Surrey League division 4 match played at Guildford on 15 January 2024
This was a match perhaps best hastily passed over. The average rating difference between these two third teams was around 200 points. It is rare for such a disparity to be overcome, and that certainly never looked likely to be the case here. Kingston fought hard, but Guildford were too good, and only Mark Sheridan’s heroics against the immensely experienced Trevor Jones saved us from a whitewash.
Congrats to Mark on a fine draw and thanks to the team for trekking down to Guildford to play so strong a team. The Centenary Trophy, to give Surrey League division 4 its formal title, is a highly competitive division, as we are discovering this season, where our score so far is 0.5/5. Tough going, but we are – as they say – on a journey. A journey down the A3 actually.
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.
Surrey League division 1 match played at Coulsdon on 15 January 2024
Coulsdon (left) up against Kingston, with Supratit Banerjee and David Maycock on board 1 in the foreground
After two losses in our first three matches in Surrey division 1, Kingston 1 needed a win at Coulsdon, and as soon as we arrived we knew it would not be easy. They fielded a stronger team than they had in the equivalent fixture last year and we were missing some key players, so it was always going to be tight. In the end, Kingston came out on top 5-3, but there were alarms along the way.
No alarms on board 8, though, where Alan Scrimgour with Black played out a short draw with Martin Faulkner. Alan more than equalised against an English – all the Coulsdon players essayed the English with White – but never had enough to press for a decisive result. Peter Andrews also took a draw with Black on board 6 – another English easily stifled, with Black if anything having slightly the better of it.
Julian Way and Ian Calvert also had a draw on board 7, but a much more eventful one in which Julian played skilfully to counter Ian’s Scandinavian. The opening had given Ian an apparent space advantage, but it proved illusory and an endgame resulted with bishops of the same colour pitted against each other. It looked very drawish, but Kingston president John Foley – who was spectating at the match – immediately spotted an opportunity in the position below:
If instead Black plays 34…cxb4 35. Kxd4 – the engine’s second choice but possibly better in practical play – the doubled pawns make life difficult, with White able to start to advance his d-pawn. But it remains problematic for White to win, and perhaps the result would have been a draw in 80 moves rather than in 42 moves, which is what eventuated after Julian played 34. Bd2.
How were we faring elsewhere? David Maycock was doing well against the prodigious nine-year-old Supratit Banerjee on board 1. Supratit had been rapidly promoted from board 7 in the corresponding fixture last year, but was outmanoeuvred by David in a beautifully played endgame (annotated in the Games section), with the Kingston player homing in remorselessly on Black’s isolated e-pawn. The first key position is shown below. Black errs by playing 30…Ke5 here when 30…g5 is essential:
Kingston captain Peter Andrews, analysing this instructive position later, said this: “30…Ke5 looked the most natural move to me, preventing king penetration by White. The saving move g5 creates an extra weakness for Black (the h5 pawn), but it also allows Black to get his h-pawn on to a black square. Further, it creates a weakness for White as well, and if all the kingside pawns are swapped off, a minor piece ending with pawns on one side is hard to win even if one side is a pawn ahead because of the possibility that the weaker side can give up the piece for the last pawn, not a possibility in a rook ending.” Black had a further opportunity in the position below, but it would take considerable calculation to find what looks a very counter-intuitive move here:
We had been optimistic about David Maycock winning, but were less certain about matters elsewhere. Peter Lalić had a very constricted position against Ian Snape on board 2, Mike Healey was under pressure on board 3 against Rahul Babu, and Will Taylor and David Rowson’s games were far from clear. Where were our points going to come from? By exchanging queens unnecessarily. Peter Lalić got himself into this ugly-looking position against Ian Snape:
David Rowson, meanwhile, was engaged in a complex struggle with Shivam Agrawal, who had played a Caro-Kann. “The opening was played more or less OK by both of us,” David reports, “but after that there were many inaccuracies and missed opportunities. Credit to my opponent, who could have had a draw by repetition at two points, but played on to try to win despite his time shortage.”
“These games where kings castle on opposite sides often hang in the balance,” Peter Andrews remarked after the game. “A mistake often means the difference between win and loss, rather than win and draw. As we now know, the win was critical to the match result. Blundering the knight is the kind of thing that easily happens in time trouble where the cooler head wins almost irrespective of the position on the board.” “I wasn’t feeling that cool,” David responded wryly, “but maybe cooler than my opponent because I think he was feeling a desperate need to win, though I don’t know if he was aware of the match situation. I was and thought a draw would be OK, though I didn’t offer him one.”
