Fourth Kingston Invitational (12–16 August 2025)

This was 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 2025 editon combined the two formats, so we had a strong 10-player all-play-all event (again with norms on offer) and a 55-player Swiss aimed at players with an ECF rating of 1800-plus (though with a few wildcards). There were no entry fees for either event. It was by invitation only, though we invited expressions of interest from those who wished to take part. We strove for a competitive but friendly tournament, a true festival of chess, and even supplied free cream doughnuts. 

This year we are celebrating the 150th anniversary of Kingston Chess Club, and the Invitational formed a central part of those celebrations. The event ran from Tuesday 12 to Saturday 16 August, and took place at the Richard Mayo Centre, United Reformed Church in central Kingston. Full details appear on the Chess Results server: the IM norm event can be found here and the Swiss here.

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

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, there was an Open Swiss with 55 entrants. The Swiss had the same time control as the norm tournament – 90 minutes + 30-second increment. There were two rounds on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and a single round on Saturday morning, allowing time for a blitz play-off for the trophy on Saturday afternoon. The play-off would only determine who received the winner’s trophy; the prize money was to be split according to final placing in the event of a tie. This was the field:

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]

John Saunders’ reports

Esteemed chess journalist and photographer John Saunders did a brilliant daily blog of the event , which simply could not be bettered. The links are below. He has beautifully summed up the atmosphere of the Invitational and annotated key games. Note that the dates at the top of John’s reports refer to the date he uploaded his blogs. The dates given below are those on which the games were actually played. John has also put all the games from the tournament on his brilliant BritBase website in an easily accessible and play-throughable form, preserved (we hope) in cyber-posterity for all time. Here are the links to John’s daily blogs from the tournament:

Day 1 – Tuesday 12 August – opening ceremony

Day 1 – Tuesday 12 August – action on the board (rounds 1 and 2)

Day 2 – Wednesday 13 August (rounds 3 and 4)

Day 3 – Thursday 14 August (rounds 5 and 6)

Day 4 – Friday 15 August (rounds 7 and 8)

Day 5 – Saturday 16 August (round 9)

Final tournament tables

IM norm tournament (10-player round robin)

Open (Swiss)

Top 10

Best Game prize

GM Daniel King awarded the Best Game prize to FM Robert Eames for his rollicking win over Ewan Wilson in the final round. John Saunders has annotated the game and GM King has analysed it, along with two other contenders for the prize, on his video channel. Thanks to both for their rapid work.

A personal note

The event was immensely satisfying and utterly exhausting. It was only made possible by the unstinting efforts of chief arbiter Paul McKeown, deputy chief arbiter John Bowley and national arbiter Edward Mospan, supported by Dominic Fogg and FM Julian Way, with invaluable contributions at moments of crisis from IM Jack Rudd, who tended to play very quick games and then assist the arbiting team.

I must also thank Kingston Chess Club president John Foley for giving support on many fronts and the mayor of Kingston, Councillor Noel Hadjimichael, for opening the event with a speech judged by all present to have been superb. Thanks also to Catherine Treweek and her colleagues at the United Reformed Church/Richard Mayo Centre in central Kingston for hosting us in such a friendly and warm-hearted fashion, and to the staff of the nearby All Saints Church for allowing us to use space there for game analysis. Holding a chess tournament at two churches a few minutes apart may have been a first.

As tournament director, I ran around frantically and mostly uselessly. I am very hopeful that we will have a Fifth Kingston Invitational in 2026, and that seemed to be the view of the great majority of the participants, but it is high time we had a change of tournament director and an increase in the competence level. Applications to Kingston Chess Club please. Now I plan to sleep for at least three months. It is not just the players at chess tournaments who suffer stress and sleeplessness.

Stephen Moss, Kingston Invitational tournament director (retired!)

