Kingston B v Hounslow A, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 3 February 2025

This was a well-contested match between two strong teams. Kingston’s 4-2 victory, to make it 6/6 in Thames Valley division 2 so far this season, was an excellent result against a club first team and confirmed that promotion to division 1 for our B team is a live possibility.

On board 1, Peter Andrews with Black closed out a canny draw against the very sold Mateusz Dydak. “I was fairly confident we’d have the edge lower down,” said Peter afterwards, “and Alicia was already ahead when I drew.” This was the position in which a draw was agreed. The engine adjudges Black to have an edge, though it is perhaps not immediately clear why.

David Rowson also drew with Sesh Vaddadi on board 2, but this was a far meatier tussle. There were no undue alarms for David, but despite a time advantage he became a little anxious, perhaps because his opponent had the outside pawn. “I never got the attack I was hoping for and had to be a bit careful near the end,” he explained. “I was glad I found 29. b3.” That occurred in this position, immediately before David’s draw offer.

On board 6 Alicia Mason was indeed winning with White against Eugene Gregorio, but she had a huge time disadvantage – Eugene invariably plays at blitz speed – and, though the exchange up, had to contend with a lively knight. Eugene did have one opportunity to equalise, highlighted by Alicia in her post-game analysis, but happily for us did not take it. It occurred in the position below.

We now had our noses in front and the other boards looked promising too. Alan Scrimgour, with White against Hounslow captain David White on board 4, played an uncompromising game and built a space advantage early on. David ventured an overambitious move in the position below and Alan took full advantage.

Jon Eckert was playing with great panache with Black against Hounslow veteran Leon Fincham on board 5. Give Jon the initiative and he will grab it with both hands, which is what happened here. Using the bishop pair to good effect, he put Leon under considerable pressure and, with time starting to become a factor, Leon thought he saw a tactic that would lead to a back-rank mate. Sadly for him, he had miscalculated and the queen sac he thought was winning actually lost on the spot.

We had won the match and, with Stephen Lovell holding a slight advantage with Black against the capable Calum Kinloch on board 3, it looked like the scoreline would be emphatic. But time took its toll here too. Stephen had two golden opportunities to win, but, with just a few minutes left on the clock after a testing three-hour game, both went begging. The win disappeared and then, as so often happens, the draw went the same way.

“Time pressure got the better of me,” said Stephen afterwards. “55…d4 was of course a horrible blunder – explained by the fact that I wasn’t looking in that direction, and you somehow don’t expect to fall victim to a knight fork when you yourself have a knight.” An unfortunate reverse, but Stephen will take it philosophically and come back stronger – he is playing league chess regularly again for the first time in a decade. An absorbing game, a hard-fought match and a welcome 4-2 victory over the only A side in Thames Valley division 2.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Kingston C v Richmond E, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 3 February 2025

This was a very good victory for Jon Eckert’s Kingston C side. Sean Tay won smoothly on board 1, winning decisive material advantage and neutralising his opponent’s passed pawn. Jaden Mistry, with rook and pawn against two pieces, drew on board 2. Mark Sheridan won well on board 3, and Rob Taylor squeezed out a rook and pawn endgame on board 4. That made the margin of victory a comfortable one – 3.5-0.5. Captain Eckert, meanwhile, was winning his own game against Hounslow B to complete a very satisfying evening.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Ealing B v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at Actonians Sports Club, London W5 on 27 January 2025

This was a very tight, competitive match, and that Kingston B managed to run out 4-2 winners was a great achievement. We are now 5/5 in division 2 of the Thames Valley League, though with nine fixtures still to go we should not yet put the champagne on ice.

We were admittedly helped by the fact that Ealing lost their board 6 very late due to illness. Their substitute Aleksei Garifov performed well in the opening and was holding his own, but then misplaced his queen and omitted to castle. Making his debut for Kingston, Homayoon Froogh (father of Zubair, who was playing on board 5) needed no second invitation to launch a decisive tactic.