On board 4 Will Taylor was engaged in a tremendous (and to onlookers fairly opaque) struggle with Nasir Rizvi. Nasir played yet another English, to which Will responded with great verve, and by move 18 Black had a decent plus. At this point, White made a critical – and, as it turned out, losing – decision:
“I’ve rarely seen rooks treated with such contempt by both sides,” Peter Andrews said afterwards – the other pair had also fallen victim to marauding bishops at an early stage in the game. So a terrific win by Will with Black, and we were over the line and able to breathe at last.
The only disappointment on the night was Mike Healey’s loss to another star junior, Rahul Babu, on board 3 in the final game to finish. “I was lost, worked my way back into it, then blundered,” Mike said succinctly afterwards. When you have been under sustained pressure for a long period and think you have wriggled free, there is always a danger you will relax and make an error. It is also disturbing to be the last to finish at close to 10.30pm, with organisers starting to pack sets away in what is a very busy (and sometimes noisy) venue. But Mike is not one to make excuses. He is a wonderful player who demonstrated great ingenuity despite being on the back foot for a long period in this game, and is sure to bounce back.
That made it 5-3 to Kingston and we could head out into the cold of the Chipstead Valley Road congratulating ourselves on a job well done. We now have the beginnings of a buffer against relegation, though anything could happen in this intensely competitive division. Guildford and Epsom are in the box seat, but when they head south to Coulsdon they, too, will face a stiff test. At the halfway point in the season there are no certainties about how the battle will end.
Thames Valley division X match played at Actonians Sports Club, Ealing on 15 January 2024
No question who was the hero of this match for Kingston C – David Bickerstaff, making his debut for the club, playing his first ever rated classical over-the-board game and pulling off a fine win in a very solidly played French Defence. We knew David had promise and that faith was amply justified here.
On the other boards, captain Stephen Daines secured a draw on board 3; Colin Lyle lost on board 4, not helped by the fact that he accidentally touched a piece which he was then forced to move; and Ergo Nobel lost in a tense struggle on board 1, giving Ealing D the match by 2.5-1.5.
Thames Valley League division 2 match played at Fircroft, Surbiton on 10 January 2024
It’s always nice to start the New Year with a victory, especially one that takes you top of the league. And it was a convincing one at that, not dropping a game in a 4-2 victory over neighbours Surbiton B.
We were favourites on the top three boards and underdogs on the bottom three, so it was set to be an interesting encounter. Nick Grey was first to finish, with a peaceful draw against Surrey county team-mate Graham Alcock. Nick faced Graham’s time-honoured Scandinavian, but after carefully assessing the other games around him he felt we had an advantage and opted to offer a draw.
Stephen Moss also secured another half-point against Andrew Boughen, in a game that Stephen described as “boring – nothing really happened”. But an important result with the black pieces against his higher-rated opponent. Another draw was then agreed on board 2, where fresh from his heroics of saving a completely lost game against Kingston in the Surrey League the week previously, promising junior Joshua Pirgon secured another half-point against John Foley. So far, all square at 1.5-1.5.
It was Kingston stalwart Alan Scrimgour who drew first blood, defeating another one of Surbiton’s young stars, Joseph Morrison. Joseph has been a frequent prize-winner at the Kingston Blitz Series, but time wasn’t on his side on this occasion, as Alan managed to transpose a Caro-Kann into a c3 Sicilian, an opening with which Alan is very familiar. This allowed him to build a massive time advantage and, after sustained pressure, he broke through to put the first full point on the board.
On board 6, I managed to successfully dodge the many traps set by yet another talented Surbiton junior, Conrad Bredenoord. Conrad pushed g4 in front of his castled king, offering up a pawn sac that looked to lead to a tactical mêlée. I tanked for about 25 minutes, trying to calculate whether it was poisoned or not. Normally, I would take the easy way out and just leave it hanging, but I thought I could get away with it, and to my relief I was right. The extra pawn was then followed by the win of an exchange, a dilution of pieces, and a simple endgame victory to clinch the match.
David Rowson was the last to finish on the top board, playing what feels like his weekly game against Liam Bayly. This encounter ended in a draw, making it 4-2 to Kingston and taking us to top spot in Thames Valley division 2. But how long will we stay at the summit, given that we have tricky away trips to Hounslow and Maidenhead to follow this month?
Gregor Smith, Kingston B captain in Thames Valley division 2
Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 8 January 2024
Having beaten Ealing 4-2 away in October, Kingston approached this match with moderate confidence. Last season we benefited from some clubs not travelling well, most notably Ealing. Several of their players are Fulham FC supporters (like me) but in contrast to last year Fulham didn’t have a fixture on Monday, so our opponents arrived in good time and close to full strength, whereas we were lacking a couple of our top players. All the same, the similarity in the average ratings of the two teams foretold a close match, and that was borne out on the evening.
The first game to finish was that on the top board, where Martin Smith and Peter Lalić agreed to a very early draw. Queens had been exchanged on move 4 and the position was pretty level at move 15, with White perhaps having more reason to play on than Black.
Ealing then went ahead when Jonathan White converted his extra pawn advantage in a rook ending against John Foley, but on board 6 Alan Scrimgour was on top against Simon Healeas. I’m not qualified to comment on how the opening (a Caro-Kann, Panov Attack) developed, but in the early middlegame White’s queenside pawn majority was up against Black’s two central pawns. The following position was reached:
Here, instead of defending the knight on c6 Black counter-attacked with 18….e4. The problem with this was that after 19. Qxc6 exf3 gxf3 White was a pawn up and Black’s pawn centre was half what it had been. The doubled pawns on the f-file are not so significant here. Play continued 30…Rc8 31. Qa4 d4 32. Rbd1 Nd5 33. Ne4 (Rxd4 loses a piece to Nc3).
A few moves later this was the position:
Now if 25…Bf6 White would exchange rooks and queens on e8 and his connected queenside pawns would be much stronger than Black’s single central one, which is in any case likely to fall imminently. However, after 25…d3 26. Qb5 White won the d-pawn and soon after the game. This levelled the scores at 1.5-1.5.
On board 4 Will Taylor was defending a Queen’s Gambit Declined against the very experienced Alan Perkins.
Here White played 18. Nxe6! The idea is that after 18…fxe6 19. Rxe6 Black has to play 19…Kh8 to avoid the discovered check, and then 19. d5 pushes the c6 knight away from defending the bishop on e7. Will commented, “I didn’t react well to the shock of Nxe6, spending almost all my remaining time and leaving myself playing on increment in a position which might otherwise have been defensible.” After 20…Bxa3 21. dxc6 the c6 pawn, helped along by White’s bishops and rooks, became a winner, advancing to c7.
Now Ealing had a point lead, but the match continued to roller-coaster, which description fits my own game perfectly. Out of a Giuoco Piano I had what I thought was the advantage, as Tony Wells’ pieces were mostly stuck on the back rank, but I couldn’t work out how to exploit this, and after the queens were exchanged I played some casual moves and suddenly realised that I was much worse. Black was pressing hard on the kingside and my pieces seemed to be tripping over each other. With little time to think properly I decided to confuse things, and played 40. g3 here:
According to Stockfish this takes my position from -0.58 to – 1.86. After 40…g4! 41.fxg4 Bxg4 I played the strange-looking 42. Ng1. My idea was to move a rook to the g-file to line up against Black’s bishop and king. It’s not really a particularly good move, but then nothing is here. Black doubled rooks – 42…Raf7 – and I played 43. Nh2, giving this position:
Now 43…Nxg3 44. Nxg4 Rf4 would have threatened the g4 knight and mate on e4, and after 45. Nf2 h3 46. Ngxh3 Rf3++, but this was very hard to see with only about a minute left on the clock. Instead, Black defended his bishop with 43…Nf6, losing the advantage. I continued 44. gxh4 and my opponent decided to use his king to recapture the h-pawn. We reached this position a few moves later:
Here I played 47. Nhf3+ (Ngf3+ was even better) and after 47…Kh5 I was able to win a pawn by 48. Nxe5. The game continued 48…Nxd3 49. Nxd3 Nxe4? (time trouble – Re8 was best) and finished 50. Kxe4 Bf3+ 51. Nxf3 Rxf3 52. Rh1+ when Tony resigned, as it’s mate next move. With a lot of luck I had managed to go from dead lost to dead won, and the match was all square again.
So the match result would hang on the last game to finish. From a very complex French David Maycock – playing White against Fide master Andrew Harley – gained the two bishops, but when the queens were exchanged he became tied down to defending an extra pawn on c5:
Play continued 24. Ra4 Nd8 25. Ra5 Nc6 26. Ra4 Nd8. Andrew Harley was offering to repeat the position, but David, with his usual admirable fighting spirit, turned this down. He didn’t know the match situation and decided he should try to win for the team, so varied by 27. Nc3. Unfortunately this meant he gave up his small advantage of the two bishops. The position was still absolutely level by move 50, with each player only having a rook and knight, but time pressure had now entered the equation. David kept finding ways to set Andrew problems, but Andrew resourcefully solved these, and with only seconds left David had to resign when facing two connected passed pawns.
So Kingston had narrowly lost the match. Ealing had proved very tough opponents. This was our first defeat this season in the Thames Valley League. It will now be very problematic for us to retain the title (see current table below, beneath the match score), but we’ll keep fighting – six matches remain.
David Rowson, Kingston A captain in Thames Valley League
Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 8 January 2024
A 2-2 draw was an excellent result for Kingston C against Hounslow C, who had a rating advantage of almost 60 points a board. Ergo Nobel, still relatively new to Kingston, can feel particularly proud of himself, grinding out a high-pressure win on top board against a 1600-strength opponent who fought for his life.
The first result was on board 2 where Greg Heath, captaining in place of an indisposed Stephen Daines, resigned in a rook endgame against Steve Hall. Later analysis suggested the resignation was premature. Remember Greg, all rook endgames are drawn.
Jaden Mistry, with Black against Andrew Cleminson on board 3, led the fightback for Kingston, playing a very solid Caro-Kann, establishing an edge and then taking advantage of a cataclysmic blunder by his opponent to mate on the back rank when White, with correct play, had good drawing chances.
That made it 1-1, but on board 4 Ethan Bogerd was losing the battle of the juniors against Ashwath Kumar Kota, who was a knight up and pushing on with two dangerous connected pawns. Ethan tried to block, but Ashwath sac’d knight for pawn to clear the path for his own passed pawn and make it 2-1 to Hounslow.
That left it to Ergo to secure the draw for Kingston, which he did with aplomb, despite at one point playing an illegal move which gave his time-strapped opponent an extra two minutes. Ergo dealt with that hiccup without too much distress and turned a very drawish rook-and-pawn endgame into a win, helped by his opponent’s continuing time troubles. So in fact, given the human practicalities of chess, all rook endgames are not drawn.
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.
Surrey League division 2 match played at Fircroft, Surbiton on 3 January 2024
For Kingston 2 to secure a draw against Surbiton 1 in the second division of the Surrey League is on paper a very good result, but there was a slight sense at the end of this invigorating New Year match that victory had slipped from our grasp, with Peter Andrews and Stephen Lovell having to settle for draws in games which at one point looked like possible wins. We should, though, not be greedy: after last year’s battles, Kingston 2 is so far doing far better in this tough division this season.
The board 7 game was first to finish with old adversaries Jon Eckert and Surbiton captain Graham Alcock, who played his customary Scandinavian, declaring peace after 20 moves. That draw set a pattern for the match, which was clearly going to be very tight.
On board 2, Altaf Chaudhry and Kingston’s Julian Way also settled for a draw. Julian blunted Altaf’s English Opening, establishing a pawn on e4. After some grandmasterly manoeuvring, the two players repeated moves and accepted the inevitability of a draw in the position shown below where 27… Bf8 forces the white queen back to c1.
John Foley, with White against Jasper Tambini on board 3, had essayed a pawn sac to get Black’s king offside and allow a pawn advance in the centre. But is proved rather speculative and thereafter Tambini, who has returned to his old club Surbiton after a short spell at Wimbledon, seized the initiative, went the exchange up and forced victory. Advantage Surbiton.
David Rowson appears destined to spend his entire season playing against Surbiton’s Liam Bayly – they also met recently in a first-team match, when Liam had the better of it, and were likely to meet again when Surbiton 2 and Kingston 2 met on 10 January. On this occasion, David had no difficulty neutralising Liam’s Giuoco Piano and may even had established a slight edge but, after an exchange of queens, another relatively bloodless draw resulted.
Alan Scrimgour always appeared to be doing well with White on board 5 against the redoubtable Nick Faulks, and so it proved. “I didn’t expect to play Nick and only discovered after the game that we have now played three c3 Sicilians with me as White,” Alan said after the game. “This explains why, presumably remembering, he played the first 12 moves quickly, leaving me well behind on the clock. The first crucial decision by me was to play the risky-looking 16. g4 followed by 17. Ne5. Although this position (see below) was roughly equal, Black was cramped and subsequently played a couple of inaccuracies, ceding the pawn on b7 with 19… Qd6, presumably hoping to use the Bb8/Qd6 diagonal.”
Alan now had a healthy plus, but missed a chance in the position below when 23. b5 would have left the black queen very short of squares and would most likely have won the exchange.
But despite missing that chance, Alan retained his advantage and won a piece with a tactical sequence half a dozen moves later. That tied the match at 2.5-2.5, but with Peter Andrews holding the upper hand against David Scott on board 1 and Stephen Lovell, on his seasonal debut and after a year-long break from league chess, material up against Joshua Pirgon on board 6 we felt we had a sniff of victory.
Peter Andrews also played an English, discovering later that his opponent David Scott played the same line as White. In the position below, Peter has just played 15. d4, which he describes as a “very committal move which opened the position enough to make it hard for either of us to keep control of all our weaknesses”.
Peter believed 24. Na4 in the position below gave him a substantial edge, which indeed it does, though he believes with support from some engines (not all interestingly) that Nd7 is even stronger:
With time starting to press for both players, could Peter find a winning plan? He was pleased, in line with his New Year resolution, to find a backward diagonal queen move to further increase the tension in the position, and reached this position after 31. Nf5, when White has a substantial advantage:
But that was as good as it got, for reasons Peter explains in his inimitable style in the annotation he did for the game: “At this point I had well under five minutes left and stopped recording. Given that the position is +5 for White – he has an extra exchange in an open position, a better pawn formation, and more active and co-ordinated pieces – the reader may ask how on earth the game ended as a draw. I am unable to reconstruct the rest of the game, which in itself is telling.
“Hereabouts, I had a mental blank. The position has changed completely from the tense struggle up to move 23. I no longer had an obvious plan, or time on the clock to formulate one; my objectives were not to blunder something catastrophic and to hope that my opponent allowed something loose to drop off, or to steer for an ending and trust that the material advantage would count. However, I made the mistake of exchanging rooks on c4, giving him a passed pawn, and then exchanging queens.
“He managed to defend the pawn, and knights are not very good at rounding up a mobile pawn. So I gave back the exchange to win the pawn, leaving me with two knights and four pawns against bishop, knight and three pawns. I then left a pawn en prise and immediately offered a draw, which was accepted, not noticing until too late that if he took the pawn my king could have forked his two minor pieces. Whether the pawn-up minor-piece ending was winnable is doubtful, with the clock pressing and all the pawns on one side, but I could no doubt have made him suffer for some time.”
An honest and illuminating assessment from a serious player who never spares himself from self-criticism. The match was now tied at 3-3 and it was all down to the roller-coaster encounter being played out on board 6 between Stephen Lovell and Joshua Pirgon.
Team-mates watch on anxiously as Joshua Pirgon (left) takes on Stephen Lovell in the final game to finish
If some of the games in this match were relatively tame, this encounter was anything but. The opening was a French Tarrasch. “I wasn’t entirely happy with how I handled the opening,” Stephen said afterwards. “Closing the position with 17 … f5 (see position below) was quite possibly a mistake, but I thought I would have to do it at some point anyway and felt I had the resources to deal with any kingside attack.”
White took up the challenge, sac-ing a piece and lining his heavy artillery up against the Black king.
White’s threats are largely illusory – Stephen was right that he did have the resources to deal with the expected kingside onslaught. But in practical club chess with time rapidly diminishing, your mind starts to play strange tricks. “After 33. Rfh2 I suddenly realised I had some calculating to do,” Stephen says, “and spent much too much time thinking before my 33rd move.”
Stephen did in fact play accurately: 33. Rxf4 34. Rxh7 Qxe5. This is surely winning, despite the rook checks that are coming for White, but his opponent played resourcefully and was able to play 37. Bxg6 with check, creating a passed g-pawn. Now it was complete mayhem and Stephen was playing on the increment. “I was in a fog of time trouble,” he says. “All of a sudden the g6 pawn had become a big factor, and I couldn’t see a clearly winning way of stopping it. Nor could I see a mate. So I decided to let the pawn queen, imagining that I should still win with a material advantage and a vulnerable white king. But something went wrong, as it so often does!”
The position was liquidated down to an endgame in which Stephen had bishop and three pawns against rook and pawn. It was knife edge and could have gone either way, but in the end a draw was agreed. What a game with which to return to competitive action after a year away. Stephen promises he will play again – in about another year’s time. That’s enough excitement for 2024.
Stephen Moss, Kingston captain in Surrey League division 2
Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 18 December 2023
After about half an hour of this match I had a feeling we’d been mugged. I was on board 4 and, having expected to meet a player of my own strength or slightly below, was faced with Nigel Smith, an experienced player rated around 1900. I was already in a spot of bother after a foolish bishop for knight exchange that left his bishop pair controlling affairs. If they had a 1900 on board 4, what were their top 3 like?
The answer was pretty handy, because Maidenhead managed a clean sweep of boards 1 to 3, despite facing players of the quality of Peter Andrews, Julian Way and Alan Scrimgour. Make no mistake: this was a very strong Maidenhead team, and with these players, including the newly joined Sir Lankan father-and-son duo Ishan and Jenith Wiratunga, strengthening an already very useful first team, Maidenhead are really going places and could be contenders for the Thames Valley division 1 title in the near future.
Going places is of course what Maidenhead have to do. They are quite a long way from their rival clubs in the Thames Valley League and have traditionally been slightly ropey travellers. Generally you could expect them to be a good deal weaker away than at home. But they disproved that dictum here, getting their best players out and winning comfortably despite the long journey.
Peter Andrews lost a remarkable game against Maidenhead’s Stephen James on board 1 – remarkable because of the transformation in his fortunes in the course of a few moves. He pinpoints this position, after White’s 14th move, as the key one. He plays 14…Bc5 here, and things go badly awry.
“Nxd2 was best, “explains Peter, “when play might go 15. Nxc6 Nb3 16. Nb4 Nxa1 17. Be4 Qc8 (d5 is no help because Bxd5 is possible) 18. Bxa8 Qxa8 19. Qxa1 and -0.2 suggests a fractional edge for Black but nothing much. Curious to see both queens in corners. I had originally intended 14…Bxb4, which is also fine. Bc5 was too clever and forced my opponent to play well.”
The game proceeded 14… Bc5 15. Be3 Bxb4 16. cxb4 Qxb4 17. Qg4, leading to this position:
“I thought Qg4 was winning and collapsed,” Peter says with great honesty. This is a fascinating and complicated position, which Peter (accounting for his “hallucination”) describes in the following way in the annotation he did for the game: “This came as a complete shock. A visualisation error on my part; in the lines I had been looking at in advance of move 14, I would have played Nxd2 at some stage, so the queen would come to g5 rather than g4 and I would not now face this pin on my knight.
“When looking at this with an engine, I had expected to find that I was now lost, and was surprised to find the evaluation 0.0. Even more surprisingly, it recommends 17…O-O, which I barely considered because of the obvious 18. Bh6, threatening mate and attacking the knight for the third time. I had missed 18…. Qxb2, guarding g7 from long distance and backwards along a diagonal (hard to see, but it was relevant to my actual choice of 17… Qxb2, so I should have seen it in this context too). The threats of Nxf2 and Qxf2+ constrain White’s choices. Natural and best is 19. Bxe4 Bxe4, when 20. Rxe4 would leave the a1 rook en prise and (best) 20. Qxe4 allows gxh6. Black’s position looks pretty hairy, but he does have two pawns as compensation and with accurate play he can avoid disaster.”
As Peter said, he played the right move, Qxb2 – but too early and without castling. The game proceeded: 17…Qxb2 18. Bxe4 f5 19. Bxf5 exf5 20. Bd4+ 1-0
“17… Qxb2 was tantamount to resignation as soon as my opponent saw that 19. Bxf5 was possible,” says Peter. In the final position [see above] exf5 allows Bd4+, and Black has no sensible way to prevent the white queen giving check next move, followed by annexing the black queen.” A horrible end from a position a few moves earlier of relative security. One concludes for the umpteenth time that chess can be very cruel.
On board 2, Julian Way succumbed to young Jenith Wiratunga. Wiratunga played a Sicilian Dragon, and White countered with the Yugoslav Attack. Julian thought his initial error came in this position:
Here he plays 13. Nd5, leading to a mass trade of pieces: 13.Nd5 Qxd2 14. Nxf6+ Bxf6 15. Rxd2 Bxd4 16. Rxd4 Rc5 17. Be2 Rac8 18. Rc1 h5 19. h3 hxg4 20. hxg4 g5. Black is already heading for an endgame in which he has greater piece activity. White’s light-squared bishop never really joins the party, other than as a rather ineffective defender, and 20. g5! secures an entry point for Black’s king on the dark squares. Simple but very effective chess from Black.
13. a3 or perhaps g5 would have been better for White, and 18. c3 is a better way to defend the c-file than Rc1, because it doesn’t tie the rook down to defence and opens up squares for the light-squared bishop. In the game as it unfolded, Black got all the play, won a pawn and sealed the deal with some very precise endgame play, leading to the final position below when Julian resigned. Wiratunga Junior is a player of whom we are going to hear a great deal more.
Wiratunga Senior was also successful for Maidenhead on board 3 against the redoubtable Alan Scrimgour. They had a fierce and complex battle in which neither side could establish a decisive advantage, despite pressure on Alan’s uncastled king. In the position below, Alan felt that in retrospect he should have recaptured on e4 with the queen to force a queen exchange.
He retook with fxe, which the engine prefers, but it led to long-term pressure from the white queen on Black’s now exposed kingside. “My opponent began to create threats,” says Alan, “but I was still holding until an unsound and unnecessary exchange sac on move 44. I was dead lost after that.” A very classy game, though, in which both players made excellent moves over a long period in a series of complicated positions.
I managed a barely deserved draw against Nigel Smith on board 4. In the position below I thought I was about to be mated:
I do, though, have a rather desperate resource: 24. c4, buying myself some time to stop the black rooks combining on the h-file while the black bishop occupies c4 to cut off my king’s escape route. My position remains very bad, but at least I am still alive and can create problems, which is exactly what happened. The rooks were traded, my knight became active, time began to run short, my opponent blundered a pawn, and we reached an endgame with opposite-coloured bishops in which I just about hung on. One of those draws that feels better than a win.
Kingston captain Gregor Smith had what he freely describes as a “boring draw” on board 5, with material being liquidated down to a rook and pawn endgame after 20 moves. Nevertheless a good result against Maidenhead veteran Nigel Dennis, who has been a fixture on the chess scene for almost 60 years and retains a very respectable rating.
Our only winner in the match was Nick Grey, continuing his good recent run of form with a victory against Simon Foster on board 6. Nick played the Advanced Variation against the French Defence, and the game quickly descended into a blizzard of tactics. In the position below, Nick thought he was completely busted, and the truth is he probably was.
Black plays the correct move here: 21…Rxf6! White recaptures with the pawn, but is now in serious trouble because 22… Nxg3 is potentially a killer move.
23. fxg3 is losing on the spot – mate in two. The engine recommends playing 23. Qe1 (23. f7 is a close second best) and just giving up a piece to the discovered check, with the hope of some back-rank counterplay later. But neither of these options is very pleasant, and both would be likely to end in defeat. Nick found something that is objectively worse in the short term, but maybe in human terms better because it at least muddies the waters: 23. Ne5, blocking the discovered check.
23…Nxe5 here would hand back a substantial plus to White. The best move for Black is 23…Nxf1+ because, if, say, 24. Qxf1, then 24…Nxe5 25. dxe5 Qxe5+ 26. f4 Qxf6 27. Qf2 Bxc2 28. Rg1 Rxg1 29. Kxg1 Qxc3 is winning. But Black actually played 23…Nxe2, which appears to pick up a piece but is far from conclusive unless he follows it up, after White’s 24. Qe3, with 24…Qd8, relinquishing the knight in order to get threats which will force White to give a piece back to avoid mate.
All very complicated and Black proceeded to lose his way completely, playing 24…Rg4 instead of Qd8, and, after 25. Qxe2, 25…Bxc2, believing White would play 26. Qxc2 and Black would have at least a draw by perpetual. But Nick did not capture the bishop on c2, instead playing f3! (f7! is also strong).
Further complications ensued – Black tried the tempting (but misguided) 26…Bd3? – with neither side playing perfectly as time started to get short in a very double-edged position. But Nick never relinquished the advantage he now had, and Black was eventually mated. Very satisfying for Nick, and welcome relief for Kingston after the reverses elsewhere.
