Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Mindsports Centre, Dalling Road, London W6 on 21 February 2023
This was a famous victory that potentially sets up Kingston for a historic double this season – winning division 1 of the Surrey League and the Thames Valley league in the same year. Kingston have certainly never achieved this, and as far as we can see only Wimbledon (twice – in 2016/17 and 2017/18) have managed it.
Last season Hammersmith won division 1 of the Thames Valley League, winning nine and drawing one of their matches. Clearly, this would be Kingston’s biggest challenge yet in our bid to win both this league and the Surrey League. Hammersmith had the edge on rating, but a close match was anticipated and so it proved. I had the dual role of chauffeur and reporter on the night – keeping the club updated on WhatsApp. There was a delayed start while the Leap digital clocks were reset, but eventually all the games were played at 65 minutes for all moves with a 10-second increment.
On board 1, David Maycock defended against a Catalan, while on board 2 Peter Lalić found himself playing Ali Hill, whom he had faced in a recent tournament. Silverio Abasalo played a French on board 4, while David Rowson was facing an early charge by Bajrush Kelmendi’s g- and h-pawns.
The match was finely balanced after 90 minutes’ play, with Peter Lalić a pawn down and David Maycock a pawn up but with tripled pawns. The match continued tensely over the next hour, with Kingston club members from far and wide (the website editor was on holiday in Florida feeling very deprived of chess news) hanging on the next WhatsApp update.
By 10pm David Maycock was playing on the increment, while Peter and his opponent were down to three minutes each. The breakthrough came with a win for Vladimir Li on board 3, followed a minute later by one for Silverio on board 4. David Rowson’s draw on board 5 left Kingston close to success.
On board 2 a flurry of tactics transformed Peter’s pawn deficit into a winning rook and pawn ending, which he duly converted to win the match. On board 6, John Foley’s bishop was trying to stop two knights from escorting the remaining pawn to promotion, but Christof Brixel played the endgame flawlessly. David Maycock was last to finish, successfully holding a tricky rook and pawn ending. 4-2 to Kingston.
The final game to finish was on board 1, where Davis Maycock (left) held a tricky endgame against Marco Gallana
The turning point of the match was Peter Lalić’s game. Peter was in an inferior position for most of the game and was reduced to moving a rook up and down on the same squares. However, his patience paid off when he spotted spectacular rook sacrifice. 41. Rxf7+ wins in all variations. The rook cannot be captured because 42. Bxe6+ wins the queen.
Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 13 February 2023
John Foley (right) and JJ Padam do battle at Hounslow. Youngsters, that is an old-style analogue clock on the table
After three successive defeats in division 2 of the Thames Valley League, Kingston B finally scored a point with a 4-2 win away to Hounslow B. The result gives us hope of survival in this division, though much will hinge on next Monday’s fixture against the same opponents and on our forthcoming matches against Ealing B. Credit to Kingston captain Gregor Smith, who had to juggle his resources after Nick Grey’s late withdrawal. Nick promises chocolate and other goodies as recompense next week.
The first thing to say about the match was that analogue clocks were used. Clearly this is far from desirable: fine if you are playing 35 moves in 75 minutes – the traditional Thames Valley League time control – but hopeless if you are playing to a finish, since without the increment allowed by digital clocks you can get flagged in a winning position. Which is precisely what happened to Gregor when he was two pawns up in the endgame on board 3. The perfect end to a trying day.
Happily, the captain’s unlucky defeat did not cost us the match. Playing Black, Alan Scrimgour won smoothly on board 2. In a closed Sicilian, his opponent attempted to close the position by playing f5 and c4. Both players kept their kings in the centre, with Alan using the break with g6. His opponent’s pawn sac on the queenside left Alan with a passed a-pawn and a likely endgame win. White responded with an unsound piece sac on the kingside which left him completely lost.
On board 4 I played my usual (wholly disreputable) Nf6 Scandinavian. My opponent’s passivity allowed me to get a slight edge early on, and I had the temerity to turn down not one but two draw offers (most unusual for me – I usually hit the bar as soon as possible). The middlegame position was fairly even, but my opponent blundered away the exchange and as we both reached our final five minutes on the clock (no increments remember, so a loss on time is still possible if the player who is down on material can keep the game going) we reached the position below.
