The climax of the 4NCL season saw our first team soar to second place in division 1, while our second team were at last promoted from division 3
Photograph above of the CSC/Kingston 1 team which played on Saturday and Sunday (from left): Vladyslav Larkin, David Maycock, Roland Bezuidenhout, Jakub Kosakowksi, Ameet Ghasi, Harry Grieve, Zain Patel, Liwia Jarocka
The final weekend of the 2025/26 4NCL season – the long early May bank holiday weekend – saw CSC/Kingston 1 playing in Daventry and the squad’s second and third teams in Coventry. Each faced three tough matches over three days, and the results could hardly have been better.
The first team began on Saturday with a match against Oxford 1, who had some very talented young players. CSC/Kingston had a rating advantage, but it was far from one-way traffic. Oxford juniors Kenneth Hobson and Jan Murawski got draws with IM Harry Grieve and GM Ameet Ghasi respectively and Daniel Udovenko overturned FM Roland Bezuidenhout in a tricky rook endgame on board 5. But the extra firepower of the CSC/Kingston team eventually told, and we ran out winners by 5.5-2.5.
The team had another success on Sunday, beating a strong White Rose 1 team 5-3. CSC/Kingston’s Polish GM Jakub Kosakowski held the 2677-rated GM Gawain Jones to a draw on top board, and victories by Harry Grieve, Roland Bezuidenhout and Liwia Jarocka sealed an impressive victory, which guaranteed CSC/Kingston 1 would have a high placing in the final table.
Just how high was not clear until Bank Holiday Monday, when victory in the crunch match against the powerful Wood Green Youth and the fact that high-flying Sharks 1 could only draw with Cheddleton allowed CSC/Kingston 1 to leapfrog both into second place in the table. It was admittedly a fairly distant second place – the senior Wood Green team, who brought in super-GM Michael Adams for the final weekend, won all 11 of its matches across the season and took the title at a canter – but it still represented a tremendous achievement in only our second season in the top flight.
There were seven draws in the CSC/Kingston v Wood Green Youth match (including one on board 5 for Supratit Banerjee, who had come in from a training camp in Munich especially to play), but a smooth win by Ukrainian IM Vladyslav Larkin on board 4 against Irish IM David Fitzsimons sealed the match and second place in the table for CSC/Kingston. A wonderful end to an unforgettable season in which our talented young team performed heroically.
Final Division 1 table
The CSC/Kingston second team has been knocking on the door of promotion from division 3 for several seasons, and finally achieved it with two victories on Saturday and Sunday and a heart-stopping draw on Monday. The first two matches were won fairly comfortably, with Silverio Abasolo, Peter Finn and Clive Frostick all scoring 2/2, but the final game against Iceni (with Silverio unavailable) was very tough.
Iceni slightly outrated the CSC/Kingston 2 team, so a draw in the match was a good result. But would it be enough? At one point it looked as if the highly rated Golden Cockerels would pip us at the post, but in the end they could only draw their match with Warrington Mates, and Peter Finn’s draw against Iceni on board 1 was enough to get us over the line. Indeed, we were in the end only pipped to the Division 3 (Knights) title by Poole Patzers by half a game point. Two teams go up from this division 3 pool, and that was always the principal objective. We will now have both the first and second teams at the same venue next season, which we hope will make team planning and transport arrangements simpler.
Final Division 3 (Knights) table
The third team contains players with a wide spread of strengths and promotion was never likely against some strong outfits in a competition which operates as a 30-team Swiss. The Swiss system means that a win one day tends to pit you against a strong team the next, and vice versa.
All three of CSC/Kingston 3’s matches went according to rating: a 4-2 loss on Saturday against the strong Castell Nedd, one of the four teams ultimately promoted from the division, was followed by a win on Sunday by the same score against the outrated (and perhaps aptly named) Eternal Optimists.
Monday saw a match-up with The Full Ponty, who ended up in second place in the division and were also promoted. CSC/Kingston 3 fought admirably and five of the games were drawn (special mention to Petr Vachtfeidl for holding the highly rated Sven Zeidler on board 1), but Tony Hughes got the better of Mike Cresswell on board 5 after a tough struggle and The Full Ponty (excellent name for this Welsh side!) were home. Congratulations to them. That left CSC/Kingston 3 in mid-table after a season in which they won five matches, lost five matches and drew one – a very satisfactory all-round performance.
Final Division 4 table
Shortly after the final 4NCL weekend, we received the welcome news that IM Harry Grieve, a mainstay of CSC/Kingston 1 this season, had achieved his final IM norm at a tournament in Budapest and was now a grandmaster-elect. Hopefully next season, GM Grieve will be turning out for CSC/Kingston. Vladyslav Larkin also reached the magic 2500 rating mark in the June Fide list, and is now just one norm away from also becoming a grandmaster. This young team is truly coming of age.
We also had the less happy, but not entirely unexpected, news that Kate Cooke was stepping down from the captaincy of the CSC/Kingston squad after an immensely distinguished and hard-working 12 years in charge. We thank Kate and her husband Charlie for all their selfless dedication to the cause over the past decade and more. Kingston president John Foley, a very good player as well as being a leading chess educationist, has kindly agreed to take up the mantle and assume the captaincy of CSC/Kingston. Kate and Charlie will be a very hard act to follow, but we will press on in the hope of even better things to come.
Stephen Moss is Kingston club captain