Kingston v Epsom, Thames Valley Knockout semi-final played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 17 March 2025

Epsom are always challenging opponents, and so it proved in this Thames Valley Knockout semi-final match. Kingston had a sizeable rating advantage and the victory, by 4-2, looks reasonably comfortable on paper, but it never felt straightforward and we were especially wary of the talented young Kumar brothers on boards 4 and 5.

The board 2 game between David Maycock, with White, and Epsom’s president Marcus Gosling, who recently celebrated passing 2000 in the ECF ratings list (an admirable achievement given his heavy administrative burdens at the club), was entertaining. Does David ever play a dull game? No seems to be the answer. He played an aggressive line against Marcus’s Caro-Kann and established an early advantage, The sequence below more or less decided the game:

Alan Scrimgour had White and a rating advantage on board 6, so we hoped this was a banker, but his opponent Chris Rigby had other ideas and played a combative French Defence in which he sought to create a pawn swarm on the kingside. “Playing against the French,” said Alan afterwards, “I carelessly allowed my opponent the chance to close the queenside. However, when he tried the same on the kingside my 13. exf followed by 14. f5! gave me a bind and several targets to attack. I thought Black should have castled queenside instead of his risky 19…c3.” That critical sequence is shown below.

On boards 4 and 5, Epsom’s young stars Arnav and Sachin Kumar were up against Kingston stalwarts David Rowson and John Foley. Believing we should have the edge elsewhere, we decided neutralisation was the best policy. One never quite trusts the ratings of juniors, and the Kumars are clearly talented. David described his game, with White against Arnav, as “uneventful and reasonably accurately played by us both”, but he says he did have one chance to get an advantage in the position below:

Neutralisation was also the name of the game on board 5, where John Foley had Black against Sachin Kumar. The game was not without its alarms for the Kingston president; Sachin had a chance to win the exchange but fortunately for us missed it. There followed a good deal of expert shuffling and eventually a draw was agreed. That made the score 3-1 to Kingston and now our two Peters, both playing Black, had to finish the job.

Board 1 was a heavyweight match-up between IMs Peter Large (Kingston) and Graeme Buckley (Epsom), former team-mates who know each other’s styles inside out. They reached the position below when Peter stopped scoring under the five-minute rule (ie he had only five minutes plus a 10-second increment left for all his remaining moves):

White is about +1.2 here. By no means decisive, but he is calling the shots and has a much easier game. Peter is very resilient and played many moves on the increment, but eventually – with more time and a better position on the board – Graeme prevailed to get a point back for Epsom and make the match score 3-2 to Kingston.

That meant the board 3 encounter between Chris Wright, with White, and Peter Lalić would decide the match. If Chris won, the match would be drawn and Epsom would got through on board count – high boards scoring more points in the event of the tie, making a victory on board 1 critical. But Peter Lalić is a great player to have on your side in a crisis, and facing an English Opening he sought a positional bind. This proved very successful, restricting all his opponent’s pieces, and afterwards Peter said he considered this one of his best games. He is already winning in the position below:

Peter’s victory secured the match by 4-2. We now face a very strong Harrow side in the final. AWAY! We will start the logistical planning immediately. Past trips to Harrow have proved a little, well, harrowing. A tortuous evening on the A312 beckons.

Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain