Kingston members outline what they plan to do differently this year – and admit to whether they kept to the resolutions they made in 2023

Peter Lalić: In 2023, I achieved all of my New Year’s resolutions, except for one. Alas, I am not celebrating. I did quit 1. h3, but I pioneered dubious gambits instead. I did play faster, but I still suffered from time trouble. I did continue to study zero endgames, but I was tempted by some rook and bishop versus rook endgames that I spectated. I did win more games in the opening, but I also lost more. I did not become a Fide master. In fact, my Fide rating fell more than 100 elo points to a decade low of 2081. In 2024, I will play the longest tournament games ever recorded. I will never offer a draw.

Graeme Buckley: (1) Don’t get into time trouble. (2) Don’t take any notice whatsoever of the rating difference between you and your opponent, especially if your opponent is unknown to you.

David Maycock: I didn’t accomplish my main objective in 2023, which was gaining rating points. However, I did manage to study more chess than in 2022, which is good. I have set three objectives for 2024:

(1) Understand openings better. It is difficult to play an opening that is not part of your normal repertoire, but I nevertheless intend to venture into new lines and experiment more. This will enable me both to widen my repertoire and to gain a more general understanding of openings. There may be short-term pain, but in the interests of long-term gain.

(2) Develop my puzzle-solving skills. I need to be sharper, so will be solving more calculation problems. I strongly dislike calculation exercises, but I have to accept that they improve your general vision.

(3) Practise more blindfold chess. Not looking at the board has proved to be useful for some players, such as Vasyl Ivanchuk. Which is not to suggest that by the end of 2024 I will necessarily be playing like Ivanchuk.

Gregor Smith: My 2023 resolutions were: (1) Reduce gambits with White. I seem to always play as Black, it’s about 80% of my league games, and when I rarely play as White, my opponents seem to always play the Scandinavian, so the success of this resolution is inconclusive. (2) Study more. I completed two Chessable courses and watched hundreds of videos. I’m happy with that. (3) Stop playing blitz into the early hours. Chess.com tells me I played 1,941 games in 2023. That feels like a lot, but I did try to switch off at midnight and let Daniel Naroditsky’s dulcet YouTube tones put me to sleep instead. Semi-successful. This year, it’s time to try and gain confidence in endgames, where too often my lack of understanding of the fundamentals lets me down. 

Mike Healey: In 2023 I said that “as brain cells swiftly disappear” I would “find some openings which try to mask the decline”. I found some new openings, but they certainly didn’t mask the decline.

John Foley: Although I had no interest in improving my rating, it climbed 40 points at one point in 2023, putting me out of reach of the Surrey second team where I had been enjoying some victories. I continue to assert indifference to my rating and hope that the enjoyment of play is sufficient motivation.

The focus on chess in education has been fruitful. I ran the London Chess Conference in March with the support of Fide, the European Chess Union (ECU) and Chess in Schools and Communities (CSC). I hope to do so again in 2024 depending upon sponsors. I ran both a summer chess camp and a Christmas chess camp for children. I hope to extend this by adding an Easter chess camp. At these camps I teach not only chess but also strategy games such as Halma, Reversi and Slimetrail.

I have been regularly volunteering at Tudor Drive library in Kingston, where children drop in to play chess after school. The main challenge of the year ahead will be to establish the Kingston Chess Academy. This will be a local resource for youngsters to play and develop at chess. As president of Kingston Chess Club, I wish for the club to continue to thrive. I have been intimately involved in the evolution of the website using WordPress and in managing the membership system MemberMojo. I hope we are able to relaunch a club newsletter in the not too distant future.

Peter Andrews: In 2023 I resolved to vary my openings when playing online blitz, so as to deceive prospective opponents who might prepare for me by looking through those games. In practice I played some different lines, some of them offbeat, against opponents below about 1950 and more often when I was White. That might give an opponent a bit more to look at, but hardly deception on the George Smiley scale. Those who have seen my recent blog (the game against Marcus Osborne) and the report of the Kingston B v Maidenhead B match will know that twice in recent months I have lost from good positions through missing the possibility of a backward diagonal move by my own queen. So for 2024 I must pay more attention to those.

Ed Mospan: My chess resolution for 2024 is to reach 1600 ECF in standard classical play. Hahaha!!

Ian Mason: To read one chess book (rather than observe it on the shelf); to learn the Caro-Kann; to improve my endgame play.

David Rowson: Until just now I’d largely forgotten what my 2023 resolutions were, which suggests how well I put them into practice. Looking at the blog from last year, I’m surprised to find that I did completely fulfil one of them – “As captain of Kingston’s first team, help our excellent squad to fulfil their potential by winning everything we can (ie the Surrey League and Thames Valley division 1)” – which was thanks to the great efforts of our first-team players. I also partially (very partially) fulfilled another – study the endgame – simply because I had to teach some endgame principles to a chess class I had at City Lit. I think it’s traditional to make the same resolutions every year, isn’t it, so I’ll go with that for 2024. More seriously, I’d like to show more toughness and concentration at crunch points in games, assuming that I’m aware when these arise.

Stephen Moss: As Peter Lalić pointed out to me, I make the same resolution every year – to give up playing the horribly passive Nf6 Scandinavian. The one time I tried to played the Lalić gambit version of the Scandinavian I was crushed, so at the moment I have no idea what to play against 1. e4, which clearly in chess is a bit of a problem. (As Hein Donner said of e4: “I don’t like this move. And my opponents know it.”) So, can I resolve to learn the Sicilian, all 114 pages of it in Modern Chess Openings? Probably not.

I had a kind of epiphany at the 4NCL in November when I played a long game which I actually enjoyed and got a draw against psychologist and chess writer Barry Hymer, who is rated 1950-plus. I hadn’t enjoyed a game so much in years, and on the strength of it I agreed to resurrect the Rookie for a column in Chess Magazine. It will run monthly from February, so I resolve to try to play some chess that is worthy of including in it.

Julian Way: I find having structure in my life helpful and necessary, and would like more structure – set times for doing things, an ordered pattern of work, even more organised chess study – as I plan for 2024. That in itself should help my chess, but, as well as carrying on writing articles on great players for Chess Magazine and analysing their games, I will also think about a new chess project in the New Year – maybe developing a fresh repertoire v the Sicilian Defence.

Ljubica Lazarevic: Play some chess!

John Saunders: My chess resolution for 2024, as every year, is not to play any chess!

Alan Scrimgour: My resolution is to improve my calculation skills with daily practice. Having just read Peter Andrews’ excellent blog I was reminded of my many missed opportunities. I think I have played too many moves based on general principles and not on concrete analysis, probably linked also to not working hard enough at the board. So, more calculation practice and more focused effort at the board. Sorted.

Jaden Mistry (aged 12): My chess resolution in 2023 was to improve my focus in the longer format of the game. My father, who taught me chess, told me I played as if I might miss my bus. That also meant he got little time to enjoy his Guinness at the Willoughby Arms. So how did I do? The average duration of my games in league matches increased as the season progressed. (So I ended up giving my father a bit more time to enjoy his Guinness while waiting for me to finish.) While my consistency in performance when playing for the club in third-team matches did not improve as much as I would have wanted, I did manage to score my first memorable win (on 20 March 2023).  My performance in the shorter format though, especially in blitz, improved more than in the classical format. I managed to spring some surprises by beating some giants in blitz tournaments organised locally by our club, and in the process win the Giantkiller prize twice in 2023.

My goal for 2024 is to improve my performance, especially in endgames. I want to study some advanced strategies, nail those tricky endgames, and improve my performance for the club. My aim is to improve my rating, which has slumped a bit in recent months, perhaps partly due to having to make the transition to secondary school life. Overall, I want to help my club shine in the divisions I currently play in. I hope to make 2024 the year we at KCC rule the chessboard together!

Malcolm Mistry: Technically, I don’t play for the club and would rather call myself a chess dad and not a player. While I don’t mind an occasional game to get bruised and battered by my son Jaden, who I have been religiously accompanying to the club over the past two years, machine-learning algorithms and AI in chess have fascinated me most. I have vivid memories of Deep Blue in its early days in the mid- and late 1990s. My chess resolution for 2024 is to read up on the progress made by artificial intelligence in modern chess, and understand the anatomy of chess algorithms such as AlphaZero, developed by David Silver and colleagues. Should time permit from my regular academic and research life, I would like to write a review article documenting the historical timeline of the different machine algorithms and their performance against GMs.

Nick Grey: (1) Drink less when playing chess. Even soft drinks or water make me want to go to the loo, so no drinking will help me concentrate on chess. (2) Analyse my games. Spend twice as much time analysing afterwards as time spent playing is a good measure. Should improve my rating and my game. (3) Learn white and black closed openings and middle games. This should balance my games and stop me from being too aggressive with either colour. (4) Enjoy playing chess even if my individual results are bad.

Vladimir Li: In 2023 I fulfilled my main objective – returning to competitive chess. In 2024 I resolve to read five non-opening chess books, play at least one classical Fide-rated tournament, become a more well-rounded player and make fewer draws.

Dieter McDougall: My resolution is to improve my visualisation to the point where I can play a blindfold game. My visualisation of the board isn’t great and it’s something I’ve wanted to be able to do for ages, so this year I need to make it a regular thing to practise.

David Shalom: I must curb my impulsivity.

Will Taylor: Rather predictably, I failed to achieve last year’s resolution to stop getting into time trouble. I won’t bother to make the same resolution again this year. This year’s resolution is to work less on openings and more on identifying and then resolving the problems which actually cost me most points (I’m pretty sure that’s not the opening). I’m interested in working with a sports psychologist, so I’ll look into that.

David Bickerstaff: Over the past few months, I have been experiencing a growing sense of confidence in my understanding of positional ideas, middlegame strategies and practical endgames. However, I have recognised a deficiency in my knowledge of concrete theory, and thus my immediate goals revolve around addressing this gap. I have a five-point plan:

(1) I aim to develop a comprehensive opening repertoire, ensuring a thorough grasp of various strategies, ideas, common themes and resulting pawn structures. This will prevent me from constantly switching between different opening lines.

(2) I intend to expand my knowledge of theoretical endgames.

(3) I need to invest more effort in analysing my games, and plan to use database software to organise my analysis.

(4) Although I differ from most players in my lack of enthusiasm for puzzles, I understand the importance of sharpening my tactical skills. Therefore, I will commit to a daily plan that includes puzzle-solving, despite finding them somewhat tedious compared to playing actual games.

(5) I recognise the necessity of creating a study plan and adhering to it consistently.

Mark Sheridan: My resolution is to continue studying the endgame, as I did not get very far with it in 2023. I did buy a book, but seem to have forgotten how to download it into my brain.

Ergo Nobel: My resolution for 2024 is to learn to play an incredibly annoying variation of the Sicilian Defence. I want to annoy other players as much as it annoys me to play against it as White.