John Saunders reports: The 4th annual Kingston Invitational Chess Tournament opened at its new venue, the Richard Mayo Centre, Eden Street, Kingston-upon-Thames, on 12 August 2025.
This year we were greatly honoured to have the Mayor of Kingston, Mr Noel Hadjimichael, to open proceedings but before doing so, the congress paid its respects to two much-loved and hugely influential members of the local chess community who had sadly passed away within the past few weeks: Gavin Wall, IM, Irish Olympiad player and coach to innumerable local juniors, and Paul Durrant, founder and lifelong organiser of the Surbiton Chess Club.
IM Gavin Wall (1968-2025) at the 2024 Kingston Invitation tournament.
Left of picture is Paul Durrant (1943-2025), at a Surbiton vs Kingston match in 2021, with Kingston tournament organiser Stephen Moss
Mike Healey, a former pupil of Gavin Wall, paid tribute to him in a short speech, followed by Surbiton CC player Mark Josse who spoke about Paul Durrant. This was followed by a minute's silence.
One minute's silence observed for Gavin Wall and Paul Durrant
After that necessarily sad start to proceedings, the Mayor of Kingston lifted our spirits with a suitably upbeat speech commending the town's long history of chess playing, pre-dating such activities as rugby. He had come across the club's stand at the recent Saxon Fayre in the town where members of the Kingston Chess Club had donned Saxon garb to preach the gospel of chess to the local townsfolk. Someone on the stand had cheekily suggested to the Mayor that he come along to open the tournament... and he didn't hesitate to accept. I've heard an infinity of speeches to open chess tournaments in my long life and I would place Mayor Noel very high on my personal list of good opening-speech-makers, with a nice turn of phrase and a smatter of witticisms. Two things we learnt about him: he knows how to play chess and comes from Australia.
We then proceeded to the time-honoured ritual of the first move. Usually this takes place on the board of the highest rated competitor but in Kingston a more egalitarian approach was taken and it was played out on one of the lower boards of the Swiss event. 10-year-old William Lin of the Kingston club was the chosen one. Rather than leaning over the shoulder to make the move, Mayor Noel took the chair while William stood up to give advice.
Mayor Noel makes the first move for William Lin - "c-pawn - OK?"
"Oh, not OK! How about the b-pawn?"
"OK, we're all agreed - 1 b3 it is!"
These first move rituals can often be enjoyable pantomimes between player and celebrity opener and this was no exception. Mayor Noel picked up the c-pawn and looked for approval from his youthful ally. William seemed less than impressed so the Mayor switched to the b-pawn, which won the young man's approval.
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