Recent Posts

  • Bridge with father and daughter
    Bridge for Beginners – evening taster
    We were delighted to be able to fill four tables for this one-off event. With four people on each table, we had 16 enthusiastic players for the evening. Our instructor was Rosie White from the famous Young Chelsea Bridge Club. She has coached a generation of bridge players and was happy to try to convert inveterate chess players to the pleasures of a classic new game.
  • Kingston pip Harrow to win Thames Valley Knockout
    It felt a little strange to play a major chess match on the longest and hottest day of the year so far, with several players in shorts and complaints that the air conditioning was too effective. But two strong teams, albeit missing the prodigious Bodhana Sivanandan on the Harrow side and the infectious Peter Lalic on ours, contested a tense match containing some high-quality chess. Kingston had a rating advantage on all boards except board 1.
  • Kingston B overwhelmed at Richmond
    Richmond wanted to prove a point in this match – that their B team could live with our title-winning side – and they proved it emphatically, running out winners by 5.5-0.5. We are champions of the division, but we were humbled by this result – the second team’s first defeat of the season in its final match.
  • Kingston B keep their unbeaten record in TVL
    In the penultimate league match of the season, Kingston B held on to their unbeaten record with a reasonably comfortable victory against a battle-hardened Richmond B side, who were in with a chance of promotion if they could beat us in the final two back-to-back matches of the season.
  • Sisters shine at All Saints Blitz XIII
    The recent Blitz event at All Saints Church in Kingston attracted 30 participants, doubling usual attendance due to the half-term break. Women FIDE Masters Emma and Eunice Hng excelled, with Emma winning on tie-break. Peter Large lost a game for the first time in an All Saints Blitz. Junior prizewinner William Lin also performed well.
  • Tenacious Maycock wins Bank Holiday Blitz
    David Maycock scored a perfect 6/6 to win the Kingston Bank Holiday Blitz, but young Zain Patel ran him close on an evening when the juniors shone You have to be in it to win it. Quite a few of the Kingston big guns chose to sit out the Kingston Bank Holiday Blitz, held at the Willoughby Arms on Monday 26 May, but… Read more: Tenacious Maycock wins Bank Holiday Blitz
  • The delicate art of pawn grabbing
    When I play chess I often feel like giving an inspirational speech to the pieces before the start: “We’re all going into battle together, and some of us might not live to see the end of it. Especially you little guys.”
  • Kingston A round off perfect season with win over Ealing
    After contesting 11 matches crammed into just five months of play, we arrived at our final Thames Valley division 1 encounter on Monday 12 May. I say “we arrived”, but I was actually abroad for this last match and was grateful to Peter Large for taking on the captaincy duties.
  • Kingston B bandwagon rolls on with Richmond C win
    I was abroad when this match took place, so can give only the sketchiest second-hand account of what happened. Alan Scrimgour kindly deputised for me as captain and played board 1, winning the match 4-2 but being thwarted with Black in his own game, held to a draw by the solid and almost certainly underrated Peter Kasprowicz.

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