The games of Ken Inwood

Game collection of Kenneth F H Inwood

Source: Compiled by John Saunders from BritBase (31 games)

Ken Inwood was for many decades the top board of Kingston Chess Club, where he made an invaluable contribution to the first team. He was the most successful Kingston championship contestant since the Michell and Blake era in the 1930s. Born around 1935, he was at his peak in the 1970s when he was rated over 2100 in modern equivalent. He was a member of Kingston Chess Club probably longer than anybody else, at least 70 years. He went to Tiffin School and was would have played at the club from the age of 16.

For the last 30 years of his playing career he was the club treasurer. He would come up to the board and ask the player to pay his subscription, which was of course taken in cash in those days. If you didn’t pay that week, he would come up to the board on the following week. If you didn’t want to disrupt your games too much, you needed to pay up.

He was the British Boys (under-18) Champion, a title which he achieved at Hastings in 1953. Subsequently he played top board for England juniors in the Glorney Cup. As an adult, Ken would often be to Hastings between Christmas and New Year to watch the games in the Premier. He did not use a computer or mobile phone and analysed the games in his head.

Ken used to race motorcycles at the Isle of Man TT. After his racing days, he became a mobile supplier of motorcycle tyres from his white van. One always knew one had arrived at the right venue for a chess match because Ken would invariably have arrived early and parked nearby. It was a great inconvenience to Ken when the low emission zone was introduced since it prevented him from driving to matches in Kingston. The bus back to Hersham ran infrequently on the night-time return journey and he was unable to stay to analyse the games. He had a habit of throwing away his scoresheet after each game, which means that not many of his games were recorded for posterity.

His last rated game was on 9 March 2020. Rated 1728, he lost against Nilomi Desai (1840) of Coulsdon in the Thames Valley League. This represents a rated chess playing career of 69 years. Afterwards, he developed health problems and went into a nursing home.