A selection of photographs from the Kingston Invitational

The players stand for a minute’s silence in honour of IM Gavin Wall and Surbiton chair Paul Durrant, who both died recently
The Mayor of Kingston, Councillor Noel Hadjimichael, makes the ceremonial first move with help from William Lin
Eleven-year-old superstar Supratit Banerjee looking questioningly at his opponent
Norwegian FM Jacob T Grave who justified his top seeding by coming joint first in the Open
Grave’s fellow Norwegian FM Gunnar Lund may look perplexed, but he took the other joint top spot
A beaming Peter Lalić, immaculately dressed as always, gained elo points in the very competitive all-play-all
Kingston team-mates David Maycock (left) and Peter Large face each other in the final round, with Maycock prevailing
Adam A Taylor had an excellent tournament after a difficult first day when he lost both games
Two-times Polish women’s champion Michalina Rudzinska played with great composure to bag third in the Open with 6.5/9
A general view of the Centre Hall at the United Reformed Church in Kingston, which proved an attractive venue
IM John Hawksworth, in his first major tournament for 35 years, takes on German WFM Luisa Bashylina
Remy Rushbrooke had a very good Open, finishing joint fourth and coming close to grabbing Best Game for his round 4 win
Polish compatriots Jakub Kosakowski and Liwia Jarocka face each other in round 7, with no question of a friendly draw
Spanish IM Ivan Valles Moreno fought tigerishly throughout and came joint second in the all-play-all
Polish FM/WIM Liwia Jarocka found the going tough but kept smiling and got stronger as the tournament progressed
Kingston stalwart Will Taylor, one of only four players to have taken part in every edition of the Invitational
Shlok Verma enjoyed a superb tournament ending up as joint top junior before losing in a play-off
CSC/Kingston 4NCL team-mates Roland Bezuidenhout (left) and David Maycock played out a hard-fought draw
Photographs were posted of the two local chess legends – Paul Durrant and IM Gavin Wall – remembered at the congress
IM Ivan Valles Moreno (left) was lost in the opening against GM Jakub Kosakowski in their crucial fourth-round meeting
Argentinian IM Raul Claverie almost grabbed the Best Game prize with a brilliant combination against Will Taylor in round 8
Adam Taylor (left), recovering after a difficult opening day, got the better of IM Graeme Buckley in round 3
Chief arbiter Paul McKeown in front of a banner enumerating the successes of Kingston Chess Club’s 150th anniversary year
We may not be the biggest chess tournament in the UK, but we like to believe we provide the best snacks
Round 4 of the all-play-all with Buckley v Maycock in the foreground
Polish GM Jakub Kosakowski was rated 200 points above the rest of the norm field and proved it with an emphatic victory
FM Roland Bezuidenhout had a successful tournament until a last-round disaster against Adam Taylor
David Maycock played with great panache, coming joint second in the norm event and passing 2300 to secure the FM title
Five-times British women’s champion Susan Lalić put up a solid performance in the Swiss
Delighted deputy chief arbiter John Bowley getting his tournament norm from chief arbiter Paul McKeown
There were only a handful of dropouts in the course of the five-day tournament as all the players battled on
Jai Kothari had a magnificent tournament and was deserved winner of the Barden Cup for top junior,
Algeria’s Mohamed Anis Achour had an admirable tournament and gained rating points
Michael Healey, another of the small band of players who has competed in every Kingston Invitational
Kingston’s Jon Eckert, showing his customary resilience and fighting chess. Photograph: Yury Krylov
Players analysing in the lovely setting of All Saints Church, next to Kingston’s ancient Market Place. Photograph: Yury Krylov
All-play-all winner Jakub Kosakowski (centre), flanked by joint second-placed David Maycock (left) and Ivan Valles Moreno
KIngston president John Foley with Norwegian FMs Jacob T Grave (left) and Gunnar Lund, joint winners of the Open
John Foley presents Polish WGM Michalina Rudzinska with her prize for third place in the Open
Grandmaster Daniel King hands the Barden Cup to Jai Kothari, who pipped Shlok Verma in a play-off for the trophy
GM King judged the Best Game prize and awarded it to FM Robert Eames for an audacious attacking game in the last round