Maidenhead A v Kingston A, Thames Valley division 1 match played at St Luke’s Community Hall, Maidenhead on 12 January 2026
This always promised to be a crucial staging post in Kingston A’s attempt to retain the Thames Valley title. An away trip to Maidenhead is never easy – distant location, strong opposition. To do it in the depths of winter immediately after Christmas makes it all the harder, so this 4.5-1.5 victory by Peter Large and his team was a tremendous achievement.
David Maycock (pictured above), with White on board 1 against grandmaster Matthew Wadsworth, led the charge with a win which defied all logic. He was 20 minutes late because of a train delay and was playing one of the UK’s strongest players – a player against whom he had suffered several defeats in recent seasons. But GM Wadsworth made a slip in the early middle game, and David pounced, playing thereafter, in the words of fellow Kingston FM Vladimir Li, “like a machine” and winning in 80 moves. A remarkable win for David after a disappointing 4NCL weekend in which he had suffered two losses. John Saunders has analysed David’s victory in our games section.
Peter Lalić recorded an emphatic victory against strong junior with Black on board 2. Terler seemed uneasy against Peter’s Philidor’s Defence and was lost as early as move 17. David Rowson and Peter Andrews had hard-fought wins on boards 5 and 6; Peter Hasson drew with Black on board 4; and the captain, worn down by the burden of office (and the long drive to Maidenhead), lost against FM Andrew Smith. But he will have been cheered by the result overall – a critical success in what is turning into a three-way fight for the title between Hammersmith, Maidenhead and Kingston.
Epsom 7 v Kingston 4, Surrey League division 5 match played at Epsom Christian Fellowship on 12 January 2026
Who knew Epsom even had a seventh team? Yet here they were beating Kingston 4. At one point they were leading 4-0, and if we had been bagelled by a seventh team we would probably have gone into liquidation. But Nette Robinson – singer, artist and chess player – on board 6 and Seth Warren on board 2 combined to save the day (if not the match), both winning with White to make the final score an almost respectable 4-2 to Epsom. Ignominy was thus narrowly averted, even if Epsom were in seventh heaven (geddit?) as Ed Mospan’s shellshocked team slunk away.
Hounslow C v Kingston C, Thames Valley division X match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 5 January 2026
Sean Tay led Kingston C at Hounslow in captain Jon Eckert’s absence and the team emerged with a very creditable 2-2 draw. Nette Robinson, pictured above in her role as jazz singer rather chess player (with grandmaster Daniel King as accompanist), enjoyed a quickfire win with White on board 3 and Nick Powell was also victorious with Black on 4. But the top two boards were lost, with Rob Taylor unlucky to lose with Black on board 2 after being on top for much of the game. But a trip to Hounslow is never easy, and we were happy to settle for a draw.
Kingston 3 v Epsom 4, Surrey League division 4 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 5 January 2026
Epsom run seven teams in the Surrey League and they are always competitive. So it proved here. Captain Ed Mospan had picked a strong Kingston 3 side, but Epsom still ran out winners by 4-2 in a closely fought match.
The problems came on the bottom boards. Epsom enjoyed a clean sweep on boards 3 to 6, with veteran Michael Wickham and promising junior Ethan Bogerd (who is also a member at Kingston) leading the way.
Consolation came on the top two boards, where two players new to Kingston this season – Xavier Cowan (pictured above foreground, left) and Alexander Chmelev (sitting beside Xavier) – recorded excellent wins. Xavier outwitted Alan Bates’ Kings’s Indian Defence in a well-crafted game, while Alexander, who has made a terrific start to his Kingston career, got the better of a tight technical struggle in the Sicilian with Black against the highly rated Alastair Mills.
The defeat is a setback for Kingston 3, who have legitimate aspirations to win this division, and a boost for Epsom 4, who are now top of the table. But the emergence of two strong new players in Xavier and Alexander is a considerable upside amid the gloom.
Kingston B v Richmond A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 5 January 2026
I’m not sure if Kingston have ever previously had two teams in the first division of the Thames Valley League. We may well have, but I haven’t been able to trace a record of it. It’s clearly a challenge for a B team to retain their place in the division, so we are anxious to earn every point we can in order to avoid relegation. Last season just six points would have been sufficient to stay up, but we can’t be sure that will be enough this year.
Therefore our home fixture against Richmond A was another six-pointer, to use the football cliché. We actually outrated our opponents slightly on every board except the top one, so could hope for at least a draw, and the first results suggested that we might expect more.
The board 4 game finished surprisingly early. Against Stephen Lovell’s English Opening, Maks Gajowniczek played ambitiously, but his pawn advances looked to be premature, as his pieces were not well placed and he had kingside weaknesses. In the position below Maks moved 12…d5.
Not long after this, Kingston went two points up with a win on board 6 by Martyn Jones over the always combative Bertie Barlow. This game opened as a French Defence Winawer Variation, in which Black gives up his g- and h-pawns in exchange for White’s d-and e-pawns, leaving an unbalanced position. Martyn allowed a queen exchange, as his outside passed pawns looked more dangerous than Black’s central pawns. This was the situation after White’s 31st move:
Shortly after this, Kingston’s drive for the full points also looked to be almost unstoppable as Homayoon Froogh won with Black to make it a whitewash on the bottom three boards. The opening was a Caro-Kann, with Sampson Low opting for the Advance Variation. Homayoon gained the two bishops and made good use of them, reaching this position:
So we were three-nil up with three games remaining in which to gain the winning half point. On board 3 Alastair Armstrong had chosen the c3 line against Peter Andrews’ Sicilian Defence, and Peter, in an unfamiliar position, had misplaced his king’s knight to c7, where it had very little scope for action. However, Alastair did not choose the best plan and Peter managed to reach a position which was almost level.
Alastair annotated his win on the Richmond club blog, and, in the spirit of inter-club cooperation, the link to his analysis is here. His victory over Peter made the score 3-1 to Kingston, so could we conjure up a half-point for a home win?
The board two game also proved to be a tough one for Kingston. Jasper Tambini, with White, made what seemed a good pawn sacrifice, but John Burke defended carefully and, as sometimes happens, Jasper felt it necessary to make further imaginative sacrifices in order to keep his attack alive. Ultimately, a piece down after a long battle, he had to accept that his opponent had managed to snuff out the attack.
That made the score 3-2 to Kingston with one game left to finish, which was, as luck would have it, my own with Black against the highly rated Mike Healey (our encounter is pictured at the top of the report). From a kind of hybrid Vienna/Italian Opening the game progressed into a queenless middlegame in which neither of us had much activity, or, to put it more accurately, I had almost zero activity and Mike had a little more than zero. As often seems to happen, the game was blown open just when we both had little time left.
My immediate resignation meant that the match was drawn 3-3. This was not a bad result against an A team, but a disappointment considering our impressive 3-0 start. Still, with eight matches left this season we can remain hopeful of survival.
David Rowson is Kingston B captain in Thames Valley League division 1
Kingston A v Richmond A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 22 December 2025
This match was played three days before Christmas, but a very strong Kingston team were not in the mood to show any seasonal goodwill to the visitors from Richmond, and the latter were (to use tennis parlance) bagelled, losing 6-0 despite showing plenty of fight. The result meant that Kingston A would be top of the Thames Valley division 1 table over Christmas and New Year.
The Kingston team had three IMs, two FMs and what team captain Peter Large jokingly referred to as a “lowly CM”. The lowly CM, Peter Lalić, was actually playing board 3 and is FM strength – for various reasons, his Fide rating lags behind his true strength. It was a formidable team, and remarkable to think that three other titled Kingston players – GM Ameet Ghasi and FMs Supratit Banerjee and Vladimir Li – were not involved in the match. The club is surely stronger now than at any point in its history, even the fabled 1930s (the era of Blake and Michell) and 1970s (John Nunn) when it swept all before it.
The first game to end – a lot of moves were made but at great speed – was on board 6, where FM Julian Way with White got the better of Bertie Barlow in a bishop v knight endgame. Julian is a master of endgames and once again proved it here. The position below is level, but Bertie makes some tiny slips and Julian pounces on them.
On board 2, IM Graeme Buckley had White against Alastair Armstrong, a returner to chess who has rapidly re-established his 2000-plus credentials. Alastair played Alekhine’s Defence, resulting in the position below where White has several moves of roughly similar strength.
IM John Hawksworth soon made it 3-0 with a smooth win with Black over Sampson Low. John felt he was winning out of the opening, though it would probably take an IM to know that.
Kingston captain Peter Large was next to win, and that victory ensured the match would be Kingston’s. Peter had White against Richmond president Richard James – a meeting of two south-west London chess legends (pictured below as their game reaches its conclusion). Richard was kind enough after the match to post a report that sang the praises of what we are trying to build at Kingston. Coming from so distinguished a source, this made us feel we must be getting something right, though we know we have a very long way to go to secure a sustainable future for the club.
Clash of legends: Peter Large (top, left) shakes hands with Richard James as their game ends. Peter Lalić is impassive
Richard played the Modern Defence and Peter opted for all-out attack, signalling his intent with the move he played in the position below.
Kingston were 4-0 up, with the time-honoured duo of Maycock and Lalić still playing. Richmond captain Maks Gajowniczek played the English against Peter, but Black essayed an early f5, creating a pawn storm, achieving domination of the centre and neutering White’s dark-squared bishop. This was the discouraging position facing Maks by move 20.
Peter’s win left David Maycock and John Burke (pictured at the top of the report) throwing pieces (metaphorically speaking) at each other on board 1. I recall an exciting game these two played at Richmond a while back and they repeated the drama here, with John, who had the white pieces, giving as good as he got against David’s unflagging invention.
That completed the 6-0 win and gave us time to finish off Ed Mospan’s mince pies, happy in the knowledge that Kingston A would be top of the Thames Valley division 1 table at Christmas (see current table at foot of report). The defeat early in December against Hammersmith reminded us that our bid for a fourth successive Thames Valley title would not be a cakewalk, and the always difficult trip to Maidenhead beckons on 12 January, but for the moment we are riding high.
Ealing A v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at Actonians Sports Club, London W5 on 15 December 2025
Kingston A had a very pleasant time on our visit to Ealing. I was in a good mood before the match had even started. We arrived to find a table strewn with a cornucopia of old chess magazines and books, and we were told we could take any we wanted. With all the material there is online these days, perhaps people don’t value chess books as much as they used to. But I do. I picked up bound volumes of British Chess Magazine for 1994 and 1995, which I would happily have paid money for, and which I have been poring over ever since. Bliss.
In the match itself, our task was to get back on track after the humiliation at Hammersmith. The first game to finish was John Hawksworth v Duncan Grassie on board 5, in which John obtained a slight initiative in the opening, which quickly petered out into a drawn opposite-coloured bishops ending. Still, a draw is a satisfactory result in a team match (as John Nunn once pointed out to me in a rather withering tone after I had overpressed and lost while playing for the England 65+ team).
On board 6, Will Taylor played the Sveshnikov Sicilian and obtained an advantage after his opponent, Alejandro Lopez-Martinez, tried a dubious line with b4 and a4.
On board 2, with Black against Andrew Harley, David Maycock also played a somewhat non-standard opening. By the time we reached the position below, David had already set a number of problems for his opponent, offering a piece sacrifice which his opponent had wisely declined.
In my own game, it was my opponent Jonathan White, playing White obviously, who tried a non-standard opening (1. f4 e5 2. fxe5 d6 3. Nf3 dxe5 4. e4!? Bc5 5. c3 Bb6 6. Na3!?), but I found a little tactic to win the game.
The last game to finish, as usual, was Peter Lalić’s. Peter is the original and best exponent of the don’t-make-the-best-moves-make-the-moves-which-create-problems approach, and his game here with White against John Quinn was of course no exception. Opening with the ludicrous 1. d3 d5 2. e4?!, he subsequently obtained a good position, but unsoundly sacrificed the exchange to obtain a position which was objectively worse, but difficult for Black to play. Black immediately made several mistakes, which I suppose (and it pains me to say this) justified Peter’s play, and Peter won the ending.
So mission accomplished – we won 4.5-1.5and Hammersmith has become just a bad memory.
Peter Large is captain of Kingston A in Thames Valley division 1
Kingston C v Staines B, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 15 December 2025
This was a well-contested encounter between two evenly matched teams. Ed Mospan, deputising for Jon Eckert, captained and played on board 1, losing with Black to Alex McTavish. Nette Robinson, with White on board 4, levelled the score; Rob Taylor drew on board 2 with Paul Silvester, and the issue was decided in Staines’ favour on board 3, Rashvir Raikmo (again with White) beating Anqi Yang to give the match to Staines by 2.5-1.5.
The evening doubled as a fundraiser by Kingston Chess Club on behalf of the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher. Organised primarily by the ubiquitous Ed Mospan, this initiative raised a fantastic £1,600 for the hospice, through a combination of donations (usually for the opportunity to play a rated game on the night), bids to be involved in a training session with grandmaster Daniel King, and cake sales.
Many thanks to Ed and Genc Tasbasi for running the fundraiser, Daniel King for offering his expertise for free to the highest bidders in the training auction, and to Anqi Yang and Heather Warren for bringing along their wonderful home-made cakes. A memorable evening and exactly the type of community involvement for which we strive at Kingston.
Kingston 1 v Epsom 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 8 December 2025
Epsom were worried enough about this match to use some disinformation tactics in advance – we had been led by our Epsom informant to believe that Graeme Buckley and Susan Lalić would not be in the line-up, but rather that they would feature an array of strong juniors. But it was only a minor surprise to find them entering the Richard Mayo Centre at about 7.20pm, and as it turned out it was not a failure to prepare for those two Masters which cost us the match, but rather a collapse on the lower boards.
Epsom had drafted in on board 2 Chris Russell, newish to Surrey but well established in leagues in central London, so no Lalić family clash. Susan Lalić had White on board 3 against fellow IM Peter Large, and that game was a fairly peaceful and quick draw. But the others all went the distance.
Peter Andrews got into early bother with White against talented Epsom junior Lev Razhnou. Photograph: Kyle Cajigas
My own game on board 8 against the fast-rising junior Lev Razhnou was an uphill struggle from early on which required my full attention, so the following account rests on the game scores rather than being able to report rising tension and depression through the evening.
The interest in my game lay in the evaluation of the position early and late on. Razhnou was tactically alert in the opening, and we soon reached the position in the diagram below in which I felt I was almost busted, affecting my mindset for the rest of the game.
I thought that I had done nobly to stay afloat as far as the position shown below after White’s 23rd move, and intermittent spectators felt the same.
Yet according to Stockfish, diagram 1 is only fractionally worse for White whereas soon after diagram 2 the roof fell in on the queenside. Black’s progress between the two diagrams came incrementally rather than in a stroke of brilliance on his part or incompetence on mine. Thereafter, I had some chance on the clock – he was down to three seconds at one point, and still thinking – but none on the board.
Wily veteran Robin Haldane. left. got the better of Peter Hasson with White on board 5. Photograph: Kyle Cajigas
Boards 4 and 5, Zain Patel with White v Allison and Peter Hasson with Black v Robin Haldane, were similar in that the Kingston player outrated their opponent, outplayed them in the first half of the game, and then managed to lose, Zain perhaps through complacency, deferring castling for too long, and Peter through an endgame error which must have reflected time pressure. Around the same time, David Rowson on board 7 seems to have agreed a draw in a winning endgame:
The game was agreed drawn here. But the evaluation is -6, ie Black is winning. As we have seen on other occasions, it can be hard for the side trying to win to find exact moves when time is short, whereas the losing side can just react. The technique is to use the bishop to control the long diagonal to the last black square in front of the pawn, ie a1 to h8, while the black king can prevent the white bishop from settling at a3. Note that it is more difficult to win such an ending when the passed pawn is a centre pawn, because then the weaker side has enough squares on the shorter diagonal to escape the king.
David Maycock forsook his usual fireworks and played a positional game à la Peter Lalić. Photograph: Kyle Cajigas
Things were going better on the top boards. On board 1, David Maycock beat Graham Buckley with Black, not with the usual attacking cascade, but in [Peter] Lalić fashion, heading for a queenless middle game and exploiting several tactical slips to win material.
On board 2, the man himself won another game in which his masterful endgame skills are instructive:
Jasper Tambini, in festive sweater, had a fleeting chance to win his game. Photograph: Kyle Cajigas
That win meant we had a chance to save a draw if Jasper Tambini, who had White, could beat Epsom president Marcus Gosling on board 6. He had one fleeting chance to do so, which both players had missed, and then lost by pressing too hard for the win in a drawn rook and pawn ending. This was the opportunity:
Epsom’s win throws the league wide open, with every team having lost at least one match, and we will need to be at full strength when we travel there on 30 March.
Peter Andrews captains Kingston’s first and second teams in the Surrey League
Two bonus pictures by Kyle Cajigas, who photographed the evening’s games for an art project on which he is working
Kingston 3 v Ashtead 2, Surrey League division 4 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 8 December 2025
This meeting in the Centenary Trophy, division 4 of the Surrey League, saw two relatively strong teams pitted against each other, and the 5-1 victory for Ed Mospan’s Kingston 3 side was a considerable achievement. A very welcome one, too, on a night when Kingston 1 suffered an unexpected and painful defeat to Epsom 1, the latest in a string of reverses for the club’s higher-rated teams.
Recent recruit Xavier Cowan (pictured above, foreground left), who is already doing great things at Kingston, beat Ashtead’s very capable Tom Barton with Black on board 1. The opening was a very interesting line of the Sicilian and in this position White has a healthy advantage, but he goes for a tactic which doesn’t quite work.
Homayoon Froogh continued his tremendous winning run with victory over Ashtead captain Bertie Barlow on board 2. He grabbed a pawn in the opening and, once White had made a couple of ill-advised trades, never looked back.
Martyn Jones drew with Black against the very experienced Adrian Waldock on board 3 – like Homayoon, Martyn is having a terrific spell – and I drew with White against Ashley Wilson on board 4. In time-honoured fashion, I missed a likely win because I omitted an important intermezzo in the position below.
That made it 3-1 to Kingston, and Genc Tasbasi and Dieter McDougall completed an emphatic win with victories in well-contested games on boards 5 and 6. It’s still early days of course, but with a team of this strength and confidence Kingston 3 could have a shot at winning the Centenary Trophy this season. Promotion would be useful as we have a lot of players who would benefit from games in division 3.
