Player Profiles (alphabetical)
Peter Andrews is chair of Kingston Chess Club. He has been a club member since 2022. Peter plays for the first and second teams and is captain of the first and second teams in the Surrey League. He also captains the team in Surrey’s Lauder Cup. Peter is noted for his match reports which judiciously analyse the crucial points in each game.
Peter spent most of his career as an economist at the Bank of England, and is still involved as an organiser and player in the City Chess Association. He loves cricket, and is Deputy Chair of West Wimbledon Cricket Club [formerly Bank of England CC} and President-elect of South Oxfordshire Amateurs CC. He also follows Southampton Football Club, for whom his grandfather (who was his first regular chess opponent) played for many years.
John Foley is president of Kingston Chess Club. He has been a club member since 2002 and has served in various roles as team captain and chair from 2010. He has been the club’s webmaster since 2010. John plays for the first and second teams, and for Surrey and in the 4NCL.
John teaches chess at a girls prep school in Kingston and at Tudor Drive library on Thursday afternoons. He is also a councillor with the Education Commission of the European Chess Union. He has written a book on teaching primary chess and Checkmate! – an introduction to chess which has been translated into many languages. He is a keen cyclist and likes growing vegetables.
Stephen Moss is captain of Kingston Chess Club. He has been a club member since 2010. Stephen plays for the second and third teams. His main role is to communicate with the members, which he does as website editor and through our WhatsApp group. Stephen has been the force behind the Kingston Invitational summer tournament. He has also been active in stewarding our first team up to fourth place in the National Chess League (4NCL).
Stephen is a journalist, mainly with the Guardian, and writes on a wide range of topics, even occasionally chess. He met Bobby Fischer when the eccentric former world champion fled to Iceland, did the first interview with Garry Kasparov when he announced his retirement, and once played blitz with Magnus Carlsen – a game which did not end well for Stephen. He is the author of The Rookie: An Odyssey Through Chess (and Life). Away from chess, he has a keen interest in cricket and edited The Wisden Anthology 1978-2006: Cricket’s Age of Revolution.
Now semi-retired, David previously worked in Spain, Egypt, Russia and Georgia in the field of English language teaching. He currently teaches chess and the history of the South Caucasus at City Lit in London. He and his wife Keti wrote the first Lonely Planet guide to Georgia. He has written blog articles on his favourite player Petrosian and his specialist subject Tbilisi.
Genc Tasbasi has been a member of the club since around 2016 and is currently treasurer. He helps organise friendly rapid games on Mondays, plays for the third and fourth teams, and is always keen to improve his chess. With a background in tech, he also contributes to the club’s technical side.
Outside chess, Genc is a mobile tech lead with experience across technology companies in and around London since the early 2000s.
Originally from Istanbul and now living in Kingston, he enjoys philosophy and Stoicism, psychology, and has a keen interest in running, weight training, startup culture, and generative AI.
Julian Way is a Fide Master who has been a member of the club since 1992. He has been chair and first team captain but is currently head of training. He started KCC Online (a monthly training session on Zoom) during lockdown and it still runs on the last Sunday of each month.
Outside of the club, Julian teaches chess in primary schools and has an MA in English Literature. He also runs a monthly book group for Elmbridge U3A.