It was White to move in Monday’s very simple pawn ending.

What could be easier than a position with just four slow-moving pieces on the board?

The brief answer is that 1. Kb3! leads to a draw as long as you understand the concept of THE OPPOSITION in pawn endings. (If not, I’d recommend investing in a copy of Chess Heroes: Endings!)

Other moves, for instance 1. Ka5? lose: Black can win by forcing the white king to a6 and then promoting with check.

Here’s some analysis: it’s good training to visualise these lines without moving the pieces.

1.Kb3! [1.Ka5? f5! 2.b4 f4 3.b5 Kc5 4.b6 Kc6 5.Ka6 f3 6.b7 f2 7.b8Q f1Q+ 8.Ka5 (8.Ka7 Qa1#) 8…Qa1+ 9.Kb4 Qb2+]

1…Kd3 2.Ka2! f5 3.b4! Kc4 4.b5! [4.Kb1! Kxb4 5.Kb2! Kc4 6.Kc2 Kd4 7.Kd2 Ke4 8.Ke2 Kf4 9.Kf2=; 4.Kb2? Kxb4 5.Kc2 Kc4 6.Kd2 Kd4 7.Ke2 Ke4 8.Kf2 Kf4!–+]

4…Kxb5 5.Kb3! [5.Kb2? Kb4!–+]

5…f4 6.Kc3 Kc5 7.Kd3 Kd5 8.Ke2 Ke4 9.Kf2=

If you’re ambitious, learning to play this sort of position quickly and accurately is essential knowledge + skill.

Two wins and two defeats to report this week.

It’s not going to be easy for our London League team this season without Gavin, but we got off to a winning start against Lewisham on Tuesday.

Congratulations to Mike, Caspar and Alastair for their wins on the top boards.

Our Ellery Williams team (Surrey rating restricted quickplay) went down to a heavy defeat against a strong South Norwood team at the Adelaide.

Well done to Peter for enabling us to avoid a whitewash.

At the other end of the room, our E team gave Thames Valley League debuts to Abhay, Jordan and Aditya, coming away with a 3-1 victory.

Excellent wins there from Abhay, Jordan and Karl.

On Wednesday our TVD team visited Surbiton C, where they were outrated on all but the top board.

A fine win for Alex, along with a draw from Laurie, contributed to our score.

As always, thanks to all who played, and, especially, to our match captains.

Healey,Mike – Kiremitciyanar,Ari [B23]

Hammersmith v Richmond A B1, 02.10.2025

First game of the season and the first in Gavin’s place as board one.

1.e4 c5 2.Nc3 a6!? 3.g3 b5 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.Nh3!? [Both players go for offbeat moves]

5…Nf6 6.0–0 e6 7.d3 b4 8.Na4!? [Knights on the rim are dim! But even dim ponies can cause problems.]

8…h5?! [Committal, a long term target which weakens g6 and g5. The rook hesitates to castle and g6 may be necessary down the road. Yet h4 is certainly a worry, and Ng4 is supported, fighting for the dark squares]

[8…Bc6 9.b3 (9.c3?! Qa5) 9…Bxa4 10.bxa4 is fine for White, the two bishops are good]

9.a3 a5 [9…h4?! 10.g4!; 9…bxa3? 10.Rxa3 c4 11.Rc3 cxd3 12.cxd3 Would be great]

10.Re1 [f4–f5 would be risky, while the Rook can be useful on e1. Tactics with e5 Bxg2 don’t have Bxf1 now.]

10…d6 11.c3 bxc3 12.bxc3 [12.Nxc3? would be wrong; 12.Qb3!? If I had seen this move I probably couldn’t have resisted it. 12…cxb2 13.Bxb2]

12…Nbd7 [I was suspicious of this move as the knight might prefer to be on c6. This led to…]

13.c4 [A big moment, where there are different paths for White. Marking out the outpost on b5 and preventing d6–5, whilst Black’s Knight is now on the wrong circuit to land on d4.]

[13.d4 is the simple move, giving White a nice space advantage; 13.Ng5 This makes a lot of sense, improving the Knight and keeping ideas of e4–e5 (now Bxg2xh3 is avoided). The Knight may even end up sacrificing on e6. 13…Be7 (13…e5?? 14.Qb3!) 14.Rb1]

13…Bc6 [Now h4 g4 fails to Bxa4, so we continue with the original plan to get the a4–Knight to b5. However the Bishop is now blocking the d7–e5/b8–d4 circuit, it’s loose for e5 tactics, and it might get hit by…something!]

14.Nc3 Be7 [Played after some thought, maybe calculating what is coming]

[14…g6 15.a4]

15.Ra2!? Ng4 [The Bishop is emerging to the dark squares on f6…]

[15…a4! Preventing a3–a4 and Nb5 is stockfish’s major concern!]

16.Nd5!? [Or not! The Bishop’s placement on c6 loses Black a tempo]

[16.a4! The original Nb5 plan is better but less fun!]

16…exd5 [Principled]

17.exd5 Bb7 18.Rae2 Nde5 [18…Nge5 19.f4 Ng6 20.Be4 Ndf8 I had seen this position, and correctly (!) thought Black would be suffering from pony indigestion; 18…0–0 19.Rxe7 Nge5 20.R7xe5 Nxe5 21.Qxh5 also looked fun]

19.f3? [Confusing myself into kicking the wrong pony]

[19.f4! Ng6 20.Be4 The same plan is even better now]

19…Bf6? [19…Bc8! Oh noes! White is in serious trouble]

20.fxg4 hxg4 21.Nf2 Kf8 22.Bf4 [The Bishop was patient – but now it joins in on attacking Black’s strong point e5. There are ideas of exchange sacs on e5]

22…Bc8 23.d4! cxd4 24.c5! [Another typical Sicilian sacrifice. c5 heaps more pressure on the Black centre.]

24…g5!? [A decent counterpunch – will the Bishop retreat?]

25.Bxe5 [No!]

25…dxe5 26.Ne4 [A complete mess, with four central passed pawns. Somehow White’s pieces coordinate, and Black’s don’t. Hurrah!]

26…Bg7 27.Rb2! [Occupy the open file…]

27…Rh6 28.Rf1 […the half-open file…]

28…Kg8 29.d6 [Everything has been prepared. Onwards!]

29…Be6 30.c6 Rc8 31.c7 Qd7 32.Rb8 a4 [Black is low on time, and the position is unpleasant. But there are a lot of pieces left, and tricks…]

33.Qd2 f5 34.Rxc8+ [34.Nc5 Qxd6 35.Nxe6 Qxe6 36.Bd5 also works]

34…Qxc8 35.Nc5 [Bb7 is threatened]

35…e4 36.Qxg5 d3 [One last bit of calculation…]

37.Nxe6 Qxe6 38.Qd8+ Kh7 39.c8Q Bd4+ 40.Kh1 Rxh2+ 41.Kxh2 Qh6+ 42.Qh4 [Black resigns. An interesting and slightly unusual game. I’m sure Gavin would be saying how lucky I got Black missed Bc8 – but probably enjoyed spectating too.]

[42.Bh3?? Qxh3# would be embarrassing]

1–0

I’ve always believed that achieving true mastery is about learning to do simple things well, rather than trying to do complicated things badly.

Here’s a very simple position for you to consider, stolen from IM Lawrence Cooper’s Facebook page.

White to play: which move would you choose and why?

We had four Thames Valley League teams in action this week, with two wins and two defeats to report.

Our B team opened their Division 2 campaign away to Hounslow A.

An excellent start to the season, with a convincing win against a team with a comparable average rating. Congratulations to Raghu (a great win with Black against a strong opponent), Sampson and Jon (welcome back!) and welcome also to Matt on his Richmond debut.

Last week our C team beat our D team 6-0 in Division 3, but this time the result was reversed.

Well done to all the winners!

Our A team will find it tough in Division 1 without Gavin, and so it turned out in our first match away to Hammersmith.

Hammersmith fielded a strong team with a couple of new names on boards 1 and 3. Mike had a brilliant result on top board, but overall they were just too strong for us.

If you know anyone rated 2000+ interested in joining our Thames Valley and/or London League team this season, please do put them in touch!

Thanks to all for playing, and, as always, especially for our match captains.

Monday’s position was taken from Tarrasch – Gunsberg (Frankfurt 1887).

It’s obvious to start with 28. Ra6, when Black can neither capture the rook nor defend a7 directly. So you have to see the forced defensive line 28… Rd1+ 29. Ne1 Rxe1+ 30. Qxe1 Bxe4 31. Rxe4 Rxe4 32. Qxe4 bxa6 33. Qxc6+ Qb7. At this point Black has an extra (offside) knight against your strong c-pawn. To assess the position correctly you have to calculate further: 34. Qe8+ Qb8 35. Qe4+ Qb7 36. c6 Qc7 37. Qe8+ Qb8 38. Qd7 and the pawn is going through. The game concluded 38… Qb1+ 39. Kh2 Nf5 40. c7 and Black resigned.

If you visualised as far as 38. Qd7 from the original position, you’ve solved the puzzle. If not, try to visualise it now.

Here’s a position for you to analyse and assess.

You’ll need to look 11 moves ahead to reach a conclusion – are you up to it?

On Monday I left Ted and Alice trying to work out how Bob and Carol reached this position after 7 moves.

Here is the solution.

1. e4 Nf6 2. Qh5 Nxe4 3. Qxh7 Nc3 4. Qh5 Nxa2 5. Qd1 Nxc1 6. Qxc1 Rxh2 7. Qd1 Rh8

This Proof Game puzzle was composed by Noam Elkies and first published on Angela und Otto Janko’s website here.

We’re up and running for the new season, starting with a Thames Valley Division 3 match between our C and D teams.

Here’s what happened.

6-0 wins don’t happen very often: our C team look determined to return to Division 2 next season judging from this performance. Most of the games were over pretty quickly, only Board 5 lasting anywhere near the full session. You’ll note the World Tom Championship and the World George Championship on Boards 1 and 4.

Following Gavin’s sad death and the introduction of more stringent rules about nominations and board order in the Thames Valley League, our nominations for our A, B and C teams look like this:

A Team

Mike Healey
Maxim Dunn
John Burke
Chris Baker
Martin Benjamin

B team

Alastair Armstrong
Maks Gajowniczek
John Bass
Bertie Barlow
Raghu Kamath

C Team

Mike Robinson-Chui
Peter Kasprowicz
Tom Lloyd
George Milligan
Viorel Scobioala

If you know anyone else who’d like to play for us this season, especially anyone of first team standard (rated 2000+), please put them in touch with us!

Regular readers won’t be surprised to hear that Bob and Carol were back at the Adelaide getting some practice in before the start of the new season.

When Ted and Alice arrived they saw this position on the board.

“What’s happening here?”, asked Ted. “You seem to have quite a few pieces missing”.

“There they are, off the board”, explained Bob. “They’ve already been captured. “It’s been quite an eventful game”, continued Carol. “We’ve only played seven moves each, but there have already been six captures.”

“Stop and let me think for a minute”, said Alice. “Perhaps I can work out what happened. You won’t win many Thames Valley League games playing like that, though!”

Can you do as well as Alice and work out how Bob and Carol reached this position after just seven moves?

If so, do let me know!