The Ealing player did not choose the best continuation, suffered even heavier material loss and resigned after 28 moves. A winning debut for Homayoon and an encouraging early lead for Kingston. The other five games, however, were fiercely contested and went on late into the night.

Froogh Junior had a fascinating struggle with Sagnik Chatterjee on board 5. This game was pivotal to the match because if could have gone either way deep into the rook and pawn endgame with which it concluded. The position shown below is probably drawn and there were points earlier where Black could surely have drawn by repetition.

But Sagnik is young, the game had been very competitive and the juices were flowing. He banked everything on his a-pawn and rushed his king over to support it. But he underestimated the power of d6, defended inaccurately in a time scramble and was overwhelmed by White’s kingside pawns before he could get his own passed pawn home.

Frooghs 2 Ealing 0. But Ealing were winning on board 3, where Jack Sheard was getting the better of Jon Eckert. The position below is level, but Jon, playing White, then goes wrong and the game is lost in the space of a few moves.

Alicia Mason, with Black, played well against the higher-rated Matthew Georgiou and in the position below has excellent drawing chances, but, with time starting to become a concern, one tiny slip put her on the back foot and she never quite recovered.

Alicia, who returned from the US last year, is taking her chess very seriously and knows that the secret to improvement is to learn from your losses, so what did she learn from this one? “This was a frustrating game to lose,” she admitted afterwards, “especially since the blunder came right at the moment where I missed the opportunity to get an advantage. The main thing I want to take away from this game is how I handle the clock. I want to avoid the temptation of rushing my moves in order to stay ahead on the clock if my opponent is short of time, and to remember to check all the forcing moves, whatever the situation. Had I done that here, I would have found the capture on a3 followed by d5, which I realised I’d missed as soon as I played 26…Nc7.”

The match hinged on boards 1 and 2: Peter Andrews with White on 1 against Ealing captain Xavier Cowan, and John Bussmann, who is showing renewed enthusiasm and good form this season, against Hristo Colov on 2. The latter was a high-class affair, but, as so often in evening club chess, tiredness and clock pressure decided the outcome, with White blundering horribly (is that a tautology?).

So to the battle of the board ones – a repeat of the same match-up in the reverse fixture when Kingston were at home last November, and with the same result – wily veteran Andrews got the better of the young gun Cowan. We pick up the game on Black’s 16th move when, says Peter, “d5, which I expected, blew up the centre in my favour. I guess Black felt under a little pressure as I had gained space without allowing him chances.” The analysis below is Peter’s.

Peter rushed off for his customary post-game whisky to calm his shredded nerves and that was that. A very good 4-2 win away against a capable side. If we are not careful we might have to start considering our chances of being promoted to Thames Valley division 1, and pose the question of whether we would want two competing teams in the top division. But not yet: there are still many battles ahead.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Kingston A v Hammersmith A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 27 January 2025

In the past two seasons Hammersmith have been our main rivals for the Thames Valley league title. In 2022/23 we were running neck and neck until we beat them at their venue, and last season they looked to have it in the bag before they slipped up mid-season and we showed our mettle by finishing with a run of wins. This year we have seen our squad boosted even further by several very strong additions, to the remarkable extent that our line-up for this match had international masters on boards 1 and 6.  However, although we comfortably outrated Hammersmith’s team on the night, they were still strong and a hard-fought match ensued.

The first result came quite quickly: a very nice, deceptively smooth win for Peter Lalić (pictured above) on board 5 against Paul Kennelly. Having made his trademark pawn sacrifice in the opening, he developed quickly, gained the two bishops and had White’s king in the centre as a target. In the position below his opponent played 14. Rhd1? 14. h3 was correct to stop Black’s next move, which forces the position open.

The second game to finish, on board 6, also resulted in a Kingston win for IM John Hawksworth against Robin Sarfas. From a Slav Defence this position was reached:

So Kingston had a two-point lead, but the remaining four games were all hard to call and, in two cases at least, very tense. The board 1 game saw IM Peter Large play the Hedgehog Defence against Alistair Hill, reaching this position:

It’s hard to know what to focus on when describing the board 2 game between David Maycock and Zain Patel (not named in the scoresheet below as Hammersmith do not appear officially to have registered him with the Thames Valley League), as it had so many twists and turns, with creativity – and, as time trouble set in, errors – running wild on the part of both players. From an unusual variation of the Ruy Lopez, this position was reached:

This meant the score was now Kingston 3 Hammersmith 1, and we only needed a draw from the remaining two games to win the match.

The board 3 game, in striking contrast to Maycock v Patel, was a close positional contest from a Caro-Kann Defence Exchange Variation. Supratit Banerjee and Carsten Pedersen manoeuvred carefully until a rook and knight ending was reached with all the pawns on the same side of the board. Eventually, in the position below, the players agreed a draw, and Kingston had the half-point we needed to win the match.

The final game to finish was the board 4 encounter between Ash Stewart, with White, and Hammersmith captain Bajrush Kelmendi. Ash established an advantage from the position below, which at first sight looks a little worrisome for White:

Thus a hard-fought match resulted in a win for Kingston by 4-2. A very professional performance, one might say, not conceding a single game, even though there was no shortage of tension. As it happens, our next Thames Valley League Division 1 match is at Hammersmith’s venue on Thursday 13 February, so the battle will continue. Having won all five of our Thames Valley matches so far, we are three points ahead of Hammersmith with a game in hand, but there are still more than half the fixtures left to play – and look what happened to Hammersmith last season after they had made all the early running. We take nothing for granted.

David Rowson, KIngston captain in Thames Valley League division 1

Kingston 1 v Coulsdon 1, Surrey League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 19 January 2025

Kingston 1’s only dropped match point so far this season was in the opening match at Coulsdon, so the return fixture was eagerly awaited. Our new GM Ameet Ghasi had agreed to play, and we knew in advance that our Thames Valley League team-mate Supratit Banerjee would be on board 1 for Coulsdon, so there were a few spectators as well as 14 boards crammed into the match room at the Willoughby.

However, the exchange of team sheets revealed that Coulsdon were missing several players from the team which had fully extended us in October. Some of their talented juniors, in particular, find it difficult to travel on a school night.

Three of the games were clearly in Kingston’s favour before the crowd had settled. First to finish on board 3 was David Maycock, whose opponent Ian Calvert had made a small slip in the Scandinavian Defence and found himself being pushed off the board. David was able to play his trademark g4 on move 14 and the game was soon over.

On board 8, Julian Way had won a pawn early on with Black against Ben Ruiz, and had a lead in activity as the endgame crystallised.

Peter Large’s opponent Timur Kuzhelev had tried the Vienna Game, but the position soon had the unmistakable look of a King’s Gambit gone wrong, with Black a pawn up and a tidal wave of pawns filling the holes around the beached white king.

Peter Lalić’s game with Black against Venkata Kilambi on board 4 was a well-balanced King’s Indian Defence until White allowed a winning sacrifice on move 18. Soon afterwards, there was an even more spectacular opportunity and the game was quickly over.

That took Kingston to a 4-0 lead, but before the match points could be sealed, Will Taylor had fallen into a tactic with Black against Anuj Venkatesh on board 6. He had chosen an active line against the Catalan which was objectively level but dangerous, and then found his queen being chased when it had multiple responsibilities.

Readers not familiar with the Catalan might like to note that Ng5 threatening mate on h7 by a queen on c2 while discovering an attack by the Catalan bishop on g2 is quite a common theme.

Mike Healey, very modestly positioned on board 5 (showing the great strength of this Kingston team), brought home the bacon despite stalwart resistance by Coulsdon captain Nick Edwards in a Caro-Kann in which Black was cramped but solid. It was difficult to withstand the pressure on the clock and the board, and Black eventually lost on time with a spectacular forced mate available to White on the board.  

David Rowson faced even tougher resistance with White against Paul Jackson on board 7. In a semi-blocked French Defence position, Black had opened the h-file against the white king before White could make progress on the queenside, giving him the advantage. But eventually the weakness of f7 told, and David was able to attack in front of his own king with two black pieces out of the main action on the queenside. An exchange sacrifice gave him time for a decisive penetration with his queen.

That left Kingston 6-1 ahead, with Ghasi v Banerjee on board 1 still in progress. This was a slow burner, with most of the tactics in the lines that were not chosen, and both sides trying to test the other by asking them to make decisions requiring some longer-term evaluation. The traps were all avoided, and eventually a little tactic by Supratit left a level major-piece ending.  With both sides down to around a minute on the clock, it would have been possible for either to play on in the hope of an error, but with the match already decided the players’ mutual respect was such that they agreed a draw and resumed the discussion downstairs.

Supratit is of course very much one of the Kingston gang (he plays for us in both the Thames Valley League and 4NCL), and he had a friendly post-mortem with Ameet and several of our other leading lights for over half an hour, although the nature of their game was such that few definitive conclusions were reached.

Meanwhile, Kingston extended their lead in Surrey division 1. We are still the only club to have scored any match points away from home, suggesting that our visits to Epsom in February and Guildford in March will be critical.  

Peter Andrews, Kingston captain in Surrey League division 1

Kingston 4 v Ashtead 2, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 19 January 2025

This was an exciting and well-contested match, with Ashtead 4 eventually emerging as narrow winners by 3.5-2.5. But there were plenty of hard-luck stories for Kingston along the way, and our fourth team can be proud to have run a club second team so close.

The board 1 clash was especially interesting, with two Kingston players – Alicia Mason and Jon Eckert (here turning out for Ashtead) – going head to head. Jon played the French Defence and was slightly better out of the opening, but Alicia fought back tenaciously and established a plus. But with time starting to dwindle a draw was agreed, which is surely as it should be when two Kingston players with similar ratings meet.

The experienced Chris Perks got the better of Rob Taylor on board 6; Mark Sheridan had a fine win over Nick Thynne on 5; and Adam Nakar and Aziz Sannie drew with Adrian Waldock and Robert Jurjevic respectively on 3 and 4. Adam and Aziz were, though, kicking themselves for letting the full point elude them. Aziz certainly had a winning rook and pawn endgame, but let it slip in time trouble.

The match was decided by the board 2 encounter between Kingston’s David Shalom and Ashtead’s Daniel Richmond. In a long game which became a battle between the heavy armour of queen and rooks, David played well with Black and was on top for most of the time. But his opponent didn’t worry about Black’s long-term pawn advantage. He kept presenting problems and looking to attack, and eventually it paid off when David blundered in time trouble. An annoying loss, which David as ever took phlegmatically. If only every chess player could accept the knocks with such equanimity.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

South Norwood 1 v Kingston 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at West Thornton Community Centre on 16 January 2025

This was the proverbial six-pointer. Lose and we would be sucked into a relegation dogfight in ultra-competitive Surrey League division 2, where Kingston 2 face three first teams and Guildford’s strong second team. Win and we would at least have some breathing space, with our opponents on the night South Norwood facing the dreaded drop.

There was thus a good deal at stake as we set off on the longish journey south. I had chosen a strong team, with IM John Hawksworth facing the anticipated threat of the highly rated Marcus Osborne on board 1; the evergreens Peter Andrews, John Foley and Alan Scrimgour on 2, 3 and 4; Stephen Lovell and Jon Eckert on 5 and 6; and debutant Zubair Froogh on 7. This was Zubair’s first ever classical rated game – he had played a lot as a junior but very little over the past 15 years. On the strength of a few rapidplay games against him, I decided to blood him in this important match.

He was up against South Norwood stalwart Ken Chamberlain, and I was worried about his position early on after he had castled queenside. This was how the game looked after 20 moves, with White to play:

The next game to finish was South Norwood captain Simon Lea against Stephen Lovell on board 5. Stephen has played very little chess over the past 10 years, but he is a strong player and probably a bit better than his current estimated rating of 1885 suggests. Stephen, with Black, played a very exact technical game, went a pawn up early on and never really relented, allowing his opponent little counterplay and eventually winning a second pawn to force resignation.

Jon Eckert played a powerful attacking game with White against Ibrahim Abouchakra on board 6 and eventually won queen for rook to make the result of the game a formality. That made it 3-0 to Kingston and we could start to breathe more easily. Peter Andrews’ game against Paul Dupré on board 2 was complicated and John Hawksworth appeared to have the worst of the position and a big time disadvantage on board 1, but John Foley and Alan Scrimgour were doing well on boards 3 and 4, and a single point from those two games would be enough to win the match.

Alan was up against Ron Harris, who plays very aggressively and at lightning speed. Alan was ready for this, though, and with White played forcefully in the opening to establish an advantage in this position:

Alan’s win made it 4-0 and the match was in the bag, but there were still three fierce struggles under way on the top boards. John Foley, with Black, had turned down a draw offer from Oliver Weiss on board 3 and was pressing for a win. His chance to seal the deal came in the position below, but with time short the winning move can often prove elusive:

Peter Andrews and Paul Dupré were having a ding-dong struggle on board 2. Peter had a small plus in the early middlegame, but then things started to go badly wrong, as he explains.

That left just one game in progress – Marcus Osborne versus IM John Hawksworth on board 1 – and what a game it was. Baffling to onlookers and at times possibly to the players as well. Marcus had blitzed out the opening moves, and at one point John was almost an hour behind on the look. To eventually win the game was little short of miraculous. John has been out of chess for more than 30 years, and has been feeling his way back in over the past few months. To win here against a player of Marcus’s quality and resilience suggests he is well and truly back in the groove.

John has annotated his win for the Games section. The victory made the final score in the match 5.5-1.5, and we can now start to believe that we will survive in Surrey division 2 for another season. South Norwood would have to take a point off either Wimbledon 1 or Surbiton 1 away to consign us to bottom place, and that will not be easy against two very strong teams who could hold their own in Surrey division 1.

Stephen Moss, Kingston 2 captain in Surrey division 2

Maidenhead A v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at St Luke’s Community Hall, Maidenhead on 13 January 2025

It is a truth universally acknowledged that half the battle when it comes to winning away chess matches on winter evenings is getting a full team to the venue. This is particularly the case when it comes to Maidenhead (or South Norwood, where the second team ventured this same week). So the fact that six players, one unwell and one only 10 years old, made it to a church hall in distant Berkshire was a very good start. Three of us, very kindly driven there by Stephen Moss, arrived 10 minutes late due to traffic problems, but the Maidenhead captain, Nigel Smith, very sportingly did not start the clocks until we had sat down.

Maidenhead, like some of our other recent opponents, were surprisingly weaker than expected, especially given that they were playing at home. We, on the other hand, were near full strength, bolstered by the presence of Supratit Banerjee on board 3. How important this was rapidly became clear when, after less than an hour’s play, Supratit’s opponent resigned, after going wrong in a tactically complicated position, the kind of position where Supratit seems completely at home. At this point, after just seven moves, Black is already under pressure from the pin on the f6 knight:

On board 2 a Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack led to a wild position. Things took off from here when David Maycock played the provocative 9…g5:

On board 5 John Hawksworth was consolidating a positional advantage. He commented: “My opponent Tony Milnes played an unusual combination of the Dutch and the Bogo-Indian. I didn’t know the theory, but got a pleasant position playing natural moves. He misplaced his knight with 17…Nb7, which I could completely neutralise with 18.b4!” This gave the position below:

John’s win made the score 3-0 to Kingston. In my own game on board 6, everything also appeared to be going swimmingly as my opponent allowed me to win two pawns early on:

The board 4 game had seen manoeuvring in the centre and on the queenside, with neither player gaining much advantage, until the following position was reached. At this point Charles Bullock had about three minutes to Peter Lalić’s one and a half, but Peter thrives in such situations and he was the one who was pressing.

This made the score 4.5-0.5, with the top-board contest still outstanding. From a Caro-Kann Defence Peter Large and his young opponent, Bohdan Terler, reached this position:

With all the games completed (but the long journey home still in front of the Kingston players), Kingston had chalked up another convincing Thames Valley League division 1 victory. Our record so far this season is played four, won four, with 20.5 game points out of a possible 24. However, we still have eight matches to play, and our next two may well be crucial in deciding whether we retain the title, as we face Hammersmith home and away.

David Rowson, Kingston A captain in the Thames Valley League

Kingston C v Hounslow C, Thames Valley League division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 13 January 2025

In the spirit of Thames Valley Div X, Kingston captain Jon Eckert chose a young and inexperienced team for this match, with three highly promising juniors on boards 1, 2 and 3 and Sean Tay holding the fort on 4. Sean won smoothly, while the juniors found it tough going against good-quality opposition. But the games were well contested and excellent training at a longish time control (65 minutes plus a 10-second increment) for Kingston’s rising talents. These are the players who in a few years’ time, as they rise up the ranks, will be carrying Kingston’s fortunes.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain

Kingston A v Wimbledon A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 January 2025

A whitewash is rare in the very competitive Thames Valley division 1, but it happened here. Wimbledon brought a depleted side shorn of their five strongest players to Fortress Willoughby and were duly trounced 6-0. They fought hard, especially with the White pieces, but the rating disparity was just too great.

Will Taylor on the Kingston Whatsapp group noted at the beginning of the match, when I cautioned against the counting of chickens, that our board 6 was stronger than Wimbledon’s board 1. He said he would “buy a chicken for every club member if we lost”. He never looked in danger of having to cough up. This, he said as the Kingston score mounted up, was one dangerous boast which would not be coming home to roost.

Captain David Rowson, on board 6, claimed Kingston’s first win when Stephen Carpenter, playing Black, blundered a piece. “The game finished rather bathetically,” David explained later, “when my opponent, having made better decisions at many points of the game than me, overlooked that he needed to keep his queen protecting his knight. He took this catastrophe very well, very sportingly. I thought it was a rather unusual game in that White rarely castles queenside in the Italian Game, but by that point castling kingside looked suicidal, as I’d misplayed things (wasting time with my knights) and was very much on the defensive. Before the final mistake the position is probably roughly level.”

Peter Lalić’s board 2 win was typically Lalićian: queens off on move 3, win an early pawn, squeeze. Owen Phillips, with Black, tried to create counterplay, but Peter allowed nothing at all. When he wants to play in this style, he is a technical wizard and exerts complete control. Owen resigned in the position below with his remaining pieces virtually immobilised.

Tony Hughes and Luca Buanne fought out an inspired game on board 3. Luca countered Tony’s English Opening with some typically combative play – he is not afraid of double-edged games, as the following position after White’s 20th move shows. Visually this looks tricky for White: Black’s queen appears compromised and White’s kingside attack must surely come to something. But the engine favours Black here. Chess really is calculation, calculation, calculation. Tony throws the kitchen sink at Luca, but he survives and goes on to consolidate his material advantage.

A tremendous game in which both Luca and Tony played with great verve. The last three results came in a cluster. On board 5, Peter Andrews had Black against Gordon Rennie. Peter identified this as the key part of the struggle:

On board 4 Peter Hasson was up against former Wimbledon team-mate Sean Ingle. Peter got an advantage out of the opening and was applying steady pressure when Sean blundered away a piece, resulting in the second sudden denouement of the evening.

Peter Large – two-thirds of the Kingston team were called Peter – completed the 6-0 win with a well-controlled display against Neil Cannon, who held his own until deep into the game. The position below is level, but then matters start to go awry for White.

The win means we have won all three of our opening games in the Thames Valley League and are now level with pacesetters Ealing but with two games in hand. Early days – we have 12 matches in all, home and away against six strong A teams – but the start to our defence of the Thames Valley title could not have gone better. Fingers crossed the run continues when we meet mighty Hammersmith, who are in joint third place with Richmond, at home on Monday 27 January. That will be a pivotal encounter.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain