Thames Valley division X match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 29 January 2024

Kingston C really deserved to win this match against Staines B, but were denied at the end in unfortunate circumstances when Sean Tay allowed the fact that his opponent had stopped recording under the five-minute rule to affect his play, in a game he was winning with some comfort up to that point.

Jaden Mistry got the match off to the best possible start with a quickfire victory against Martin Conlon on board 4. Martin’s Sicilian had given him a slight edge in the opening, but he omitted to castle and his position rapidly went downhill when White’s queen and rook launched an assault that led to mate.

Ergo Nobel blundered on board 1 to allow Ye Kyaw to equalise for Staines, but Colin Lyle played an excellent game on board 3 to go into a rook v knight endgame which, in the nature of such endgames, favoured the more mobile piece. 2-1 to Kingston and, with Sean well on top, victory in the match looked inevitable. But when his opponent stopped scoring (as he is allowed to) with just five minutes on the clock, the dynamic of the game changed and poor Sean blundered into a lost rook endgame. He tried hard to save it, but with his king offside it couldn’t be done.

So 2-2 at the end of a very good match, and lots of lessons learned. Most important: if you still have time and your opponent is playing on the increment, don’t try to blitz him. Play good moves that pose (hopefully insurmountable) problems. Don’t let your opponent’s time trouble affect your own play, and don’t worry about the fact that you are scoring and he isn’t. Just play your game. This was one that got away, but if that lesson is learned it will be positive in the end.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley division 2 match played at St Luke’s Community Hall, Maidenhead on 29 January 2024

We made the long journey to Maidenhead with hope for revenge, after Maidenhead B emerged victorious at the Willoughby Arms back in December, our sole defeat of the season so far in this division. It was a familiar team construction for Kingston, with three 2000-rated players and three 1700-rated players, which always leads to an interesting dynamic where we appear favourites on the top boards and underdogs on the bottom ones.

Nick Grey on board 4 was first to finish. After declining Simon Foster’s Smith-Morra and transposing into a Alapin Sicilian, the game ended in a relatively quick draw with both sides seeking peace. A good start with the black pieces against a higher-rated opponent. 

Also with the black pieces, Charlie Cooke on board 6 played a Petrov, ending up with quite a passive position. To get some activity, he sac’ed the exchange for a pawn and a well-placed knight, which gave him drawing chances, but he couldn’t hold on. First blood to Maidenhead.

On top board, Julian Way played the Four Knights against Stephen James. Julian reckons he perhaps came slightly worse out of the opening, but with neither player really confident of what was going on they settled for a draw.

In another declined Smith-Morra, I managed to launch a queenside attack with c and b pawns thrown down the board, well supported by an annoying “octopus” knight in the heart of my opponents defence on d6. The octopus played a key role, as I managed to sacrifice it for two pawns, paving the way for my now passed a and b pawns, which could not be stopped. This levelled the match at 2-2. 

On board 3, Alan Scrimgour was weighing up whether to trade his queen for two rooks when he realised at the end of line he would pick up bishop as well. The extra material was too much as Alan expertly marshalled his bishop pair and rooks to checkmate Nigel Dennis, whose queen was left floundering at the other end of the board. 

As so often, it was left to Peter Andrews playing out a blitz finish to determine the match. Peter found himself facing an unfamiliar double fianchetto opening by White. The game was tightly contested all the way through, but Peter gradually developed a slight edge by selecting the best files for his rooks while his opponent weakened his pawns slightly. As the clocks ran down, Peter took the initiative with a pseudo-pawn sacrifice, and emerged into a rook and minor piece ending a pawn up. With both players blitzing, there were a couple of transitory opportunities for him to win.  Unfortunately he didn’o’t spot either of them, and was content to repeat moves for the draw which won the match.

Victory by 3.5-2.5. is an excellent result, which made the long journey worthwhile. Thanks as ever to Maidenhead for the hot drinks and excellent selection of biscuits. 

Gregor Smith, Kingston B captain in Thames Valley League

Alexander Cup semi-final played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 25 January 2024

Kingston, who have won the 10-board Alexander Cup – Surrey’s premier knockout competition – for the past two years and are bidding for a historic hat-trick have made it to the final, where they will face Wimbledon. But it was far from easy against a tough Coulsdon team, and with a quarter of an hour to go in the match a 5-5 tie and a decision by board count looked much more likely than the eventual 6-4 scoreline in favour of the home side.

Kingston were the stronger of the two teams in rating terms, but somehow it never felt like that. Indeed, there were long stretches of the evening where the play seemed to favour Coulsdon, who were an intriguing mix of talented juniors and canny veterans. Does no one aged between 20 and 70 play chess in south London?

The first games to finish were on boards 8, where Peter Andrews with White drew with Matt Darville, and 7, where Julian Way with Black drew with Olufemi George. Peter’s game, an English that turned into a kind of Amsterdam Attack, was short but very interesting, with the two players attacking on opposite sides of the board. It could have produced a dramatic and violent game, but with so much at stake they opted for peace in the position below, where White has a small edge but is anxious about his ragged pawn structure.

“At the end,” said Peter later, “I was worried about my e-pawn, thinking I would have to play Bc1 and Bd2 before castling. And I was worried about my h-pawn. I didn’t like e4 because of the hole on d4. But 19. e4 Nd4 20. Nxd4 exd4 21. Nd5 is good for White. I thought I was worse, and that he was offering a draw because of my rating and the situation on the clock. I was more than 20 minutes behind, having felt that I was under pressure when in fact I was never worse and was repeatedly missing chances to play d4 and be significantly better – a lesson I shall take away when playing this sort of position both as White and as Black.”

Julian Way’s opponent chose a sharp e4 opening and was looking to get on the front foot for most of their game, but Julian defended with characteristic skill and White was soon out of attacking ideas, pieces were liquidated and a draw was inevitable in this completely level position:

John Foley’s game on board 9 against Paul Jackson, who had beaten him in a recent league match at Coulsdon, also ended in a draw shortly afterwards. John, with Black, had gone a pawn down and in the position in which a draw was agreed (see below) White has a small edge, but he may have felt that Black’s bishop – faced with an array of tempting White squares – had more long-term potential than his own somewhat inhibited knight.

The first decisive blow was struck on board 10, and it was a moment of near despair for Kingston. Jon Eckert was playing confidently with White against Venerando Bermudez, who is modestly rated but clearly highly regarded by Coulsdon.

Jon had built up an excellent attacking position and the talk in the bar downstairs was of a guaranteed point for Kingston. This position was reached after White’s 35th move:

The next game to finish was Will Taylor’s, and the denouement was sudden owing to an unfortunate blunder by his opponent Nick Edwards, who had been playing very imaginatively with Black to this point. In this position Black has a slight edge, but disaster is lurking just around the corner.

Matches in amateur chess – perhaps much professional chess too – always hinge on blunders, but this sudden collapse levelled the scores and lifted the Kingston spirits. As Will Taylor said after the match: “If my opponent hadn’t blundered into a queen trap then anything could have happened, but I got away with it.” Will’s win was absolutely critical, and I couldn’t resist giving him a bear hug. Hope was reviving.

David Maycock looked to be in trouble on board 1 – a piece down with some degree of compensation in terms of his opponent’s tangled pieces, but surely not enough to offset the material deficit. But Peter Lalić and Vladimir Li were doing well, Silverio Abasolo’s game looked drawish, and Kingston debutant Luca Buanne on board 5 also looked solid, though his opponent had a substantial time advantage.

The results in the final five games – on boards 1 to 5 significantly – came thick and fast as we reached the last 20 minutes of the three-hour playing session. There is some dispute over who finished next, but I am going to plump for Peter, who appeared in the bar downstairs to celebrate his crucial victory with Black on board 4 against the youthful Timur Kuzhelev, a player he had done battle with in recent congresses. Peter is always so reliable in these vital cup games, and time pressure seems to bring out the best in him.

John Saunders, the distinguished chess journalist and commentator, who was kindly attending the match to take photographs, declared this the game of the match.

Peter Andrews summed up Peter’s performance in this game well afterwards. “Rxe5 was an unbelievable move to find over the board in a time scramble,” he said. “I was watching live at that point and my head hurt. What a pity Peter didn’t find 30. Be5, leaving the queen and rook where they can be captured unprotected and putting the bishop en prise as well. There would have been metaphorical gold coins on the board for that one.”

On board 5, Luca Buanne with Black was engaged in a tough struggle with Nasir Rizvi, who played the English (a favourite among Coulsdon players). Luca played the opening well and emerged with a small plus. Nasir temporarily gave up a pawn for rook activity, but soon got it back and had a slight advantage as time trouble loomed. There followed one of those rook endgames where, if you get an opportunity, it has to be taken and Nasir’s came in the position below:

The game on board 2 between Vladimir Li and the prodigy Supratit Banerjee was also drawn, but it was incident-packed. This was the position after Black’s 16th move:

As the game proceeded, Vladimir seemed to be getting the upper hand, and we had high hopes of netting the full point. But things soon went awry.

We calculated that if David lost on board 1 and Silverio drew on board 3, we would still win 12-11 on board count. Silverio kept his part of the bargain, drawing against the talented junior Balahari Bharat Kumar after a protracted, highly technical and very high-class struggle.

Balahari looked ready to repeat moves at one stage, but Silverio chose to keep the game going by playing 21…c4 in the position below to force an exchange of queens. Black had an edge for much of the game, but in the end Balahari was able to draw without undue alarm.

We believed we had won the match on board count, but David Maycock – aka “the Magician” – put it beyond all doubt by conjuring up a win against Mark Gray on board 1. This was the tactical sequence which had panicked the Kingston bar-flies in the early part of the game:

There were differing views among the spectators as to whether David had any compensation for the lost piece. Objectively, he probably doesn’t, but what a tangled web he weaves, especially with Mark’s rook and queen marooned away from the action. White’s decisive error came in this position:

A remarkable end to a remarkable night. Kingston had won 6-4; Coulsdon had played with great skill and determination; and the match – overseen by Kingston captain Ljubica Lazarevic, who is a qualified arbiter – was played in tremendous spirit. Coulsdon, with their posse of talented juniors, are rising fast, and we urgently needed this win because it won’t get any easier in the future. Now for Wimbledon in the final and the chance of a hat-trick of Alexander Cup wins for the first time in the club’s 150-year history.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley division 1 match played at the Adelaide, Teddington on 23 January 2024

At about 10.15pm we had given this match up as lost. We were 3-1 down to a highly motivated Richmond team and the two games still in progress were far from clear. But there was a glorious sting in the tale, with Kingston managing to win both those games to secure a draw that felt like a win. A truly great escape.

The first game to finish was the board 6 clash between Alan Scrimgour, with Black, and Jon Eckert, one of two Richmond players in the match who also turn out for Kingston in the Surrey League. Jon played the Grand Prix Attack against Alan’s Sicilian, and a draw was agreed when queens were traded on move 23. Will Taylor and Chris Baker also sued for peace on board 4 – another very satisfactory result for Kingston with Black. So far, so good.

But then disaster. John Foley, a late call-up to the team because of illness to another player, unexpectedly lost with White to Bertie Barlow on board 5, dropping the exchange and never really recovering. Bertie is a dangerous player if you give him the initiative, as he proved here, playing quickly and aggressively. 2-1 to Richmond and we were in trouble; in a six-board match there is very little scope for recovery.

The trouble deepened when IM Gavin Wall, Richmond’s time-honoured board 1, beat FM Vladimir Li in the battle of the titled players. Gavin as usual played the Dutch Defence, to which Vladimir responded with great vigour, building up a decent advantage. But he made one slip in the early middlegame on which the pair’s post-mortem suggested the entire game hinged. After that, Gavin was able to trade queens, break up Vladimir’s pawn structure and enter an endgame in which he cleverly engineered a zugzwang which doomed the Kingston man to defeat. A high-class game and an extremely impressive performance from Gavin.

That left Peter Lalić playing with Black against Mike Healey on board 2 and Kingston captain David Rowson with White up against John Burke on board 3. Both had to win just to draw the match. The experts reckoned David had a small plus, but that Peter might be slightly worse (a judgement not borne out by later engine analysis) in a complicated position. Perhaps we can still draw the match, a friend texted optimistically. “Unlikely”, I replied, resigned to defeat.

