Thames Valley Knockout Cup quarter-final played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 6 December 2022

This quarter-final of the Thames Valley Knockout Cup – a tournament Kingston has re-entered this year – was due to be played at Richmond, but unfortunately for them their venue was unavailable and the match had to be switched to Kingston. Nor was that Kingston’s only advantage. We outrated our opponents on boards 3 to 6, while on the top two boards the tag teams of Maycock & Lalić and Healey & Wall met again, but in different pairings from their meeting just a month ago, when David Maycock beat IM Gavin Wall and Mike Healey defeated Peter Lalić.

With a three-hour session, the games developed slowly – except for board 2 where Peter Lalić offered a pawn on move three which was finally accepted on move 10. On board 1 David Maycock played a Caro-Kann, with Mike Healey replying steadily with an Exchange Variation. On board 3 Kingston’s Vladimir Li, who had a big rating plus over Maks Gajowniczek, was playing a solid Nimzo-Indian, with his Nimzo bishop redeploying to c7.

On board 4, Will Taylor met the French – Jon Eckert’s new weapon this season – with a Tarrasch, and on 5 David Rowson looked comfortable as Black in an Italian Game against Bertie Barlow, both sticking to theory up to move nine. On board 6, Peter Andrews used the c4-d3-e4 structure in his favourite English Opening, while his opponent – the very promising junior Andrii Boiechko – countered with a Closed Sicilian set-up.

In the early stages the only game with a material imbalance was Lalić v Wall, where Peter was looking for compensation for his sacrificed pawn, though the first to finish proved to be Vladimir’s. Gajowniczek’s position had looked vulnerable to counter-attack in the centre and queenside, but that became irrelevant when a blunder dropped a piece.

David Rowson turned down a draw offer once, but agreed shortly afterwards in a roughly equal position. That made it 1.5-0.5, but no chickens were being counted yet. Jon Eckert had two bishops against Will Taylor’s two knights and looked to have more activity, and Andrews v Boiechko on board 6 was turning into one of those “kill or be killed” games which are fun to watch but a nightmare to play.

On board 2, Peter Lalić continued to play actively – David Rowson later described him as a “magician” – and, with kings castled on opposite sides, seemed to have chances. One inaccurate move by his opponent allowed him to sacrifice a knight on h7, giving him access to the black king, followed by an exchange sacrifice on d7, which if accepted led to mate in three. Gavin naturally declined, but his denuded king left him in a lost position, and Peter concluded with bishop and queen combining to mate on f7. 2.5-0.5 to Kingston and now the door was open (metaphorically speaking, as it was far from warm in the Willoughby’s upstairs playing room and every entrance had to be firmly sealed).

The winning point came from David Maycock, who won a piece and broke through, leaving Mike Healey completely lost. Peter Andrews had by now also broken through on the queenside, creating a dangerous passed pawn, but he still had to be careful in fighting off his opponent’s kingside attack. Once that was accomplished it was all over.

Richmond’s second “Kingston player” Jon Eckert – Mike Healey also plays for us in the Surrey League – seemed to have compensation for a pawn deficit with active pieces and the two bishops, but Will Taylor managed to eliminate the bishops and turn his material advantage into a winning rook and pawn ending. Jon sportingly resigned in a lost ending but with Will having little time on his clock.

The final score of 5.5-0.5 arguably flattered Kingston. Bertie Barlow, who got a draw in a recent league game between Kingston A and Richmond B, had again been responsible for avoiding the whitewash. We now look forward to Maidenhead making the long journey to Kingston in the semi-final.

Alan Scrimgour, Kingston chair and Thames Valley Knockout Cup captain

Surrey League division 2 match played at the Willoughby Arms, KIngston on 5 December 2022

“Why the long faces?” said Peter Lalić, who was spectating, after the match. And of course he was right: a draw for the Kingston second team against Surbiton’s first team was a perfectly honourable result. But there was a feeling that, with a touch more luck, we could have nicked it. A half-point to get off the mark in division 2 of the Surrey League is nice, but it still leaves Kingston 2 at the foot of the table and threatened by relegation in a division where all our rivals are first teams (see current table below).