I had expected Rd1 at this point, to swap rooks and exchange down to an endgame where he could at least try to flag me – my intention was to keep the pieces on and go for the jugular, which is indeed what happened. He failed to activate his rook and got mated a few moves later when I got both rooks on the second rank. But later I realised that Rd1 would have lost on the spot. Do you see why?
Black can simply play Qxb3! If the pawn takes the queen, Rxd1+ and Rd2 wins the queen back, leaving Black a rook up. A simple tactic, yet easy to overlook for someone of my strength. A stronger player would probably spot it instantly, even in a time scramble.
I exploited my opponent’s black-square weaknesses to win – my opponent unwisely gave up his black-squared bishop for knight early in the game – while on board 4 Charlie Cooke did something similar on the light squares, queen and bishop working in perfect harmony against a horribly compromised Black king. Those three wins were enough to see Kingston home.
On board 1 John Foley, ever the chess purist, fretted about the absence of digital clocks and could only draw with White against an opponent rated well below him, though of course we must give credit to JJ Padam for getting the draw in a 60-move game in which John carried on pressing for a win throughout. Another puzzle for you. What should Black play here to get a handy edge?
Black actually played Qd5, which frankly is a bit caveman. The best move is Bxg2!, which wins a pawn for nothing. The White king can’t recapture or Nf4+ forks king and queen. Always be on the lookout for opportunist tactics.
On board 6, Hayden Holden secured a draw with Black against a higher-rated opponent. White played a Spanish, Hayden deliberately diverted from theory early on and won a pawn, but White had the initiative, won the pawn back, and with material equal and a symmetrical pawn structure a draw was agreed. Hayden had been due to play in the third-team match at the Willoughby that evening and had to hotfoot it to Hounslow to turn out for the seconds. So he will definitely be getting an early Easter egg from the indisposed Nick Grey next week.
Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 13 February 2023
Revenge was sweet with this win against Surbiton D, who beat us earlier in the season. The 2.5-1.5 victory was an unexpected one as we were outrated, and it took Kingston C top of division X of the Thames Valley League, though the chasing teams have games in hand. Optimistically, I have started to enquire whether there is a trophy for the team finishing first. (Spoiler: it appears that the prize is a clock.)
Colin Lyle succumbed on board 1 against Surbiton’s Colin Li – the battle of the Colins! – after a vibrant to-ing and fro-ing game. This is by no means discouraging for the Kingston Colin as the Surbiton Colin is far stronger than his rating of 1608 suggests. Greg Heath overturned a positional disadvantage on board 2 and accepted a draw from his opponent. Josh Lea, in his long-awaited debut for the club, beat his opponent with an aggressive game to level the score at 1.5 apiece. A terrific start to competitive chess for Josh.
So it was now all down to me. I had left Kingston A&E at 6.30pm following the diagnosis of a fractured shoulder. An hour later, I was lining up on board 3 against a player rated 1462. I had the black pieces. No pressure. White played a passive queen pawn opening, so I seized the initiative with a kingside attack which proved to be potent. White’s king fled but two pawns were lost in the process, creating two potential passed pawns for me on the kingside. My opponent resigned as my h-pawn headed for the queening square. For a brief moment, I even managed to forget the pain from my shoulder. The healing power of chess.
Thames Valley League division 1 and division 2 matches played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 February 2023
It was a bad day – or rather night – at the office. Kingston’s first team, up against Surbiton B, had high hopes of consolidating its place at the top of division 1 of the Thames Valley League, but the Surbitonians had other ideas and went home with a deserved 3-3 draw. Indeed, they might have had more, with Kingston players getting draws in two games which at one stage they looked very likely to lose.
Kingston were without two key players – Peter Lalić and Vladimir Li – but that is no excuse. We still outrated Surbiton by an average of 200 points a board, and there was no escaping the fact that this was a considerable upset. Not terminal – we are still narrowly ahead of the chasing pack – but a decided wake-up call. The loss of a half-point in a match where we were hot favourites to win now makes the club’s trip to Hammersmith on 21 February even more critical.
The evening started serenely enough. Peter Andrews played powerfully to win with Black on board 5, winning a piece with a neat tactical sequence and giving his opponent little or no counterplay thereafter. Surbiton’s Graham Alcock held John Foley to a draw on board 4 and Kingston captain David Rowson survived being a pawn down against Nick Faulks on board 3 to eventually equalise and secure a draw from a position in which it looked very difficult to find decent moves. A good save – and 2-1 to Kingston.
Meanwhile, things were not going well for Kingston chair Alan Scrimgour on board 6 against David Cole, always a redoubtable opponent. Cole had what looked like a winning advantage, but blundered in time trouble (which he admits he is prone to, especially at Thames Valley’s overly fast time controls) and Scrimgour confidently played an endgame in which his rook nullified Cole’s bishop and two pawns. Another crucial save.
That left the two top boards. We hoped David Maycock would be our banker on board 1, but for once it was not to be. Liam Bayly played with great finesse, blunted David’s attacking instincts, and got the upper hand in the endgame to secure a memorable win. That made it 2.5-2.5, and winning the match was now all down to Will Taylor with White on board 2 against Paul Dupré.
Will played extremely well and had a winning position after 41 moves, but once again those pesky time controls took their toll. Playing on the 10-second increment and with just 15 seconds left on his clock, he chose a defensive move against what he thought was the threat of a perpetual check when he had a forced mate. The opportunity went begging and Dupré could breathe again. The game, though not without further incident over the next 20 moves, ended in a draw after Paul traded down to an ending where his bishop could stop Will’s connected pawns. The match was drawn and the post-mortems went on in the bar long into the night.
In the second match, Wimbledon A trounced Kingston B 5.5-0.5. Here it was Kingston’s turn to be heavily outrated, and we proved less successful than Surbiton in overcoming the odds. On board 1, Max Selemir had a characteristically exciting game against the experienced Dan Rosen, as usual throwing the kitchen sink at his opponent, but in the end his piece advantage was no match for Rosen’s phalanx of advancing pawns.
On board 2, captain Gregor Smith was outmanoeuvred by another veteran, Ian Heppell; Kingston stalwart Nick Grey lost against Tony Hughes in a close game in which a pawn advantage proved enough for the Wimbledon man; I surrendered tamely to Stephen Carpenter; Byron Eslava went down fighting on board 6 against Alex Boitier; and it was left to Charlie Cooke to save us from being bagelled with an excellent draw against the dangerous Sean Ingle on board 5. Some serious wound-licking was in order.
Two wins by Peter Hasson ensure a successful weekend for CSC/Kingston 1 to keep their promotion hopes alive, but the second team struggle as life in division 4 gets tougher
CSC/Kingston 1 didn’t expect to be playing in division 3 of the 4NCL this season – their promotion was a fortuitous one after another team dropped out – but so far they are making a wonderful fist of it, and by winning both matches at this third 4NCL weekend they kept their outside hopes of a further promotion alive.
The Saturday match against Brown Jack was tough. CSC/Kingston had a healthy rating advantage, but Brown Jack (named after the pub in Wroughton, near Swindon, where it meets, which presumably is itself named after the famous racehorse of the 1930s) fought hard, and five of the six games were drawn. Only Hasson managed a win, but that was enough to give CSC/Kingston a vital victory by 3.5-2.5.
Sunday’s match was more straightforward – a 4.5-1.5 victory over Shropshire & Friends, with wins for Peter Finn, Clive Frostick and Hasson again. The weekend left CSC/Kingston joint second in the table with three other teams – a remarkable performance given that the team did not take part in the first weekend and were given two half-point byes. Both the byes were awarded against teams in the lower half of the table who we would have hoped to beat, and that may come back to haunt us at the end of the season. But for the moment the mood is upbeat and hopes of a second successive promotion high.
CSC/Kingston 2, who were not as strong as on the two previous weekends, found the going harder, though to lose on Saturday by only 3.5-2.5 against the higher-rated Full Ponty team was a very creditable performance. On paper, CSC/Kingston had a much easier task against Barnet Knights C on Sunday. But ratings mean little where juniors are concerned, and Barnet’s youth-orientated team gave a very good account of themselves, drawing the match 3-3. Nick Grey had a good win and, having drawn with Black with a higher-rated player on Saturday, enjoyed a good weekend.
CSC/Kingston 2 are now joint tenth in the table and have little realistic hope of promotion. But we always saw this season as a tentative return after the pandemic and, if the club can revert to running three teams next year, the hope will be to field a stronger second team that will target promotion and a third team that can both play with less pressure and give game time at 4NCL’s pleasingly long time control to newer players.
Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 30 January 2023
David Maycock conjured a crucial win from a drawish position against Clive Frostick. Photograph: John Saunders
We had built ourselves up so much for this match that when it came there was a slight sense of anti-climax. We had assembled a very powerful team, whereas Guildford were not quite as strong as we anticipated. Which is not to say they did not have a very good side; with their resources they are able to put out three highly competitive teams. The match was well contested and victory by 5.5-2.5 perhaps flattered Kingston to some degree. But in the end strength on the upper boards told, with wins for David Maycock, Peter Lalić and Mike Healey on boards 1, 3 and 4, and Kingston president John Foley also winning on board 8.
Vladimir Li could make little progress against James Toon, and their game was drawn. Photograph: John Saunders
The first game to finish was Vladimir Li against James Toon on board 5. Li ventured a Sicilian and quickly equalised, but Toon played very solidly, the game never really got out of second gear, and the players drew by repetition on move 26. Analysing the game later, Li thought he might at one point have been able to trade down to a rook endgame in which he was slightly better, but the chance was missed.
It has been a brilliant month for Peter Lalić, winning 12 and drawing two of his 14 classical games and often in relatively short order. He did it again here, despatching Guildford captain Nigel White in just 21 moves. Peter played his trademark Nimzowitsch Defence, and set up a web of tactical possibilities. White tried to counter-attack with his rook, but relieving it of defensive duties led to instant nemesis.
Peter Lalić continued his blistering recent run of form, winning in just 21 moves. Photograph: John Saunders
There was another unusual opening in the game between Kingston captain David Rowson and Guildford veteran Phil Stimpson. Stimpson played the Queen’s Pawn, Chigorin Variation (1. d4 d5 2. Nc3). On move three, after David’s 2… Nf6, Stimpson played Bf4 – a line popularised by the Georgian grandmaster Baadur Jobava, so now known as the Jobava London System.
An intriguing positional struggle ensued (with much shuffling of knights). Stimpson, without bothering to castle, made a kingside pawn push which could have proved dangerous, but Rowson blocked it and forced an exchange of queens. After that the heat went out of the position and peace was declared. 2-1 to Kingston, but with a couple of home players under pressure the match was far from in the bag.
The next result, however, calmed the nerves. On board 1, the game between David Maycock and Clive Frostick had looked very even, with some knowledgeable spectators predicting a draw. But the remarkable Maycock found a way to win, first squeezing a small edge out of a position which was indeed level at move 24, then striking decisively to win a piece when Frostick lost coordination of his rook, knight and bishop. 3-1 to Kingston and now we could start to breathe more easily.
IM Graeme Buckley made his debut for Kingston, drawing with Craig Young. Photograph: John Saunders
IM Graeme Buckley, making his debut for the club against the 2100-rated Craig Young, who played the Petrov Defence. Buckley, a notably aggressive player, castled queenside and launched a kingside pawn push, while Young tried a pawn storm on the opposite flank. But both in the end ran out of steam and a draw was agreed to make the match score 3.5-1.5 to Kingston. The finishing line was drawing near.
The player who had the honour of taking us over it was Mike Healey, playing White against Sebastian Galer. Mike played his beloved Sokolsky (1. b4), but Seb maintained a small plus in the opening. Mike, though, understands the positions that arise from this opening and, by expanding on the queenside, turned the tables, built an edge of his own and eventually won rook for bishop when Seb overlooked a neat tactic.
Mike Healey took Kingston to victory in the match with a win over Sebastian Galer. Photograph: John Saunders
With slightly optimistic hopes of getting his untrammelled c-pawn home, Seb played on and this position was reached, with White to play on move 41.
Would you perhaps be a little concerned about your rook on d2 and the imminent promotion thereafter of the black pawn? I think I would. But not Mike. He had designs on Black’s hemmed-in king. The game proceeded: 41. f5+ Kg5 42. Kg3 h5 43. Rh7 hxg4 44. hxg4 cxd2 45. f4# A very Mike mate.
One of the other Kingston players noticed how sportsmanlike Seb was in defeat, and he and Mike were still happily analysing the game in the bar at closing time. Seb also gave me his scoresheet to allow me to reconstruct the game, so he officially wins the Nicest Chess Player of the Night award.
Will Taylor and Alex Warren look perplexed as they embark on a post-mortem. Photograph: John Saunders
Mike’s win made it a match-winning 4.5-1.5, with Will Taylor on board 6 and John Foley on board 8, up against a very promising junior, still playing. Will, with White against another Sicilian, had a perfectly playable position, but allowed his opponent, Alex Warren, to get a pawn to h3. Once the queens came off and with Will behind on the clock, his position went rapidly downhill. Black established a rook on the seventh and put his knight on g4 bearing down on h2. After that it was, in every sense, only a matter of time as Warren made no mistake.
The last game to finish was the president, who is on a rather majestic winning streak. John’s recent run of success has been founded on his endgame skill, and so it was here. Both players had a knight and five pawns, but John had a two-to-one majority on the queenside, boiled that down to a lone pawn, and then used that pawn to get the Black king offside while mopping up his opponent’s kingside pawns with his knight. An object lesson in why the endgame is still the bit which matters the most.
John Foley looks serene as he gives his young opponent an endgame masterclass. Photograph: John Saunders
The final score was a satisfying 5.5-2.5, Kingston had done the double over the formidable Guildford club, last season’s Surrey division 1 champions, and one or two people from other clubs tweeted immediately after the match that this year’s championship was now done and dusted. It isn’t – we still face difficult trips to Coulsdon and Wimbledon – but we have at least given ourselves a very good chance of winning the Surrey Trophy for the first time since 1975.
Surrey League division 4 match played at West Thornton Community Centre, Thornton Heath on 26 January 2023
A trip to South Norwood is never easy – and this was one of the harder ones. The logistics of the journey from Kingston to south-east London make it hard enough – campaign medals should be struck for all those who join the expedition – but here an inexperienced Kingston 3 team was up against a much stronger South Norwood 2 side. The result was never in doubt, and Kingston were on the wrong end of a 5-1 defeat.
The undoubted high spot was new recruit Mark Sheridan’s terrific draw with Black on board 2 against the highly rated Mohammad Sameer-Had. Mark played the Petrov Defence, equalised and, recognising the rating differential, sought to trade pieces to reach a drawn endgame. It was in fact Sameer-Had who, fearing the loss of a pawn, offered the draw, so a moral victory for Mark and a real coming-of-age result.
Promising youngster Shaurya Handu also secured a draw on board 5, but elsewhere thing went less well. The ultra-attacking Ron Harris had too much firepower for David Shalom on board 1; Sean Tay and captain Stephen Daines went down fighting on boards 3 and 4; and Jaden Mistry fell for a nasty trick that resulted in mate against the wily veteran Barry Miles. A learning curve for Jaden, but a bitter one. Young players don’t just have to learn chess; they have to learn to tap into their inner resilience too. The game has many knockbacks.
Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the United Reformed Church, Tolworth on 24 January 2023
What a tremendous match this was. Surbiton had put out a very strong team and clearly meant business. They were slightly outrated on boards 1 and 2, but with players as good as Mark Josse and Chris Briscoe had nothing to fear from the killer Kingston duo of David Maycock and Peter Lalić.
Josse played his usual Sicilian and David offered an early knight sac which really put the proverbial cat among the pigeons:
Engines are a little equivocal about the sacrifice, giving Black a small edge, but in practical play it gives White excellent chances, with the Black king marooned in the centre and Black underdeveloped and lacking coordination. Josse accepted the sacrifice and it led to a game of great complexity. It was the last game to finish, so let’s leave the result for a moment.
The first game to finish, after two hours’ play, was board 6 – a draw between Peter Andrews and Surbiton captain Angus James, two players with similar ratings and rock-solid techniques. Peter played a Sicilian and was never worse. Next to finish was Briscoe v Lalić. The latter had played the Nimzowitsch Defence. Briscoe had a decent edge and a time advantage, but Peter showed his usual resolution to equalise the position and was quick to accept a draw when it was offered. 1-1.
Vladimir Li looked to have a space advantage against David Scott’s French Defence, with a phalanx of pawns pushing forward on the kingside. But later analysis showed that the apparent advantage was illusory. Scott countered skilfully and the position was level when a draw was agreed with time starting to run short after 30 moves. The Thames Valley incremental time control of 65 + 10 is just a bit too swift for chess at this level. Administrators please take note.
When would we get a positive result? Not yet. Next to conclude was the board 4 game between Kingston captain David Rowson and Altaf Chaudhry, a dangerous opponent, especially in a time scramble. Chaudhry played the Nimzowitsch Variation of the English Opening (1. c4 e5 2. Nf3) – it was a big night for Nimzowitsch – but David marshalled his pieces cannily and by the middle game appeared to be calling the shots. But Altaf will always complicate and usually when time is short. In the position below, what should David play?
He chose 25… dxe5, and Altaf was able to trade down to equality. Better is 25… Bxe5 because Black will win a kingside pawn: 26. Bxe4 fxg3 27. fxg3 Bxg3 28. hxg3 Bxe4. White’s g-pawn also becomes vulnerable. Engines reckon this is one that got away for Kingston, but when time is running short these critical decisions are far from easy. Altaf reached an equal endgame and the game was drawn. 2-2.
All the while, Kingston president John Foley and Surbiton’s Liam Bayly had been locked in a highly technical struggle on board 5. Foley, with White against an opponent he knows well, had successfully sought to unbalance the position, but left himself with a backward c-pawn. He cleverly resolved the situation by allowing himself to be saddled with doubled d-pawns which he correctly calculated would be dangerous in the endgame.
Nxg6 is feasible here because of the possible fork of king and rook by checking with the queen on g3 after first capturing the knight on e4, but 27… Rc3 holds the position for Black. John actually played 27. Rc1 and, in time trouble, Liam took the rook, giving John control of the c-file. Had Liam doubled his rooks instead, he would have had a slight edge. As it was, it was John that had the advantage and, by trading queens and advancing his pawns, he eventually broke through Liam’s defences. Playing this sort of endgame in a time scramble is nightmarish.
At last then we had a winner on the night: 3-2 to Kingston and just the Maycock-Josse game left. By now both players were on the increment, but it was David who was pressing, forgoing what looked like a perpetual, driving Mark’s king across the board and eventually delivering mate. A brilliant win and a terrific way to end a keenly contested match, which Kingston won 4-2 to put them level on points with Richmond A and Hammersmith A at the top of the Thames Valley division 1 table.
Thames Valley League division 1 and Surrey League division 2 matches played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 23 January 2023
It was a busy night at Fortress Willoughby, with the first team in action against Ealing A in Thames Valley League division 1 and the second team facing Ashtead, runaway leaders of Surrey League division 2. Both matches were extremely one-sided: Kingston overwhelmed Ealing, who were missing several of their stars and defaulted on board six, 5.5-0.5, but Ashtead had no difficulty brushing aside Kingston 2 6-1. The win over Ealing keeps our title hopes alive, but the heavy defeat to Ashtead leaves us rooted to the foot of division 2.
In the Ealing match, David Maycock (despite being under the weather), Peter Lalić and Vladimir Li kept up their extraordinary winning run on the top boards. Black on board 1, David gained an edge in the opening and marooned White’s queen uncomfortably in the middle of the board. His opponent, Tony Wells, gave up the exchange in a bid for counterplay, but it never really materialised, and David found a neat tactic to win the other rook and bring the game to a speedy conclusion.
On board 2, Peter Lalić, following on from a supremely confident tournament victory at the weekend, also gained a nice edge in the opening, and then sac-ed a rook to force mate (see below).
25. Rxb7+ wins. 25… Kxb7. 26. d6+ Kc8 27. Qa6+ Kd7 28. Qb7+ and Black resigns. Mate in one is unavoidable.
Vladimir Li, with Black on board 3, had a sharp game with Mark Winterbotham. Li got the better of the opening and had a central pawn phalanx heading for promotion, but with time running short Winterbotham conjured up a counter-attack that looked promising. Eventually, though, Vladimir snuffed it out, exchanged queens, and his connected passed pawns were unstoppable.
Will Taylor drew on board 4 against an old-school opponent who insisted on slow play – just 35 moves on the night with the option of adjourning or adjudicating. Neither was necessary as they agreed the position was drawn. On board 5, Kingston captain David Rowson had a nailbiting game against Harry Symeonidis, who played the very imaginative Nxh7 in the position below.
Unfortunately for Symeonidis, he failed to follow it up in the optimum way. “He should have played 20. h5, not g5,” explains David. “The position was a bit messy after that and I was anxious, even though I was piece for pawn up. However, he didn’t find a way to complicate my life too much and I was able to simplify to a won ending.” With the Ealing default on board 6, that made it an emphatic 5.5-0.5. An impressive win by David and his team.
The high spot of the second-team match, for Kingston at least, was Peter Andrews’ draw with the highly rated Phil Brooks on board 1, after opening fireworks produced a level middle game and peace broke out. On board 2, Jon Eckert lost to another very highly rated player, Gareth Anthony, in a keenly contested French Winawer. On board 3 John Bussmann, playing his first league game of the season, succumbed to the experienced Dan Rosen. John was plus 2 early on but said he played too timidly, failed to open lines of attack and got into an ugly closed position.
Another veteran, Jonathan Hinton, beat the promising Kingston youngster Max Selemir on board 4; Bertie Barlow and I had a short draw on board 5 – I had a slight edge and a braver man would have played on; Wayne Clark’s Vienna Gambit on board 6 allowed him to build an irresistible attack against Kingston’s Charlie Cooke; and on board 7 Byron Eslava faced a tough league debut against another strong Ashtead regular, Ian McLeod. Byron lost, mislaying a few pawns en route, but was far from disgraced. All very character building. Possibly.
Alexander Cup semi-final played over 10 boards at St Thomas’s Church, Streatham on 17 January 2023
Given that the two teams were evenly matched in terms of ratings, for Kingston to win 7.5-2.5 and thus progress to the final of the Alexander Cup, which the club currently holds, was a remarkable achievement. Streatham had very strong players on the three top boards, yet they were all beaten by Kingston’s “Three Musketeers” (David Maycock, Peter Lalić and Vladimir Li) to set the tone for an extraordinary evening. We were missing several significant players, yet in the end it barely mattered as Jon Eckert, Max Selemir and Gregor Smith stepped up superbly in a side brilliantly organised by captain Ljubica Lazarevic.
I was unable to be at the match, so have relied on notes supplied by Peter Andrews, who drew with Streatham captain Martin Smith on board 6. “The games were much closer than the match score suggests,” says Andrews. “Four games (Peter Lalić , John Foley, Gregor and Lju) went to single minor-piece endgames, and Will Taylor to R+P v R, so it was a late night!”
The board 1 match-up was a classic, with David Maycock playing Black against Fide master Venkataramanan Tiruchirapalli. “David had to give up a piece when his opponent promoted,” says Andrews, “but he had time to win a second pawn for it and his two connected passed pawns eventually won the game, though opposing pieces were gathering round his confined king.” Later analysis showed that Tiruchirapalli had one gilt-edged opening to cement his mating chances, but he got the move order wrong and the opportunity was gone.
Kingston’s David Maycock beat FM Venkataramanan Tiruchirapalli in a high-class game on board 1
On board 2, Peter Lalić was in technical – rather than tactical – mode (though clearly the dividing line between the two is not hard and fast), winning a pawn, reducing down to a knight and six pawns v bishop and five pawns endgame, and forcing resignation after 45 moves. Can chess really be so simple? In Peter’s hands, apparently yes it can.
According to Peter Andrews, “Vladimir’s game was wild but his opponent’s king was trapped in the centre”, while John Foley, with Black, had what Andrews called a “smooth” win, playing with great efficiency and technical nous to trade down to a won endgame.
Max Selemir, making his Alexander Cup debut, won relatively quickly, while Gregor Smith – another debutant in the competition – had a tougher struggle but eventually prevailed, turning an endgame which looked potentially tricky for him into a win. Peter Andrews conjured up a perpetual to draw; Jon Eckert also had a comfortable draw; and the self-deprecating Will Taylor said he “skilfully converted my middlegame advantage into a pawn down rook ending, which I barely held.” Lju, stepping in for an unwell player on board 10, lost a hard-fought game, but by then the match was over and her work was done.