Happily Peter and David did not have the same sense of resignation. In the Healey-Lalić match-up, the queens were traded early (as is Peter’s wont) and there then followed much minor-piece jockeying for position. This was the situation after 23…Nf7:

The win for Peter made it 3-2. Now it was all down to Captain Rowson against John Burke. “I played the opening horribly,” says David, “wasting time and allowing him to gain a significant positional advantage, but it wasn’t so easy for him to exploit it. The pluses I had were my rook on the b-file and my light-squared bishop on the h1-a8 diagonal.”

“After my 19. Rd5, which was actually a bad mistake, I think my opponent panicked a bit and just wanted to exchange some pieces to clarify the situation,” David reflected later, “but this resulted in my winning the pawn on b7. I think it was fairly easy for me to win after that. I just tried to be careful not to allow him any counterplay. My pieces were much more active then. I hadn’t realised that Peter had won and thought we’d lost the match already, so it was a nice surprise to find that my win had drawn the match.” Disappointing for Richmond, who are currently bottom of the division 1 table, but very satisfying for Kingston when earlier all had seemed lost.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley division 2 match played at the Royal British Legion, Hounslow on 22 January 2024

This Thames Valley division 2 meeting between Kingston B and Hounslow A ended in farce because Hounslow insisted on using clocks without incremental time controls. That meant players in winning positions could be flagged – as happened to two Kingston players – and one of our other players was so anxious about his time running out that he also let slip a good position.

We managed to escape with a creditable 3-3 draw with Hounslow’s A team thanks to a very quick win by Julian Way against the 2000-rated Seshagiri Vaddadi’s Sicilian. Julian went the exchange up early on, consolidated his advantage and Seshagiri resigned, realising that against a player of Julian’s class he faced a painful evening.

Alan Scrimgour on board 2 drew with the veteran Leon Fincher; I drew with Thames Valley chair David White on 3; Kingston captain Gregor Smith overcame a rating disadvantage to drew with Frank Zurstiege on board 4; new recruit Jameel Jameel had an excellent draw with Eugene Gregorio on 6; and Dieter McDougall lost to JJ Padam on 5. An unsatisfactory and testy evening, but at least we managed not to lose the match, and as a result remain well placed in the division.

Stephen Moss

Surrey League division 4 match played at Guildford on 15 January 2024

This was a match perhaps best hastily passed over. The average rating difference between these two third teams was around 200 points. It is rare for such a disparity to be overcome, and that certainly never looked likely to be the case here. Kingston fought hard, but Guildford were too good, and only Mark Sheridan’s heroics against the immensely experienced Trevor Jones saved us from a whitewash.

Congrats to Mark on a fine draw and thanks to the team for trekking down to Guildford to play so strong a team. The Centenary Trophy, to give Surrey League division 4 its formal title, is a highly competitive division, as we are discovering this season, where our score so far is 0.5/5. Tough going, but we are – as they say – on a journey. A journey down the A3 actually.

Stephen Moss

CSC/Kingston 1 enjoy a tremendous second weekend in division 2 of the 4NCL and CSC/Kingston 2 get off the mark as they seek to consolidate in division 3

CSC/Kingston 1, marshalled as ever by Kate and Charlie Cooke, put out a powerful team at the second weekend in 4NCL’s five-weekend cycle, and it did not disappoint, winning both matches on Saturday and Sunday to grab second spot in the highly competitive division 2. CSC/Kingston 3, meanwhile, went down to its third successive defeat on Saturday, but rallied to win impressively on Sunday to fuel hopes that it can hang on to its place on division 3.

These were rounds 3 and 4 of the 11-round competition, so still early days, but the signs were very promising for both teams. All the matches were played at the Delta Hotel, Warwick, and happily all the CSC/Kingston players were able to get to the venue in good time despite major disruption on the trains from London because of a landslip.

