Richmond A v Kingston B, Thames Valley League division 2 match played at the Adelaide pub Teddington on 17 March 2025

Like Kingston B’s previous fixture, a narrow win against Surbiton A, this match at Richmond was a relegation clash. The two teams were quite similar in terms of average ratings, but Richmond were strong on the top two boards. In view of my recent poor form, Alan Scrimgour kindly agreed to take board 1 against Mike Healey.

I was also grateful to John Foley for stepping in to play at short notice, and it was John who secured the first half-point for us. He commented on an amusing aspect of his encounter: “I played an uneventful Caro-Kann, with an early draw. I thought at first it was Chris Baker IM. I was confused because I played CBIM previously and this person looked different.”

The evening’s other draw was that on board 5. Raghu Kamath played the Dutch Defence and had pressure on the half-open f-file, but Homayoon Froogh defended stoutly. In the following position, Black could have opened a second front on the queenside and centre by playing his pawns to b6 and c5.

The board 1 game between Alan Scrimgour, with White, and Mike Healey began as a Sicilian Defence, c3 variation (1. e4 c5 3. c3). It was level until this position was reached:

Kingston soon equalised the score thanks to Stephen Lovell’s win with White on board 3. Here his opponent, John Burke, has just played 17…N(f6)xNd5. Stephen (pictured above, left) had to decide how to recapture, and had three choices.

This left the match all square with two games outstanding – boards 2 and 6. Both these games seemed hard to call for one side or the other, but in the case of the board 2 game this was because the position might be described as on a knife edge, while on board 6 the game looked to be heading for a draw. One Interesting aspect of Gajowniczek v Jones on board 6 was that Martyn had played the Grunfeld Defence, which in my experience is rarely seen in club chess, though I don’t know why.

The action in my game was all on the queenside, as Casper Bates had a passed pawn on the b-file and I had one on the a-file. As we entered time trouble the question was whether either of us could win the opposition’s pawn or force a weakening in his position. Unfortunately, I played too quickly, without sufficient calculation, as is often my problem when in time trouble, and allowed Casper’s queen and knight to enter the heart of the position and give mate.

Disappointed, I looked at the match sheet and saw that someone had scored the board 6 game as a draw, which would have meant that we had also lost the match. However, it turned out that whoever had assumed a draw in that game had jumped the gun: the two players were still fighting it out, although the opposite-coloured bishop ending did appear dead drawn. Martyn, who thought I was either winning or drawing my game, had offered a draw, which Maks had rejected. Sadly for the Richmond player, moments later he lost on time, still in a theoretically drawn position. So Kingston B had very fortuitously drawn the match 3-3.

This result still leaves the relegation issue very much undecided. Richmond have 8 points, but only two matches left, and those are against Kingston A and Hammersmith A. Ealing and Kingston B both have 6 points, but we have an extra match in hand. At the bottom are Surbiton with 5 points, but they have played a match less than us. So it’s all to play for.

David Rowson is Kingston B captain in Thames Valley League division 1