Surrey Alexander Cup semi-final - Wednesday 5th Feb 2025
10 boards, The Willoughby Arms, Kingston
Kingston 8½ Epsom 1½
This weekend saw two almighty cup shocks – Plymouth Argyle beat Liverpool 1-0 and in Scotland, Queen’s Park beat Rangers 0-1. But what about in the heady world of Surrey chess? Could Epsom use their time machine to draw inspiration from Sunday’s football results and overcome an all-conquering Kingston side packed to the rafters with talent? The answer would be a resounding no.
It was always going to be a tough ask to compete player-for-player with an opposition of remarkable depth, six of whom were rated over 2200 ECF and all 10 of whom were comfortably over the 2000 ECF threshold. With an average rating deficit of around 250 points, the final result was probably about par for the course. We will dust ourselves down and come back stronger next year, but not before first enjoying a couple of highlights from the match from our point of view.
Kingston apparatchik Stephen Moss graciously commented after the match that he was impressed by the fighting spirit of our junior contingent. In fact, half the Epsom team was comprised of players born in the 2010s. On Board 6, Arnav Kumar took the white pieces against 2200-rated IM John Hawksworth, who has returned to competitive chess this season. This was very much a clash between the Magnus Carlsen and Bobby Fischer generations and the game itself proved to be bombastic and sharp.
The game began as a Sicilian Defence of a Maroczy Bind flavour (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. c4) and the players reached the position below after Hawksworth played 17…Ne5, targeting Arnav’s weak c4-pawn.
An excellent opportunistic move, meeting black’s threat with a more potent one of his own, winning back the sacrificed knight and ending up a pawn ahead after a series of exchanges. Arnav continued to fight hard, and despite losing back two pawns during a tough middlegame duel, managed to dig deep in the endgame time scramble and force a draw – his first against an International Master and undoubtedly not his last.
Meanwhile on Board 8, Sachin Kumar had the white pieces against the solid and dependable Will Taylor. Not wishing to be outdone by his frère aîné, a game which began by transposition with the Four Knights (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6) became rather attritional once the queens came off on move 15. Black was very much in the ascendancy during the middlegame, but misplayed a kingside attack and was forced to give up the exchange – rook for light-squared bishop – in order to avoid being worse. A few moves later came the crucial moment in the game. The players reached the position below after Taylor played 36…bxa5, chopping off Sachin’s a-pawn.
This is by far the stronger of the two options, as white can infiltrate quickly with his rooks on the b-file and pick off black’s weak queenside pawns almost at will. Unfortunately, Sachin chose 37. bxa5?, allowing his opponent time to cover any potential infiltration squares by placing bishops on c7 and c8. This renders Sachin’s material advantage almost negligible, as white would most probably have to return one of his rooks for a bishop in order to have a chance of making progress. A few moves later, a draw was agreed. Nonetheless a very creditable result for Sachin, whose playing record for Epsom continues to be outstanding.
The only other Epsom player to avoid defeat was IM Graeme Buckley in a clash of the titans on Board 1. His opponent was IM Peter Large, who defected to Kingston in a shock move over the summer after several successful seasons with Epsom in which he won a plethora of individual and team honours. Peter spearheaded Epsom’s successful Surrey Trophy (Division 1) campaign last season, in which we became Surrey champions for the first time ever, and for that alone we are eternally grateful to him. Peter’s playing record for Epsom was exemplary, with 34 wins from 37 standardplay games and a similarly remarkable score in rapidplay competitions. Alas, the allure of driving to Kingston from his home in Epsom through endless 20mph zones proved too enticing.
Overhearing the players’ brief comments after the game, words such as “dull” were banded about. This game was a classic example of two super-strong players cancelling each other out and they agreed a draw in a materially-level rook endgame with all pawns on the same side of the board.
Kingston picked up the pieces (metaphorically speaking) on all the other boards, although Zain Patel, Robin Haldane, Maya Keen and Alan Bates could perhaps consider themselves a tad unfortunate not to have scored anything between them, as all four pushed their higher-rated opponents to the limit and on another day might have brought home the bacon. Other Kingston players just played better than their adversaries on the night – Mike Healey was as dynamic as ever, trapping Chris Wright’s queen early in the game, Ashley Stewart took advantage of a positional error by Epsom captain Marcus Gosling and never relinquished any slither of an advantage, and Luca Buanne outplayed the young Belarussian Lev Razhnou once the Epsom player went pawn-hunting.
Many congratulations to Kingston, who march unceremoniously into the Alexander Cup final against Guildford and are favourites to become only the fourth club in Surrey League history to win the famous competition four times in a row. Meanwhile, Epsom’s wait for a first final appearance since 1939 goes on.
Puzzle Answers:
1) 18. Nxe6!
2) 37. bxc5!