FM Martin Jogstad had flown in from Germany to play board 1 for CSC/Kingston 1, and he scored 2/2 across the weekend. But he had a major scare on Saturday in the 7-0 thrashing of Cambridge University 1 (Cambridge defaulted a board and were penalised a game point – hence the odd result in an eight-board match). Martin was Black against Daniel Gallagher and had a theoretically lost queen and pawn v queen endgame. But Martin kept fighting and his opponent blundered horribly to allow mate. Mr Gallagher please avert your eyes now. This was the final position:

On board 2 David Maycock played with great aggression against Andrew McClement’s Sicilian, and this tactically rich position resulted after White had played 18. f4.

Vladimir Li won in 24 moves against Alistair Hill, winning a piece with some neat tactics. Peter Lalić won a 137-move game with Black against Robert Starley after much patented Lalićian time-building. Ewan Wilson played cannily to beat Nigel Alldritt. Zain Patel had a hard-fought draw with the prodigious Bodhana Sivanandan in the battle of the juniors, and Helen Frostick had a short draw with a repetition on move 19 against the experienced Nevil Chan. A very professional job by CSC/Kingston 1.

Sunday was tougher against Warwickshire Select 1. Helen was unlucky to lose a theoretically drawn queen v queen and pawn endgame (such endgames were very much the theme of the weekend) with Black against highly rated junior Elis Denele Dicen. The position below is drawn, and Black should just keep checking, but Helen played Kg7 and then Kg6, allowing a trade of queens a few moves later. After six hours’ play, exhaustion sets in.

Peter Finn lost to IM Chris Baker in a complicated line of the English, and there were draws for Peter Lalić, Ewan Wilson and Zain Patel (against a player with a rating close to 2200). But victory in the match was secured thanks to wins by Martin Jogstad, David Maycock and Valdimir Li on the top three boards. Martin got the better of highly rated junior Jude Shearsby; David got his second win of the weekend when John Pitcher fell into a nasty trap that lost a rook; and Vladimir Li eventually got on top in a complicated struggle against Finlay Bowcott-Terry’s Dutch.

CSC/Kingston 2 lost 4.5-1.5 against a strong Crowthorne A side on Saturday, but bounced back on Sunday to beat Poole Patzers 5-1, thus chalking up a much-needed first win of the 4NCL campaign. Just staying in this division would be perfectly satisfactory for CSC/Kingston 2, preserving the spread of the three CSC/Kingston teams across the divisions and allowing us to offer long-form 4NCL chess at all levels. In that emphatic Sunday victory, there were wins for Chris Fegan (who survived a knife-edge tactical battle), Giampiero Amato, Maurice Lawson and Harry Evans, who found this nice tactical sequence to finish off his game as Black against Martin Clancy.

Stephen Moss

Round 3

Round 4

Surrey League division 1 match played at Coulsdon on 15 January 2024

After two losses in our first three matches in Surrey division 1, Kingston 1 needed a win at Coulsdon, and as soon as we arrived we knew it would not be easy. They fielded a stronger team than they had in the equivalent fixture last year and we were missing some key players, so it was always going to be tight. In the end, Kingston came out on top 5-3, but there were alarms along the way.

No alarms on board 8, though, where Alan Scrimgour with Black played out a short draw with Martin Faulkner. Alan more than equalised against an English – all the Coulsdon players essayed the English with White – but never had enough to press for a decisive result. Peter Andrews also took a draw with Black on board 6 – another English easily stifled, with Black if anything having slightly the better of it.

Julian Way and Ian Calvert also had a draw on board 7, but a much more eventful one in which Julian played skilfully to counter Ian’s Scandinavian. The opening had given Ian an apparent space advantage, but it proved illusory and an endgame resulted with bishops of the same colour pitted against each other. It looked very drawish, but Kingston president John Foley – who was spectating at the match – immediately spotted an opportunity in the position below:

If instead Black plays 34…cxb4 35. Kxd4 – the engine’s second choice but possibly better in practical play – the doubled pawns make life difficult, with White able to start to advance his d-pawn. But it remains problematic for White to win, and perhaps the result would have been a draw in 80 moves rather than in 42 moves, which is what eventuated after Julian played 34. Bd2.

How were we faring elsewhere? David Maycock was doing well against the prodigious nine-year-old Supratit Banerjee on board 1. Supratit had been rapidly promoted from board 7 in the corresponding fixture last year, but was outmanoeuvred by David in a beautifully played endgame (annotated in the Games section), with the Kingston player homing in remorselessly on Black’s isolated e-pawn. The first key position is shown below. Black errs by playing 30…Ke5 here when 30…g5 is essential:

Kingston captain Peter Andrews, analysing this instructive position later, said this: “30…Ke5 looked the most natural move to me, preventing king penetration by White.  The saving move g5 creates an extra weakness for Black (the h5 pawn), but it also allows Black to get his h-pawn on to a black square. Further, it creates a weakness for White as well, and if all the kingside pawns are swapped off, a minor piece ending with pawns on one side is hard to win even if one side is a pawn ahead because of the possibility that the weaker side can give up the piece for the last pawn, not a possibility in a rook ending.” Black had a further opportunity in the position below, but it would take considerable calculation to find what looks a very counter-intuitive move here:

We had been optimistic about David Maycock winning, but were less certain about matters elsewhere. Peter Lalić had a very constricted position against Ian Snape on board 2, Mike Healey was under pressure on board 3 against Rahul Babu, and Will Taylor and David Rowson’s games were far from clear. Where were our points going to come from? By exchanging queens unnecessarily. Peter Lalić got himself into this ugly-looking position against Ian Snape:

David Rowson, meanwhile, was engaged in a complex struggle with Shivam Agrawal, who had played a Caro-Kann. “The opening was played more or less OK by both of us,” David reports, “but after that there were many inaccuracies and missed opportunities. Credit to my opponent, who could have had a draw by repetition at two points, but played on to try to win despite his time shortage.”

“These games where kings castle on opposite sides often hang in the balance,” Peter Andrews remarked after the game. “A mistake often means the difference between win and loss, rather than win and draw.  As we now know, the win was critical to the match result. Blundering the knight is the kind of thing that easily happens in time trouble where the cooler head wins almost irrespective of the position on the board.” “I wasn’t feeling that cool,” David responded wryly, “but maybe cooler than my opponent because I think he was feeling a desperate need to win, though I don’t know if he was aware of the match situation. I was and thought a draw would be OK, though I didn’t offer him one.”

On board 4 Will Taylor was engaged in a tremendous (and to onlookers fairly opaque) struggle with Nasir Rizvi. Nasir played yet another English, to which Will responded with great verve, and by move 18 Black had a decent plus. At this point, White made a critical – and, as it turned out, losing – decision:

“I’ve rarely seen rooks treated with such contempt by both sides,” Peter Andrews said afterwards – the other pair had also fallen victim to marauding bishops at an early stage in the game. So a terrific win by Will with Black, and we were over the line and able to breathe at last.

The only disappointment on the night was Mike Healey’s loss to another star junior, Rahul Babu, on board 3 in the final game to finish. “I was lost, worked my way back into it, then blundered,” Mike said succinctly afterwards. When you have been under sustained pressure for a long period and think you have wriggled free, there is always a danger you will relax and make an error. It is also disturbing to be the last to finish at close to 10.30pm, with organisers starting to pack sets away in what is a very busy (and sometimes noisy) venue. But Mike is not one to make excuses. He is a wonderful player who demonstrated great ingenuity despite being on the back foot for a long period in this game, and is sure to bounce back.

That made it 5-3 to Kingston and we could head out into the cold of the Chipstead Valley Road congratulating ourselves on a job well done. We now have the beginnings of a buffer against relegation, though anything could happen in this intensely competitive division. Guildford and Epsom are in the box seat, but when they head south to Coulsdon they, too, will face a stiff test. At the halfway point in the season there are no certainties about how the battle will end.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley division X match played at Actonians Sports Club, Ealing on 15 January 2024

No question who was the hero of this match for Kingston C – David Bickerstaff, making his debut for the club, playing his first ever rated classical over-the-board game and pulling off a fine win in a very solidly played French Defence. We knew David had promise and that faith was amply justified here.

On the other boards, captain Stephen Daines secured a draw on board 3; Colin Lyle lost on board 4, not helped by the fact that he accidentally touched a piece which he was then forced to move; and Ergo Nobel lost in a tense struggle on board 1, giving Ealing D the match by 2.5-1.5.

Stephen Moss