Dorking 1 v Kingston 3, Surrey League division 3 match played at Crossways Community Baptist Church, Dorking on 8 October

The Ellam Trophy, division 3 of the Surrey League, is not to be trifled with. It is a tough division, which includes three first teams and a couple of strong second teams. Kingston have a team in the Ellam for the first time in several years, and, since this is our third team, survival will be the name of the game.

We lost our opening fixture 4-2 to Dorking, but were by no means disgraced. Captain Seth Warren (pictured above, right) secured a point with Black on board 3 against Michael Duncan. I was pleased to draw with Anthony Collins on board 3, though would have won if I’d known how to mate with bishop and knight against bare king in the maximum 50 moves (an embarrassing gap in my endgame knowledge; sadly one of many). Adam Nakar secured a more orthodox draw on board 5.

Alexander Chmelev lost a complex bishop endgame to the highly rated Lev Razhnov on board 1, and Miles O’Brien fought hard against the equally capable Oskar Hall with Black on board 2. A good learning exercise for one of Kingston’s very promising juniors. The pivotal game was on board 6, where Aytek Koyun had Black against the experienced Peter Horlock. Aytek, with a well-advanced pawn, had winning chances, but they slipped away in time trouble and in the end, still pressing for a win that probably wasn’t there, he lost.

So 4-2, a score which became 4-1 when Kingston were (perhaps harshly) docked a point for playing young Miles off his provisional ECF rating of 1750 rather than the very pessimistic Surrey estimate of 1350. Seth Warren admitted he had infringed the rules on his debut as captain, but it seems rather unfair to be penalised for being too honest about a player’s ability. Since the match result was not affected, we decided not to appeal to the Supreme Court, but it would be extremely annoying at the end of the season to be relegated by a game point.

Stephen Moss is captain of Kingston Chess Club