Kingston entered three teams in the Thorp Trophy and the A team came up trumps, lifting the prize ahead of Epsom and Richmond at Cheam on 22 March 2025
The Thorp Trophy – a four-board team rapidplay played on a single afternoon – hasn’t been held for 20 years, but this season the Surrey Association enterprisingly revived it, and last weekend 16 teams from across Surrey gathered at the Parochial Hall in Cheam to do battle for the trophy. (Well, the trophy has actually been lost, so let’s say for the honour of being the first Thorp champions since South Norwood in the 2003/04 season.)
To my great pleasure and surprise, the Kingston A team (comprising Peter Large, Peter Lalić, Homayoon Froogh and Ye Kyaw – pictured above) came first with 12 game points across the four rounds. The games were played at a time control of 20 minutes plus a five-second increment, with total game points rather than match points determining the winners. All four of the A team scored well, but special mention should be made of Ye Kyaw, who chalked up a perfect 4/4 on board 4.
What makes the tournament distinctive is that two of the players in each four-person team must have an ECF rapid rating of less than 1750, which makes putting teams together tricky. Players must follow strict rating order. The great plus of the competition is that, unusually, first-team players such as the two Peters are competing alongside players from lower teams, which is great for fostering club spirit.
The B team (David Maycock, Jasper Tambini, Aziz Sannie and Jaden Mistry) came fourth, and crucially in the final round got a 2-2 draw with leaders Epsom A, allowing Kingston A to leapfrog Epsom with a 4-0 victory over Richmond A. Good squad-work! Kingston C (the venerable team of John Foley, Stephen Moss, Ed Mospan and Rob Taylor) came a creditable joint tenth. Full scores with the results of individual match-ups can be found on the Surrey Association website on the Competitions page under Thorp Trophy. https://www.scca.co.uk/comps/comps_index.html
This is Peter Lalić’s first-round game against Streatham’s Robin Haldane. Peter is proud of having achieved a 98% accuracy rating in this game.
Stephen Moss, Kingston club captain
Final table