There was a problem with the heating at the Willoughby at the start of the match – one reason why I offered an early draw against Surbiton captain Graham Alcock on 6. Graham, who felt he had slightly misplayed the opening against my dubious Nf6 Scandinavian and was recovering from flu, accepted the offer after a long think. On board 3, Alan Scrimgour and Angus James – two immensely solid and seasoned players who know each other’s games inside out – also sued for peace at an early stage. 1-1.

Julian Way on board 2 and Jon Eckert on four both played the Dutch. Way’s game against David Scott was hard fought and ended in a forced draw after some complex tactics. Eckert sac’d unsoundly and was a piece down against Nick Faulks, but the ever resourceful and resilient Eckert created complications and constructed a mating net around Faulks’ king. A classic swindle. 2.5 to 1.5 to Kingston.

On board 7, Surbiton’s Andrew Boughen had a smooth success over Gregor Smith – match all square – but on board 5 Maxim Selemir, who has had a terrific start to his Kingston career, claimed an excellent scalp in the shape of the experienced Mark Hogarth. Selemir played aggressively and gave up a couple of pawns for an attack. Hogarth fell behind on the clock and, menaced by Selemir’s queen and rook, had to give up a knight to avert mate. A piece to the good, it was only a matter of time before Selemir prevailed: 3.5-2.5 to Kingston and at least we couldn’t lose the match.

That left board 1 – a heavyweight clash between Kingston’s John Foley and Surbiton’s Mark Josse. Josse had offered a draw earlier in the evening, but Foley – unconvinced by Kingston’s chances on other boards (and perhaps influenced by the unfavourable position in the Faulks-Eckert game) – had turned it down. Playing for the win was admirable, but in the end unwise. Josse is not just a very strong player, but a master strategist when the chips are down and time is running short. If you want someone to play for you in a time scramble, call for Josse.

In a rook and knight endgame, with both sides looking to get a pawn through, it was Josse’s two connected pawns that eventually won the day. At one stage, Foley had 20 minutes to Josse’s three or four, but such pressure doesn’t seem to bother him and his technique was rock-solid. A fine game that took three hours to complete, with Foley eventually going down on time in a position that was in any case completely lost.

Stephen Moss

Surrey League division 4 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 28 November 2022

Kingston’s newly inaugurated third team have not so far managed to chalk up a match victory, but this could – indeed perhaps should – have been it. And how sweet that would have been against Epsom, who love to beat us and were quickly on Twitter proclaiming their 3.5-2.5 win here as their third success in a row against Kingston.

Stephen Daines, Kingston’s third-team captain, likes to leaven his sides with experienced players, players relatively new to over-the-board chess, and juniors. In this match one of those juniors, Shaurya Handu, enjoyed a quickfire victory – his first for the club. Shaurya has huge confidence, enthusiasm and talent, and is a great prospect.

Fellow junior Jaden Mistry went down to defeat on board 6, but his attitude and spirit are tremendous and, at just 11, he is another terrific prospect for a club that has struggled to bring on juniors in the past. We continue to actively consider how we can establish a junior club to organise our efforts in this area.

The ever reliable David Shalom won on board 2 to raise hopes of a victory in the match, and Adam Nakar secured a draw on board 1 despite being outrated by more than 100 points. The problems for Kingston came in the middle order. On board 4, Mark Sheridan – on his debut for Kingston against his former club – allowed his advantage to slip against David Flewellen. And crucially, on board 3, the strong Kingston player who was due to turn out was indisposed. Newcomer Colin Lyle valiantly stepped in as a late substitute, but he was outgunned by the highly rated Venkatesh Subramoniam.

So near and yet so far, but the team is shaping up well and getting stronger. Thanks to Greg Heath for standing in as captain in the absence of Stephen Daines, who was on a chess fact-finding tour of Tenerife.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley League division 1 match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston, on 28 November 2022

In the chess leagues we play in there are many matches which could qualify as derbies – for instance, Kingston versus Surbiton and Kingston versus Wimbledon, to name just two. Matches against Richmond teams are another example and, having recently played their A team, here we took on their B team (both Thames Valley League matches) and next week will play Richmond again in the Thames Valley Knockout. It’s good to play opponents we know well and are friends with, even though the rivalry is real.

Another aspect of this is that it sometimes happens that players face opponents who might be on their side in another league. Last night, for the second time this season against a Richmond team, Peter Lalić faced an opponent, Jon Eckert, who also plays for Kingston in other competitions. This didn’t incline Peter to be pacific; using yet another original opening line (1. Nc3 e6; 2. h4!? – Peter might disagree with the annotation!) he won in 18 moves.

Peter was on board 1 as David Maycock was tied up moving house (though in any case their ECF ratings are now so close as to make them almost interchangeable at the top of the Kingston order), but Alan Scrimgour kindly stepped in at short notice to make sure we had a full team. It was also good to have Will Taylor playing, having journeyed down from North London.

The final score of the match reflected the large difference in ratings (on average, just over 220 points). However, as usual the games were generally competitive, and one or two might have ended differently. I’m thinking specifically here of my own game, in which, facing a line of the Italian which I play myself, I managed to end up in an inferior position. Fortunately, this encouraged my opponent to attack on the kingside too quickly, and I was able to exploit the holes this created. In Will’s game the turnaround was different: having won the exchange neatly against Bertie Barlow, Will lost it again in time trouble and was unable to win the resulting theoretically drawn rook ending.

Julian Way played an unusual line against Sampson Low’s French Defence and emerged from complications two pieces up. On board 2, Vladimir Li fatally destroyed his opponent’s king’s pawn cover, and on board 6 Alan, playing his favourite Sicilian Taimanov, won a pawn and eventually the game, on time.

A very satisfying evening for Kingston A. In our first two Thames Valley Division 1 matches this season we have a record of 10.5 for and 1.5 against, all versus Richmond teams, who may not feel it’s such a friendly derby. Now we need to show the same form in the Surrey League: next up Coulsdon CCF on 12 December, a tough challenge.

David Rowson, Kingston first-team captain

Surrey League division 2 match played at the Haywain Brewers Fayre, Epsom on 21 November 2022

Do not mess with Epsom – a division 1-strength side currently playing in division 2, and with aspirations to be the strongest club in Surrey under president Marcus Gosling’s inspired leadership. Having IMs on the top three boards certainly helps their cause, and for Kingston’s second team a 5.5-1.5 defeat was perfectly honourable.

The match was played at the excellent Haywain pub, to which Epsom have returned after a short interruption spent at other venues, and Kingston president John Foley, who played on board 2 against Graeme Buckley, reports that the Kingston team put up an excellent fight. “The match was tense throughout,” he says, “and halfway through the neutral observer would have put their money on Kingston.”

John’s game against IM Buckley was keenly fought, but Buckley took a risk in the endgame which worked in his favour. Peter Large made a classic exchange sacrifice v Be6 and strangled Julian Way, captain of the Kingston team. Alan Scrimgour drew with IM Susan Lalić, playing the same line against her as he did in their last game 10 years ago.

Gregor Smith stepped in for Peter Andrews, who had Covid, and was winning with an advanced passed pawn when he fell for a cruel tactic. “I blundered from a completely winning position,” said Gregor after the game. “Learn the hard way!” The hugely promising Maxim Selemir drew with Chris Wright on board 5; Jon Eckert drew with Daniel Young on four; and the heavily outrated Ljubica Lazarevic was defeated by the Epsom president on six. Epsom, who got their promotion drive back on track with this victory after a surprise defeat to Surbiton 1 in October, sportingly said the final score flattered them.

Stephen Moss

Thames Valley division X match played at the United Reformed Church, Tolworth on 15 November 2022

This was a very entertaining and hard-fought match between Surbiton D and Kingston C – two four-person teams made up of promising juniors and other players either relatively new to chess or, as in my case, scraping away the rust of 40 years of inactivity.

On board 1, Hayden Holden fought out an encouraging draw against Surbiton’s JoJo Morrison, whose official rating is 1658 but who is a good 100 points stronger than that. An excellent result for Hayden, and you could tell from the two youngsters’ animated post-match analysis that they had both enjoyed the game and been bursting with attacking ideas throughout.

The middle game had been very double-edged and Hayden felt he had missed a win when he had a chance to infiltrate with his queen. But it eventually resolved itself into a bishop v knight endgame in which Morrison had an extra pawn. With a long grind beckoning and school work still waiting to be done at home, peace was declared. The joys of evening chess!

Kingston junior Jaden Mistry took another step on his learning curve with a tight game against Colin Li, a relative newcomer to chess but one who shows enormous promise and works hard at his game. Li already has a rating of 1600 and will soon be pushing way beyond that. Jaden played well, but Li had too much ammunition, winning a couple of pawns and marching one of them up the board, with Jaden’s queen helpless in the face of two rooks and a knight.

Max Mikardo-Greaves and Surbiton’s Phil Goodings had the most complex game of the evening, with all the pieces clustered in the middle of the board and a unfathomable range of tactical possibilities on offer. Max went the exchange down and then lost further material, but with Goodings’ rook slow to get into the game the piece count hardly mattered as Max launched a desperate attack. It looked very likely to succeed until Max went wrong in time trouble and let a possible mating attack with queen and bishop slip away. With that chance gone, Goodings was able to press home his material advantage. A tremendous game and a gallant performance from Max.

On board 4, my opponent Kim Cross and I played rapidly – the game was over in just 45 minutes. I turned a strong positional plus into a material advantage and, with Cross’s king uncastled, saw what I thought was a forced mate in eight moves, using my queen and bishop to trap White’s king in the centre. Amazingly, my analysis proved correct! I blitzed my way through my last seven moves, and my opponent resigned one move away from checkmate.

Alas it was not enough for the Kingston team, who lost the match 2.5-1.5. But given the rating disparities that was about what we expected, and there were creditable performances from all the players. Jaden is not the only one on a learning curve.

Stephen Daines

Surrey League division 1 match played at the Guildford Institute on 14 November 2022

Guildford are the strongest club in Surrey and a trip there is never easy, even when you’re playing their second team. They field two sides in division 1 of the Surrey League, and on the strength of their performance against a Kingston first team at close to full strength you can see why. This was indeed a second team that many clubs would be happy to have as their firsts.

Sebastian Galer is a strong board 1, rated close to 2100, but he was facing David Maycock, who is at least 200 points higher. Maycock also had White and, confronting Galer’s Modern Defence, slowly increased the positional pressure before smoothly converting. Another fine game from Kingston’s young star.

On board 2, the equally reliable Peter Lalić was up against Jai Kothari, a junior rated 1892 whom Guildford rate so highly that they played him above the experienced James Toon (rated 2046). There was some discussion about whether this rating difference was permissible – some leeway in the ratings gap is allowed for fast-rising juniors – and it does appear that league rules were broken, as the league has penalised Guildford for a board order infringement.

The game itself was full of dynamic ideas, and Lalić later remarked on Kothari’s “confidence and decisiveness”. Kothari opened with d4 and played the rare Chigorin Variation: 1. d4 d5 2. Nc3 Bf5 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 a6 5. g4! A misplaced knight cost Kothari several tempi and Lalić gained an edge, but the youngster was way ahead on the clock (in the photograph above, it shows 48 minutes for White and just 59 seconds for Black!), and only Lalić’s ability to play wonderfully creative chess on the 10-second increment saw him through, extending his advantage and establish a mating net to win the game in 38 moves. Judging by his play here and his club’s confidence in him, Kothari is a name to watch.

These victories on the top two boards were enough to give Kingston a 4.5-3.5 victory on the night (adjusted to 5-2 because of the board order infringement), but the other six boards were a dogfight. Guildford’s James Toon secured a hard-fought draw against Silverio Abasolo on board 3 in a game between two highly rated players that was nip and tuck throughout, while on board 4 Peter Stimpson’s London System had David Rowson in a spot of bother. Both kings were in the centre, but Stimpson’s looked safer and it was a surprise when he allowed a queen exchange which gave Rowson a slight advantage, though not enough to try to force a win.

Board 5 was another draw – John Foley dropped a pawn early to Julien Shepley but had active compensation, with his bishop more active than Shepley’s knight in an endgame which saw pawns running on opposite sides. It was the same story for Alan Scrimgour against Ian Deswarte on board 7 – another pawn down, another draw. But the key escape for Kingston was Julian Way’s on board 6. Way’s opponent, Michael Morgan, cleverly transposed moves against the Philidor Defence and Julian lost two pawns. However, Julian resourcefully sacrificed another pawn, his b-pawn, to get pressure with his rooks on the b-file and made life so difficult for his opponent that he agreed a draw. This was the crucial save for Kingston.

On board 8, Jon Eckert played a complex French Defence – his opponent chose the Tarrasch Variation – and was doing OK until in mutual time trouble Jon opened up the position. His opponent, Rob Merriman, infiltrated and had too many threats. That made the match 4.5 to 3.5 to Kingston – a narrow win that puts us level on 2/2 with Guildford 1 at the top of Surrey League division. The away match to Guildford’s first team on 9 January is going to be a match to savour.

The trip down to Guildford is one of the team’s longer journeys, and Kingston first-team captain David Rowson would like to thank John Foley and Jon Eckert for offering lifts to other players, and Peter Lalić for undertaking an even longer drive into deepest Surrey. On the return journey, the A3 was closed and so we had to drive slowly in the dark along narrow country roads through small villages. One of the places was Ockham, birthplace of William of Ockham who is famous for the ontological principle that “entities must be be multiplied needlessly”.

Kingston’s third team also played at Guildford on the same evening – see Stephen Daines’ report below – and getting 14 players there was no mean effort.

David Rowson and Stephen Moss

Surrey League division 4 match played at the Guildford Institute on 14 November 2022

The trip down the A3 was an adventure for the new crop of Kingston players as they faced the fourth team of the Guildford club in division 4 of the Surrey League. Losing 4.5-1.5 was a formative experience in a match in which we were heavily outrated. To add insult to injury, we were subsequently penalised for a board order infringement. That ruling cost us a point, making the official score 4.5-0.5. We live and learn.

Our most impressive performer was Sean Tay, making his debut for Kingston. Sean defeated a player rated 1723 after a hard-fought game. The match also saw the debuts of juniors Shauyra Handu and Jaden Mistry on boards 4 and 5 respectively. They came up against players rated 1656 and 1607, and despite sturdy performances by the Kingston duo their opponents were just too strong. Kingston treasurer Adam Nakar seemed to have the advantage on top board at one stage, but ended up with a draw.

The only player I was frustrated with tonight was myself. As White, I opened with a Colle System to try to gain positional superiority in the centre. I missed an opportunity to win a bishop and then lost the exchange. The worst part was that despite my material disadvantage I manoeuvred a passed pawn to the seventh rank and missed the opportunity to queen.

In spite of the loss, all the players learned something and enjoyed the experience. With a lot of new players at the club – and more arriving by the week – it is essential that we give as many as possible game time. We don’t want to be a club divided into league players and social players (unless the latter wish to restrict themselves to fun chess at the club of course). We are looking to build clear pathways into competitive rated chess, and are happy to take a few defeats along the way if we have to.

Stephen Daines