Ealing A v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at Actonians Sports Club, London W5 on 16 December 2024

On Monday 16 December we visited league leaders Ealing for our second Thames Valley division 1 match. Last season we had beaten them away, but lost to them at home, so we expected a tough contest. I was ready to enjoy the unaccustomed luxury of being a non-playing captain, able to observe the match without any responsibility for the moves, but in the event the closeness of the games meant that I felt almost as nervous as if I was playing.

The first result was on board 5. John Hawksworth, with White against John Quinn, commented: “I had a clear advantage soon after the opening, but was just too timid at critical moments. In particular, instead of 16. Rb1 [see diagram below] I should have played 16. Qxd6, not being scared of 16…b4 because I can play 17. e5 Ne8 18. Qxc5 bxc3 19. Nxc3 when I have three pawns for a piece and a dominant position (+2 according to the computer).”

As things turned out, the two Johns agreed a draw in a level position on move 25.

On board 3 Ash Stewart was facing the strong veteran Alan Perkins, who chose to counter Ash’s English Opening with the symmetrical system (1. c4 g6 2. Nc3 Bg7 3. g3 c5). Perfect symmetry it was not, however, as Black developed his king’s knight on h6 and then moved it to f5, while White made the early running on the queen’s side, pushing his pawn to b4. As often happens in the English, both players had to make a lot of difficult strategic decisions, backed up by tactical calculation. This position was reached after White’s 18th move:

Here Black played 18…Ne5, an error allowing 19. Nxe5 dxe5 20. Nxe6+! winning a pawn.

This meant that at roughly the halfway stage Kingston were doing well in one game, but the situation on the other boards was much less clear. On the top board Rick McMichael had avoided Peter Large’s preparation by cunningly playing a line of the Philidor Defence (1.e4 d6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Nc3 e5 4. dxe5 dxe5 5. Qxd8+ Kxd8 6. Bc4 Be6 7. Bxe6 fxe6) instead of his usual French. McMichael’s doubled isolated e-pawns might not have been aesthetically pleasing, but his position was very hard to attack. On board 2 David Maycock did not seem to have much play against Andrew Harley’s Ruy Lopez, and on board 6 Will Taylor was negotiating a complicated middlegame position arising from his opponent’s Bird’s Opening.

Peter Lalić’s games can usually be relied on for originality, and this one did not disappoint. Afterwards, I was surprised to see that when I put the score into chess.com it labelled the opening “Ruy Lopez, Old Steinitz Defence”. It’s true that after four moves Peter, with Black, and his opponent Martin Smith (both pictured above, with Martin facing the camera) had reached the position below, but by a very unconventional route, as if using an idiosyncratic satnav.

The second game to be completed put Kingston a point ahead, as Ash Stewart defeated Alan Perkins in a beautifully played game, which is featured with Ash’s notes in the Games section of the website. Following on from the position given above, Perkins sacrificed his knight on h4 to try to get a perpetual check, but the Kingston player parried this attempt efficiently and Black resigned a bishop down with his own king exposed.

Ealing, however, hit back soon after when Will Taylor, playing Black against Jonathan White, had to resign. He had fought for compensation after losing a pawn, but to no avail. So the score was 1.5-1.5, with three close games still to conclude.

Andrew Harley had succeeded in denying David Maycock any opportunities to unleash his tactical genius until the following position was reached:

Kingston were now one up, with two games to finish. The Large v McMichael game reached this position after move 17:

This made the score 3-2 to Kingston. We couldn’t lose the match, but could we win? In the last game to finish Peter Lalić had gambited his e-pawn, but after an exchange of queens on d1 White was unable to castle, and when Peter won the minor exchange his bishops and rooks pressured White’s position (see diagram below).

Thus a tight match ended on a dramatic note, and Kingston had won 4-2. A significant victory against one of our main rivals.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in the Thames Valley League

Coulsdon 3 v Kingston 4, Surrey League division 5 match played at Coulsdon on 16 December 2024

For the second week in succession, Ed Mospan’s travelling army got a win at one of the more distant outposts on the Surrey circuit. After a fine victory at Guildford last week, they faced Coulsdon 4 and once again emerged triumphant.

Coulsdon were nothing like as strong as Guildford 4 had been, but the job still had to be done, and Kingston won handsomely by 4.5, with successes for Ye Kwaw, Aziz Sannie, Mark Sheridan and the in-form captain himself. An excellent end to 2024 for Ed’s hard-working and much-travelled team.

