Kingston A v Wimbledon A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 January 2025
A whitewash is rare in the very competitive Thames Valley division 1, but it happened here. Wimbledon brought a depleted side shorn of their five strongest players to Fortress Willoughby and were duly trounced 6-0. They fought hard, especially with the White pieces, but the rating disparity was just too great.
Will Taylor on the Kingston Whatsapp group noted at the beginning of the match, when I cautioned against the counting of chickens, that our board 6 was stronger than Wimbledon’s board 1. He said he would “buy a chicken for every club member if we lost”. He never looked in danger of having to cough up. This, he said as the Kingston score mounted up, was one dangerous boast which would not be coming home to roost.
Captain David Rowson, on board 6, claimed Kingston’s first win when Stephen Carpenter, playing Black, blundered a piece. “The game finished rather bathetically,” David explained later, “when my opponent, having made better decisions at many points of the game than me, overlooked that he needed to keep his queen protecting his knight. He took this catastrophe very well, very sportingly. I thought it was a rather unusual game in that White rarely castles queenside in the Italian Game, but by that point castling kingside looked suicidal, as I’d misplayed things (wasting time with my knights) and was very much on the defensive. Before the final mistake the position is probably roughly level.”
Peter Lalić’s board 2 win was typically Lalićian: queens off on move 3, win an early pawn, squeeze. Owen Phillips, with Black, tried to create counterplay, but Peter allowed nothing at all. When he wants to play in this style, he is a technical wizard and exerts complete control. Owen resigned in the position below with his remaining pieces virtually immobilised.
Tony Hughes and Luca Buanne fought out an inspired game on board 3. Luca countered Tony’s English Opening with some typically combative play – he is not afraid of double-edged games, as the following position after White’s 20th move shows. Visually this looks tricky for White: Black’s queen appears compromised and White’s kingside attack must surely come to something. But the engine favours Black here. Chess really is calculation, calculation, calculation. Tony throws the kitchen sink at Luca, but he survives and goes on to consolidate his material advantage.
A tremendous game in which both Luca and Tony played with great verve. The last three results came in a cluster. On board 5, Peter Andrews had Black against Gordon Rennie. Peter identified this as the key part of the struggle:
On board 4 Peter Hasson was up against former Wimbledon team-mate Sean Ingle. Peter got an advantage out of the opening and was applying steady pressure when Sean blundered away a piece, resulting in the second sudden denouement of the evening.
Peter Large – two-thirds of the Kingston team were called Peter – completed the 6-0 win with a well-controlled display against Neil Cannon, who held his own until deep into the game. The position below is level, but then matters start to go awry for White.
The win means we have won all three of our opening games in the Thames Valley League and are now level with pacesetters Ealing but with two games in hand. Early days – we have 12 matches in all, home and away against six strong A teams – but the start to our defence of the Thames Valley title could not have gone better. Fingers crossed the run continues when we meet mighty Hammersmith, who are in joint third place with Richmond, at home on Monday 27 January. That will be a pivotal encounter.
Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain
