Stephen Moss, tournament director

This is the fourth year of the Kingston Invitational. Both the 2022 and 2023 editions were all-play-alls: a 10-player all-play-all in 2022 and two 10-player all-play-all groups in 2023, the higher-rated of which offered IM norms. The third Kingston Invitational was held in August 2024 and took the form of a highly competitive Swiss.

The plan for 2025 is to combine the two formats, so we will have a strong 10-player all-play-all event (again with norms on offer) and a 50-player Swiss aimed at players with an ECF rating of 1800-plus. There are no entry fees for either event. It is by invitation only, though we warmly invite expressions of interest from those who would like to take part. We strive for a competitive but friendly tournament, a true festival of chess, and even supply free cream doughnuts. 

This year we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Kingston Chess Club, and the Invitational will form a central part of those celebrations. The event will run from Tuesday 12 to Saturday 16 August, and will take place at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church in central Kingston. Full details are given on the Chess Results server: the IM norm event can be found here and the Swiss here. Fields will be updated as they are assembled.

Both tournaments will be Fide-rated and over nine rounds. The organiser and chief arbiter of the event – both norm tournament and Swiss – is Paul McKeown, who will be supported by deputy chief arbiter John Gordon Bowley and by Edward Mospan from Kingston Chess Club. The event is being run in association with Kingston Chess Club as part of its 150th anniversary celebrations, which will run throughout the summer.

IM norm tournament

GM Jakub Kosakowski [Fide 2542]
IM Ivan Valles Moreno [2323]
IM Peter Large [2291]
CM David Maycock [2287]
Adam A Taylor [2279]
FM Roland Bezuidenhout [2272]
WIM/FM Liwia Jarocka [2266]
IM Graeme Buckley [2256]
FM Supratit Banerjee [2242]
CM Peter Lalić [2182]

Swiss

Alongside the norm tournament, we will run a Swiss for around 50 players. Ideally they should have an ECF rating of 1800 or above, though we may make some exceptions. The Swiss will have the same time control as the norm tournament – 90 minutes + 30-second increment. There will be two rounds on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and a single round on Saturday morning, with a blitz play-off for the trophy in the event of a tie. The play-off will only determine who receives the winner’s trophy; the prize money will be split according to final placing in the event of a tie.

Anyone interested in playing in the Swiss is invited to email me at [email protected], but we would ask that if you are accepted for the event you make every effort to play. It is frequently pointed out that the flaw with an Invitational is that players have not made an upfront payment to play, so have nothing to lose by not showing up. If you are accepted, please play, because your acceptance of a place may have denied someone else a chance to play. Do please let me know if you want like to play in the tournament. This is the field as it currently stands:

FM Jacob T Grave [Fide 2366]
IM John Hawksworth [Fide 2351] [ECF 2158]
FM Gunnar Lund [Fide 2326]
IM Jack Rudd [Fide 2259] [ECF 2369]
IM Susan Lalić [Fide 2214] [ECF 2224]
WGM Michalina Rudzinska [Fide 2200]
IM Raúl Claverie [Fide 2180]
Junhao Xian [Fide 2159]
CM Thomas Villiers [Fide 2156] [ECF 2215]
Graham Keane [Fide 2146] [ECF 2156]
Marcus Osborne [Fide 2142] [ECF 2129]
FM Robert Eames [Fide 2136] [ECF 2180]
Michael Healey [Fide 2135] [ECF 2258]
Mohamed Anis Achour [Fide 2126]
CM Mark Josse [Fide 2113] [ECF 2139]
FM Richard McMichael [Fide 2112] [ECF 2204]
Alastair Armstrong [Fide 2108] [ECF 2045]
Rock Yu [Fide 2107] [ECF 2175]
Clive Frostick [Fide 2095] [ECF 2108]
Aditya Verma [Fide 2093] [ECF 2221]
Remy Rushbrooke [Fide 2090] [ECF 2234]
WFM Luisa Bashylina [Fide 2085]
Philip Makepeace [Fide 2081] [ECF 2181]
Tom Farrand [Fide 2077] [ECF 2137]
Shlok Verma [Fide 2076] [ECF 2195]
Qixiang Han [Fide 2070] [ECF 2262]
Jai Kothari [Fide 2051] [ECF 2182]
Shivam Agrawal [Fide 2047] [ECF 2187]
FM Michael Waddington [Fide 2034] [ECF 2074]
David Rowson [Fide 2025] [ECF 2034]
Ewan Wilson [Fide 2020] [ECF 2188]
Edmond Andal [Fide 2011] [ECF 2203]
Caspar Bates [Fide 2010] [ECF 2133]
Chris Fegan [Fide 1994] [ECF 2045]
William Taylor [Fide 1985] [ECF 2023]
James Stevenson [Fide 1969] [ECF 2047]
Nicolas Skettos [Fide 1968] [ECF 2060]
Daniel Young [Fide 1958] [ECF 2045]
CM Anthony Hughes [Fide 1930] [ECF 1908]
Chris Rice [Fide 1926] [ECF 2028]
Mark Adams [Fide 1912] [ECF 1993]
Marcus Gosling [Fide 1909] [ECF 2023]
Qixuan Han [Fide 1896] [ECF 2058]
Xavier Cowan [Fide 1854] [ECF 1916]
Joshua Pirgon [Fide 1849] [ECF 1970]
Maks Gajowniczek [Fide 1847] [ECF 1879]
Lev Razhnou [Fide 1821] [ECF 1907]
Arnav Kumar [Fide 1814] [ECF 1947]
Maya Keen [Fide 1805] [ECF 1861]
Sachin Kumar [Fide 1800] [ECF 1885]
Jon Eckert [Fide 1770] [ECF 1778]
Jaden Mistry [Fide 1768] [ECF 1689]
Jai Bhatia [Fide 1708] [ECF 1561]
William Lin [ECF 1741]
Sorin Atanasiu [Fide 1670] [ECF 1524]