoted CSC/KIngston 1 and 2 at the first weekend of the new 4NCL season, but new additions to the squad suggest better to come

CSC/Kingston, the combined team which represents Chess in Schools and Communities and the Kingston club, are running three teams at this year’s 4NCL – in divisions 2, 3 and 4. This is a huge amount of work for team organisers Kate and Charlie Cooke, but does mean that everyone in the squad, which ranges from players rated 1600 up to IM-strength players, can find a berth.

The opening weekend was far from easy. The first team, now playing in the highly competitive division 2 and with Kingston stars David Maycock and Peter Lalić making their debuts, went down to defeat against Schach Attack, who are strong but not so strong that we expected to be beaten by a margin of 5.5-2.5. CSC/Kingston 1 bounced back on Sunday to beat Cambridge University 2, the weakest team in the division, by 7-1.

David Maycock enjoyed an excellent 4NCL debut for CSC/Kingston 1, drawing with an IM and winning well next day

There will be sterner tests ahead, but equally we hope to be a little stronger on future weekends and feel we have the firepower to survive in this testing division. David Maycock enjoyed an encouraging first weekend for the team, drawing on Saturday with IM Nagpal Vardaan and winning on Sunday against the highly rated Manmay Chopra. There were also wins on Sunday for Peter Finn, Ewan Wilson, Clive Frostick and Helen Frostick.

CSC/Kingston 2 narrowly lost both their opening matches in division 3, frustratingly by the same tight scoreline – 3.5-2.5. The bright spot in Saturday’s loss to local rivals Surbiton was Petr Vachtfeidl’s win against Andrew Boughen. Petr won again on Sunday against MK Phoenix to complete a spectacular weekend for him, and on board 1 young Luca Buanne, another CSC/Kingston debutant, defeated the highly rated Alan Brown. The team are bottom of the table after their opening two matches and may also need to beef up a little to avoid a season spent confronting the threat of relegation.

CSC/Kingston 3 enjoyed an excellent win against Apprentice Woodpushers on Saturday, with victories by stalwarts Nick Grey, Mike Cresswell and Julie Denning. Sunday was more of a challenge, up against a strong Lancaster team which had IM Gediminas Sarakauskas on board 1 (luxury casting in division 4!), but the team did well to get close to the Cumbrian team, only going down by 3.5-2.5. Hamish Sloan won on board 6, and Stephen Moss, Nick Grey and Julie Denning all drew against much higher-rated opponents.

Barry Hymer (Lancaster) v Stephen Moss (CSC/Kingston 3)

4NCL division 4 game played at the Mercure Hotel, Telford, on 19 November 2023

I do not relish the three-hour drive from Kingston to Telford to play in the 4NCL, in which Kingston partners with Chess in Schools and Communities under the able captaincy of Kate and Charlie Cooke, but this second-round game was memorable for me and reignited my interest in playing.

My opponent was educational psychologist and chess writer Barry Hymer, who was rated more than 200 points higher than me – I was 1763 ECF, he was 1975. He also had White. Life really isn’t fair, though my team-mate on board 1 in this match against Lancaster faced an even tougher proposition, up against IM Gediminas Sarakauskas, not the sort of player one would normally expect to be meeting in division 4. A case of what in opera is called “luxury casting”.

Barry immediately endeared himself to me by saying he had enjoyed my book. He also clearly knew all my quirks – laying out apple, Twix and water bottle on the table ready to consume them in the course of the afternoon. If I could eat a five-course meal at the board I would (absolutely banned by the arbiters at 4NCL, who allow no munching at the board). Barry said he would have been disappointed if I hadn’t come with a Twix – a motif in my book (The Rookie) when, after a surprise win against an experienced campaigner in Gibraltar, I convinced myself that eating a Twix during a game was the key to playing well (rather than, say, having an intimate knowledge of fashionable openings, an eye for complex middlegame tactics or some rudimentary sense of how to play the endgame).

I’m going to annotate this game, and apologise for its inadequacies. I want to show it because the long time control at 4NCL (especially compared to the thud and blunder of evening club chess) meant that for the first time in six or seven years I felt I was actually thinking properly (or almost properly) about chess – that zen moment when you become truly absorbed in a game. And in the endgame we reached a position which later came to fascinate me.

Normally once I have played a game I put it on my database, do some swift analysis with an engine (bad, I know, not to use my brain to work out all the variations) and then rarely look at it again. But I did return to this game and one crucial position in particular, shared it with friends and club-mates, and tried to think about it more critically than I usually do. I felt I was a chess player again.

Fearless CSC/Kingston 1 win promotion to 4NCL division 2

Victories on the final Mayday bank holiday weekend against the three other strongest teams in division 3 West ensured CSC/Kingston 1 would be playing in the big league next year

CSC/Kingston’s Swedish star Martin Jogstad (left) prepares to play IM Chris Baker in Monday’s title decider

What an extraordinary weekend this was for CSC/Kingston, ably led by Kate and Charlie Cooke, who have built up a formidable (and just as important friendly and mutually supportive) stable of players. The first team, with Swedish star Martin Jogstad flying in from Germany to land 3/3 on top board, swept aside the three other top sides in division 3 West to win the title and ensure division 2 status next season. And the second team performed admirably to gain a highly creditable eighth place in the 35-team division 4 – important because the proposed slimming down of the 4NCL next season may mean a cull of some lower-placed teams.

CSC/Kingston 1 were only in division 3 West because another team had dropped out, allowing them to move up from division 4. They joined the party after missing the first weekend, where they would have met two of the lowest-rated teams in the division, and were allocated draws for those missed matches, in effect giving the other strong teams in the division a head start of two match points and up to half a dozen game points. But they proceeded to win their next nine matches – spread over four weekends – on the bounce to claim the title. A “commanding performance“, as one observer noted.

On this final weekend, Chessable White Rose 3 were mercilessly swept aside 6-0 on Saturday. In fact, this was a rare occurrence of a team not even managing zero, as they were deducted a point for a default. West is Best 2 were then beaten 4-2 in a close match on Sunday – the key moment being a brilliancy by Tom Farrand on board 3 which turned a potential game loss into a victory as he marched a pawn home. And on Monday, though outrating CSC/Kingston on every board except 1, long-time league leaders and title favourites Warwickshire Select 1 were also beaten 4-2, with fine wins by Martin Jogstad on board 1 (despite the anxiety of having to catch an evening plane from Gatwick back to Germany) and by the immensely talented Ewan Wilson on board 6. An epic victory in the match to cap an epic season.

Mayday, Mayday! The players gather for the final round of the 4NCL season in Warwick on bank holiday Monday

The second team also fought hard, going down 5-1 to a strong Poole Patzers side on Saturday, but bouncing back on Sunday to beat the very competitive and superbly coached She Plays To Win Lionesses team, and then being edged out 4-2 by the Masceteers on Monday. Special mention to Kingston president John Foley, who played for six and a half hours on the final day in an effort to squeeze out the win that would have drawn the match. As is often the way, overpressing in pursuit of a win meant he ended up losing the game, but it was a heroic and honourable effort – putting the needs of the team before his own interests. His game against the Masceteers’ Patrick Duncan was the very last one to finish at the Warwick venue.

Much uncertainty surrounds next year’s competition as the organisers search for potential venues and reassess the structure of the divisions. But this has been a memorable debut season for the CSC/Kingston partnership, and appearing in the rarefied atmosphere of division 2 next year is an enticing prospect. Thanks to Kate and Charlie for all they have done this year – the amount of admin, with travel, hotels and the hunting down of top-notch Indian restaurants, should never be underestimated – and thanks to all the players, who trekked to distant hotels beside anonymous motorway junctions, boldly confronted large and potentially enervating fried breakfasts, and despite everything performed brilliantly at the board.

Stephen Moss

Final table for Division 3 West

Final table for Division 4