Hammersmith v Kingston A, Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Mindsports Centre, London W6 on 4 December 2025
Hammersmith fielded their strongest team so far this season and we were without several key players, so a 4-2 defeat was not surprising. Kingston captain Peter Large, who quite rightly demands very high standards, said it was a hammering, but I felt it was less emphatic than that: a chastening defeat which suggests that winning a fourth successive Thames Valley title this season will be far from easy. Trappy away visits to Ealing and Maidenhead beckon in the next month, and we will need to be at our most resilient.
John Foley, with Black on board 6, was blown away by Sergiy Teslya, who we discovered afterwards had prepared a line against John’s usually trusty Caro-Kann. There was nothing subtle about his kingside blitz, but it was mightily effective, producing this horrible position (for Black) and a quick finish.
On board 2, Peter Lalić had a short but intriguing draw with White against Fide master Michael Fernandez. When I looked at Peter’s position (see diagram below), I thought he had good attacking possibilities. White’s pieces are well coordinated and castling looks dangerous, so what does Black do?
On board 5, Peter Andrews had White against Maria Alexandra-Ciocan. It was a tight struggle, but after establishing a healthy advantage in the middle game Peter missed a winning chance on move 30. The annotations below are Peter’s.
Boards 3 and 4 were going less well for Kingston. Zain Patel had White against the experienced Alistair Hill on board 3, but it always felt as if he was a little behind after the opening, though he sought counterplay throughout. He came very close to building a powerful kingside attack, but was hampered by time trouble and eventually Ali was able to exchange queens, defuse the threats and establish a material advantage that led to White’s resignation. That made it 3-1 to Hammersmith and meant they could not now lose.
Jasper Tambini has been under the cosh and short of moves with Black on board 4 against Gaston Franco for some time, and at no point did it look likely that we would win this game, so defeat in the match was a near inevitability with half an hour of the three-hour session still left to play. Franco played a highly positional game and didn’t allow Jasper, who prefers a more tactical struggle, any oxygen. White won a pawn in the middle game and just squeezed, establishing a winning endgame. A very professional performance by a strong player.
It was left to Kingston captain Peter Large to put a respectable gloss on the scoreline. With Black on board 2 against Thomas Bonn’s Ruy Lopez, Peter ceded a pawn for an initiative, and there followed a tactically complicated struggle which could have gone either way.
That made the final result 4-2 to Hammersmith, who go top of the Thames Valley division 1 table ahead of Maidenhead. We are currently third but have games in hand, and in any case the season is still in its early stages. It does, though, look as if the battle for the title will be extremely hard fought, with any team able to beat any other and home advantage potentially counting for a lot. It promises to be very exciting … and extremely stressful. But we will give it our best shot in an effort to retain our title.
Stephen Moss