Ed (pictured) is captaining Kingston’s third and fourth teams in the Surrey League and doing half a dozen other jobs at the club besides, thus making himself (as usual) a leading contender to win Club Person of the Year. We may as well just give him the award in perpetuity.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Ashtead 1 v Kingston 1, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Peace Memorial Hall, Ashtead on 10 December 2024

A somewhat depleted Kingston team nevertheless outrated newly promoted Ashtead on all boards. We are, however, far too experienced to expect an easy match, and this was confirmed by the early results – there weren’t any, and it became clear that most games were heading for time trouble, where, as we have already seen this season, anything can happen.

On board 5, David Rowson had conceded a space advantage against Ashtead captain Bertie Barlow, who had also played for Richmond against our TVL first team the previous night. He found a good sequence of exchanges to get to a slightly better endgame (queen, rook and bishop each), but the position was blocked and with progress unlikely a draw was agreed.

Alan Scrimgour struck our first blow on board 7. A couple of inaccuracies as White had allowed his opponent Tom Barton to equalise. He prepared a kingside attack which induced his opponent to weaken on that side, pounced on the opportunity to open the h-file for his rooks, and quickly won decisive material.

Peter Large has been in tremendous form for Kingston, but got no change out of Phil Brooks’ French Defence on board 1. Computer post-mortem analysis found a couple of opportunities to establish a +1 edge, but requiring an indifference to the pawn count which is difficult for human beings. No one can accuse these top players of a grandmasterly draw – the battle ended with bare kings.

The highlight of the match was Peter Lalić’s game on board 2 as Black against Dan Rosen, who is able to play for Ashtead in division 1 this year now that Wimbledon are in division 2. After characteristic early exchanges, Peter had the advantage in the early endgame based on White’s doubled e-pawns. In trying to defend those, the white rook became trapped in a box on the queenside, only able to extricate itself by means of an exchange which ruined his queenside structure. Despite getting down to a minute on his clock, Peter was able to set up a prolonged zugzwang, starting on move 36.

On board 6, Ian McLeod accepted my offer to go into an unbalanced middle game, in which he gave up bishop for knight to double my f-pawns.

My judgement was that the resulting big centre and two bishops would outweigh the doubled pawns and the difficulty in finding a safe place to put my king. The final position illustrates the success of that strategy, with White immobilised by the black pawn rush.

By now White was almost on the increment and struggling to find sensible moves to play. Material is still level, but the e3 pawn is about to fall, and after Black plays e5 white will be almost paralysed. So White resigned. I had had some amusement in the game from making my first move with my king’s bishop on move 25. But this was misleading, as the bishop had protected several important squares from its initial position and had retained the choice of diagonal on which to emerge until the last minute. Motionless but not inactive.

That took us to four points, with three games still in play. Unfortunately, Jasper Tambini had drawn a short straw on board 4. As an overseas newcomer, James Allison’s estimated ECF rating is derived from his Fide rating, and (to judge from the usual difference between Fide and ECF) is at least 150 points too low. For a long time the post-mortem computer evaluation was that White had little more than his starting edge, but Jasper found his activity limited against white’s Catalan structure, tried a sacrificial approach to break out, and conceded defeat a rook down when it became clear that black’s counterplay had been thwarted.

Peter Hasson’s game against Jonathan Hinton on board 3 had so much in it that it would justify its own blog, and we are grateful to him for reconstructing it despite having stopped recording well before the end of the game. Peter had White and opening subtleties had given him a big advantage by move 23, when he missed a lovely combination.

Last to finish was John Bussmann on board 8. John had built an advantage in the middle game, won a pawn, and then sacrificed the exchange for a second pawn to maintain the initiative. Strictly the sacrifice was not necessary, but he rebuilt his advantage after it. In the position below, he had a clear win.

So in the end we scraped home by the minimum margin. Well done Ashtead for outperforming their ratings; let’s hope they can repeat that fighting spirit in their other home games and nick some points off other teams, which would help us in the title race. Thanks to the Kingston players for making the journey, especially Peter Hasson, whose trip home to Farnham was delayed by a road closure, completing what for poor Peter (one of our four Peters!) was a very frustrating evening.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in the Surrey League

Kingston A v Richmond A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 9 December 2024

All good things come to those who wait, perhaps. At least, Kingston A’s long-anticipated first Thames Valley League match of the season proved worth the wait when we defeated a slightly understrength Richmond team 5.5-0.5. Richmond were missing Mike Healey and were significantly outrated on every board except the top one, but, as everyone knows, such matches don’t always follow form so clearly.

The first result was a deceptively smooth win by David Maycock (pictured) on board 2. Deceptively smooth like a Capablanca win, in the words of IM Peter Large. David commented that his opponent, Maxim Dunn, slightly confused the theory, playing 12…Bb7 instead of Rb7 in this position:

Kingston won their second game on board 4 when Luca Buanne defeated Bertie Barlow. From a Scandinavian Defence, the players reached this position, in which an exchange sacrifice on f6 is more than promising.

My own game interrupted Kingston’s triumphal progress by finishing in an early draw. The game transposed from a Bishop’s Opening to a King’s Gambit Declined. Alastair Armstrong surprised me by playing an early Na4 in this position, securing the two bishops but losing tempi.

In this connection, I should mention that in our last match against Richmond, back in May, I sat at the board brooding on how I had allowed a winning position against Alastair to become a dead-drawn endgame, until he suddenly pointed out that my time had run out, and I’d managed to turn a draw into a loss. On Monday I decided it was better not to tempt fate.

On board 6, from an English Opening, Peter Andrews was two pawns down against Richmond captain Maks Gajowniczek (one an accident, he admitted, the other a genuine sacrifice) but with a great deal of positional compensation, as can be seen in the diagram. Black is unable to defend the d6 pawn.

A lead of 3.5-0.5 soon became 4.5-0.5 as Peter Lalić won the exchange by a clever tactic and then simplified into a winning ending against John Burke. This was the key position:

Fittingly, the last game to finish – with most of the rest of the players looking on – was the heavyweight one on board 1 between international masters Gavin Wall and Peter Large.

Playing the French Defence, Peter gave up a pawn for positional compensation. Peter analyses a fascinating game in detail below, though, because of mutual time trouble, the final moves were not recorded.

Playing on little more than the increment, Peter showed toughness to refuse a draw and press home his advantage to eventually force his opponent’s resignation and make the final score in the match an emphatic 5.5-0.5. Kingston thus got off to a delayed but very satisfying start in the quest to retain our Thames Valley division 1 title. After the long wait, the matches will now come thick and fast, so we will need to keep up the momentum.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in the Thames Valley League

Guildford 4 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Guildford Institute, Guildford on 9 December 2024

This was a remarkable win for Ed Mospan’s Kingston 3, who currently have a tough schedule, visiting Epsom, Guildford and Coulsdon in successive weeks. Guildford 4 fielded a very experienced team – Trevor Jones, Peter Horlock and Mike Gunn have been playing since about the Steinitz era – but Kingston dispatched them with aplomb, running out 4.5-1.5 winners.

David Shalom and Adam Nakar won on the two top boards; Aziz Sannie played a well-controlled game to win on board 4 against Anthony Garrood, who only last week won an important game for Guildford 2 against Kingston 2; and Ed Mospan continued his terrific run of recent form with a victory over the wily Horlock. Congratulations to Ed and his team (pictured above at the match, minus photographer Ed). This is surely one of Kingston’s best wins of the season so far.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Surbiton D v Kingston C, Thames Valley League division X match played at Fircroft, Surbiton on 4 December 2024

Thames Valley Division X is meant to be a training division – something we took literally in this away match against Surbiton D. Nick Powell on board 4 was playing his first ever rated game – welcome to the wacky world of competitive chess, Nick – and Zhixing Bai was playing only his second game for the club. Junior Jaden Mistry and Mark Sheridan (still limping after a fall earlier in the week and bravely playing through the pain) were veterans by comparison.

Jaden played extremely well to win on board 1 – against a new face at Surbiton who I suspect is fairly strong. Jaden played confidently and had a slight edge throughout. The pressure he applied told in the end, and he was able to pick up a loose rook in a queen-and-rook v queen-and-rook endgame with a tactic which he saw instantly.

Nick Powell and the affable Kim Cross got into a similar endgame, but it was Kim who came out on top, marshalling his forces to deliver mate. It had, though, been a protracted and keenly fought struggle, and Nick acquitted himself extremely well on his league debut.

Zhixing Bai, a nine-year-old with considerable potential, offered an earlyish draw in his game with Harry Roberts, which the latter eagerly accepted. Where do youngsters learn to make these grandmasterly draw offers? “Just play” I advised Zhixing later. “Don’t offer middlegame draws. Rating points are of no consequence.” I was echoing American grandmaster Ben Finegold, who once told me: “Never take a draw. No one ever learned any chess by taking a draw.”

The last game to finish was the encounter between Surbiton captain Phil Goodings and injured hero Mark Sheridan. They have had close battles before and this one was no exception, but in the end it was Goodings who prevailed. Admirably, Mark refused to blame his leg injury for his loss.

An excellent match played amid Christmas decorations, which added a welcome festive sparkle to proceedings. What a well-appointed venue Surbiton have. They are well on the way back to the top of the tree after a post-pandemic slump saw them lose their status as top dogs in south-west London. We fear them. But there again we fear everyone. Everywhere we look our rivals are making progress. 2025 is going to be a hard slog.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Kingston 2 v Guildford 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 2 December 2024

On the same night that Mark Sheridan slipped, fell and ended up in A&E, missing the match at Epsom, the Kingston 2 team did the same thing collectively (metaphorically speaking) against Guildford 2. There is no other word for our performance but debacle, and I would say the Kingston 2 captain’s place is now in serious jeopardy. (I would say that except the Kingston captain is me.) This loss drags us into the Div 2 relegation mire and might even make us favourites for the drop. It was very ugly.

We had lost two strong players in the 24 hours before the match – one to illness, the other to a bereavement – but the news that Guildford were defaulting bottom board seemed to make our task easier and we still had a rating advantage. But we just didn’t gel.

John Foley, kindly replacing one of the indisposed players at short notice, rushed from a teaching stint at the Kingston Chess Academy, but was exhausted and happy to play out a fairly anaemic draw with White against Guildford captain Malcolm Twigger-Ross. At the time, that result seemed OK, but what followed made it look anything but.

Jon Eckert would be the first to admit he has been struggling for form so far this season, and things went badly for him with Black against Richard Duncalfe on board 5. They played out an interesting line of the French Defence, but the Guildford player did well to accumulate a succession of small advantages and, faced with a losing endgame, Jon resigned. It was a similar story on board 6, where Tony Garrood’s killer bishops – working in perfect harmony – overwhelmed Ye Kyaw’s defences.

The high spot of the evening – the sole bright light in fact – was John Bussmann’s smooth win against Anton Barysenko’s Grünfeld Defence. John is having an excellent season so far and is now pressing for a first-team place – watch this space! It’s really important to have him back and firing, after a long-term injury kept him out for most of last season.

Peter Andrews was up against old foe Seb Galer on board 2 – a critical battle with Peter playing White. Lose this and we really were in trouble. Seb went on the attack in the opening, and by move 10 Peter was already up against it. Peter takes up the story from the position below (one of the nice things about him is that, win or lose, he will cheerfully annotate the game and try to learn from it – a lesson to us all!)

This defeat – surely the result of being under attack for a prolonged period, surviving it, relaxing and then blundering because the worst seemed to have passed – made it 3.5-2.5 to Guildford. They could not lose the match, but we could still draw it – if we could win on board 1, where the estimable Will Taylor had Black against Matthew Dishman.

Matthew had sac’d a pawn for what he hoped was an initiative, but his kingside assault had come to nothing and now Will had queen and four pawns against queen and three. Will was pushing and pushing for the win, but he was also playing on the 10-second increment, whereas his opponent had five minutes left. This imbalance proved fatal.

At one point Will was down to a single second, but he punched his clock just in time. When he went down to the minimum again, however, he was less fortunate and his clock ticked down to zero before he made his umpteenth queen move. A horrible moment. Poor Will had lost a game in which he deserved at least a draw and we had lost the match 4.5-2.5. Now an attritional winter trying to fight off relegation from Surrey Div 2 awaits.

But perhaps I should not despair too much. Worried that Will would be losing sleep over the disaster and keen to send him my commiserations, I sent a supportive email soon after the conclusion the match. “Thanks for asking,” he responded, “but I’m fine. It’s just a game of chess.” Am eminently sensible and rational attitude, and one we sleep-deprived obsessives would do well to replicate. Whatever legendary Liverpool manager Bill Shankly might have said, it really is a game – and not a matter of life and death.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Epsom 4 v Kingston 6, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Epsom Christian Fellowship, Epsom on 2 December 2024

This was one of those unfortunate evenings that one prefers to forget. Mark Sheridan, who was due to play for the Kingston team, slipped, injured his leg and was in A&E when he should have been battling it out on board 6. Apologies to Epsom for the default.

Losing a board to a default was critical in a well-contested match. David Bickerstaff and Sean Tay lost on boards 2 and 3, but Jaden Mistry (pictured above, in red top, playing in an earlier match) won well on board 4; captain Ed Mospan continued his run of good form with a solid draw; and it was reassuring to see Adam Nakar back playing again and drawing with wily Epsom veteran Michael Wickham on top board.

The best news of all was that Mark was discharged sore but with no broken bones and planned to make an immediate return to the fray. Thanks as ever to the players for making the long trek to Epsom on a chilly December evening.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Kingston 1 v Guildford 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 25 November 2024

To judge by the teams Guildford have been able to field this season, they will be close rivals in this season’s Surrey competitions. Kingston had a rating advantage on seven of the eight boards, but many of the differences were small and easily offset by the advantage of playing White. I was under too much pressure in my own game to see much of the others. Spectators reported a tense match, and in each of the games on boards 4 to 7 we had losing positions at one point. We eventually scored 2.5 points from those four games, so the final result gave a rather misleading impression of the course of the match.

When title contenders meet, the first goal is often crucial, and Peter Large scored it against FM Jon Ady, recently returned to England from Hong Kong. As the game emerged into the endgame, Peter had a useful initiative. That may have induced Jon to grab a hot pawn, leading quickly to his knight become trapped on one side of the board and his king on the other.

Luca Buanne, with Black on board 5, came under pressure out of the opening. His opponent missed a sequence which would have transitioned to a winning ending, and Luca needed no second invitation to activate and equalise.

Next to finish was Mike Healey on board 4 against Guildford’s new captain James Toon. Mike came out of the opening two pawns down and objectively lost, but with the kind of wild position in which a game can turn quickly. That is what happened in this position after White’s 23^rd move.

In the rare moments I could spare from my own game, I had followed some of the twists and turns of John Foley’s game on board 8, next to me. With kings castled on opposite sides, John had built a strong attack using the open h-file. But Black had sacrificed a pawn to block that, and then changed the nature of the game by giving up two rooks for queen and pawn.  Both sides had attacking chances after White had played move 38, but Black’s response led to defeat.

On board 7, the computer evaluation of my position proved later to be roughly equal most of the way through, but I had been short of space, which usually makes it harder to play. In the position below, my opponent missed an opportunity. We both missed that White could have played 22. Ng6, with a big advantage; to save the exchange, Black must play 22 …fxg6 after which 23. Qxe6+ regains the piece with Black’s kingside wrecked. I am sure we would both have seen that had Ng6 captured a pawn against a kingside fianchetto rather than being a sacrifice on an empty square. Then, just before a draw was agreed, it was my turn to miss a winning opportunity, after White’s 29th move, when Re4 would give Black a big advantage.

That gave Kingston a 4-1 lead, or “dormie three” in golf parlance. But it was hard to assess the remaining games. Julian Way’s game on board 6 probably had the most reversals. Julian had come out much worse from the opening. Facing a kingside attack on his castled king, he responded with a kingside attack on Black’s castled king. At one point, both sides could have lost a piece to pins down the g-file in quick succession. After Black’s 31st move, this was the position.

That half-point got us over the line. Could David Maycock or Peter Lalić (pictured above) add the extra point? David, playing Black against 2340-rated Gwilym Price and suffering the after-effects of a cold (though he would be the last person to make excuses), liked his position from the opening. The key position arose after White’s 18^th move.

In the encounter between Clive Frostick v Peter Lalić on board 3, unlike the other games in the match, there were no significant fluctuations in the advantage until after Black’s 31st move.

So we took the chequered flag, the spectators got their money’s worth, and Kingston have a good chance of being top of the Surrey League division 1 table at Christmas. But all the top teams, including ourselves, are stronger at home than away, so the trips to Epsom and Guildford in the spring will be serious challenges.

Peter Andrews, Kingston 1 captain in the Surrey League

Hounslow B v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 25 November 2024

Kingston B made it 4/4 so far this season with a convincing 4.5-1.5 victory away to Hounslow B. The two young Hounslow players on the top boards did well to get draws against the experienced and highly rated pair of David Rowson and Alan Scrimgour, and Hounslow’s JJ Padam drew on board 4 with Jon Eckert, but the other three games were wins for Kingston.

John Bussmann continued his winning return to competitive action, winning on time against Frank Zurstiege (although the game was already positionally won); Alicia Mason (pictured in action earlier in the season) continued her rich vein of form with a well-played refutation of Barry Fraser’s French Defence; and I (making a thankfully rare appearance) won against Steve Hall, despite an odd incident when I thought my opponent had resigned after he expressed disgust at what looked the losing move, and held out my hand to mark the end of the game, only to be told that he had not actually quit. On we played, but only for a few more rapidly executed moves – I was very short of time and Hounslow use non-incremental clocks! – before I forced mate.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain