Kingston 4 v Dorking 2, Surrey League division 5 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 26 January 2026
This drawn match was a good result for our fourth team against Dorking 2 and a sign that we are developing more strength in depth as a club. We are also growing! New members Tom Mayers and Sebastian Allam made their first appearances for Kingston in this match.
Dorking had strong players on the top two boards, so for Kingston to win them both was exceptional. Dorking were too strong for us in the middle order, and won on boards 3, 4 and 5. As I know from bitter experience, Peter Horlock is seriously underrated at 1569. But Nette Robinson, who is in a rich vein of form, won with Black on board six to tie the match at 3-3. An excellent outcome for for Ed Mospan’s team given the rating disparity.
Wallington v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 4 match played at Wallington United Reformed Church on 21 January 2026
The visit to Wallington ended in an emphatic 5-1 win for Ed Mospan’s team. The success included wins on boards 1 and 3 by players new to Kingston this season, plus excellent performances by some seasoned club players.
Alexander Chmelev, one of the new arrivals, won well on board 1 against a highly rated rival, and another newcomer, the talented Thivan Gunawardana, won a thrilling game with White on board 3. With both players in severe time trouble, Black resigned in the position below when he was actually winning!. Zeitnot can do the strangest things.
Jon Eckert constructed a neat mating net with Black on board 2; Seth Warren won smoothly on board 4; and Genc Tasbasi overwhelmed his opponent on board 5. Wallington gained a consolation win on board 6, where Ed Mospan’s young opponent played well to win with a well-oiled London System. Ed, though, is a team man, and his side’s victory will mean more to him than his own reverse.
Maidenhead A v Kingston B, Thames Valley division 1 match played at St Luke’s Community Hall, Maidenhead on 19 January 2026
Another Monday evening, another trip to Maidenhead. Last week it had been our A team making the journey, and now it was our B team, but for two of us, Peter Hasson and me, it was a return trip, as we played in both matches.
The Maidenhead team was very similar to the previous week apart from the absence of GM Matthew Wadsworth and the addition of John Wager. The average ratings of the two teams on the night were almost identical, and this was reflected in the play, but unfortunately for Kingston (spoiler alert) Maidenhead succeeded in winning games in which they were at best slightly better early on and drawing games in which they were slightly worse.
Having said that, on board 4 the result might have gone Maidenhead’s way if John Wager had found the winning line in the ending. In the middlegame the centre and kingside had become blocked, which meant that the question was whether White could exploit his advanced pawn chain on the queenside. He managed to get a pawn to a7, but John Foley blocked this with a knight, resulting in this position:
Shortly after this, Alan Scrimgour and Tony Milnes also agreed a draw. The game had started as a French Defence Winawer Variation, with complex play on both sides of the board. In the end the players were happy to share the point.
Prior to my own game I had noticed that Andrew Smith usually played the Centre Game, but, as he told me afterwards, he has very recently started to try out the Ruy Lopez. However, he admitted that he was unfamiliar with the line I played, and after 19 moves I had reached a comfortable position:
The board 3 game began with a classical Closed Ruy Lopez. Jasper Tambini, with White, established a knight on d6, but Stephen James had counterplay through his bishop on the a8-h1 diagonal and his rook on g6:
So the score was Maidenhead 2.5 Kingston 1.5 with two games to finish. The board 6 game between Maidenhead’s Charles Bullock, with White, and Kingston’s Homayoon Froogh opened with the Slav Defence. In the position below White is looking threatening on the kingside, but, as Homayoon noted afterwards, if he had played 25…Nc5 or Qc6 he would have been at least equal, as White’s next move would not have been possible.
Maidenhead now had a decisive two-game lead. In the remaining game, on top board, Peter Hasson (pictured above left), with White, had achieved an advantage, since Bohdan Terler’s h-pawn advance backfired, as can be seen in the diagram below (after Black’s 29th move):
Thus the match ended in a Maidenhead win by 4-2. We could dwell on the might-have-beens, but better to move on and do our best to obtain the points we need to stay in the division.
David Rowson, captain of Kingston B in Thames Valley division 1
Kingston 2 v Epsom 2, Surrey League division 2 match played at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church, Kingston on 12 January 2026
A match against Epsom always has a special flavour. The unstoppable force meets the immoveable object. We see ourselves as a pukkah Sherlock Holmes, while the likeable (but very determined and adroit) Epsom president-for-life Marcus Gosling is (in the nicest way possible) the Professor Moriarty of Surrey chess. It is a battle for domination. The Reichenbach Falls probably beckon, which is another way of saying that, amid the egomania of Epsom and Kingston, the quiet professionalism of Coulsdon and Guildford will probably eventually prevail. Anyway, leaving aside this powerful subtext, this was an excellent match which ended in a 3.5-3.5 draw.
Martyn Jones got Kingston off to a winning start with victory on board 7 over promising junior Ethan Bogerd (a Kingston member currently playing for Professor Moriarty’s team). But another of the professor’s large crop of promising juniors, Sachin Kumar, equalised with a win on board 3 in an opposite-coloured bishop endgame which Kingston president John Foley thought he could hold despite being a pawn down. Sachin played superbly on the increment to prove John wrong.
On top board, Julian Way and James Allison had a high-class tussle which ended in a draw. Allison, who played for Ashtead last season, is proving a terrific recruit for the professor and rising significantly in the ratings. On board 6, Epsom’s Chris Wright was always material up against Xavier Cowan and duly converted, while on board 2 that wily old fox Robin Haldane had too many tactical tricks for Jasper Tambini. Robin, the nicest of men but the doughtiest of opponents, is turning into something of a nemesis for Kingston this season. It was looking like Epsom would take the spoils, but there was a twist in the tale.
Alan Scrimgour played a lovely game to beat former British champion Peter Lee with White on board 4. He has analysed the game in the blogs section alongside his win in 2004 against another British champion, Bob Wade, pointing out that both victories hinged on the same piece sacrifice.
That made the score 3.5-2.5 to Epsom, and the fate of the match was in the hands of the professor himself, with White on board 5 against the gentle but resilient Stephen Lovell (pictured above, left foreground). The protagonists were both playing on the increment; spectators clustered round the board; match scores were thrust under the players’ noses so they understood the significance of the game result – a draw was enough for Epsom; Stephen didn’t seem to twig that he had to win, which was perhaps just as well as he might have frozen. The Reichenbach Falls swirled below. Stephen has annotated the match-defining game below.
With one bound we were free and the match drawn. The professor looked disconsolate. The journey back to Epsom would be a painful one. Honours were even in a division that is proving very competitive and unpredictable. Kingston and Epsom had nullified each other in their unending struggle. The story will be continued …
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.
