𝐋𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫, 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫

Some stories seem to write themselves . Two of the most remarkable chess players in our club come from the same family. They play side by side at the club, compete in tournaments, and at our last Chess Congress, they even found themselves facing each other across the board

Here’s Andrew’s and Megan story, a story that’s as special as it is inspiring

Andrew is captain of Basingstoke's Surrey Border League team ( he previously was the Basingstoke B-team captain for the Southampton Chess League), and also a member of the Basingstoke Club Committee .

“I first started playing chess in 1994 while at college when I was 21-years old. A friend taught me how to play but looking back it was obvious that she was only a very casual player, since she lost the game where she was teaching me the rules. She also never won a subsequent game and stopped playing with me shortly after. I found another student who played chess and we played fairly often and he taught me valuable, though painful, lessons about things like fool’s mate.

After college, I attended a chess club in Wolverhampton where I lived but only went for a few months. I think I stopped, largely because the club was not the most welcoming, and since I was still a novice, I would get destroyed virtually every game. At that time of course there was no chess apps to gain experience, and I found it difficult to try and learn from books.

Over the next 25-years I played every now and again when I met someone who played. No more than two or three times a year generally; not enough to gain much experience. I did play more when occasionally visiting my wife’s family in Kazakhstan (where she was born and grew up), as they were far more into chess (being an ex-Soviet country) than people in the UK were at that time. I found that I could hold my own with casual players, but would struggle with good players. One in particular, my wife’s uncle called Nazarik, who was a maths lecturer, was a particular thorn in my side and the best game I had with him I almost managed to get a draw.

My wife and I watched The Queen’s Gambit at the end of 2020 and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We tried to encourage our 4 children to watch it to get them interested in playing chess. One of them, Megan, one of twin girls who were 13 at the time, loved the series and started playing online chess regularly. To keep her motivated, I said that if she could beat me I would give her £250. I expected that it would take her a year or more to get to such a level and if she did, then it would have been money well spent to get her to stick with it for so long. She beat me in less than 3-months. I stopped making bets with her very quickly afterward.

Since Megan was so interested in chess, she asked if we could go to a chess club, hence our arrival at Basingstoke chess club in 2021 I think (we had moved down to Hampshire in 2008 for my work). We have been attending ever since.

I think I have improved in that time, playing more regular chess at the club and finding the atmosphere much more friendly than the Wolverhampton club. I have also tried to learn a bit more about the game, mainly to try and keep up with Megan (which has proved to be futile as she beats me 9 times out of 10 now). Although I love playing, I feel like I have plateaued in the late 1400s (ECF rating) and need to study more to gain further improvements. It’s always on my list of things to do and I hope to get round to it at some point.

Megan on the other hand has improved dramatically. She played in several junior tournaments, often with good success, though it was a steep learning curve for her, overcoming her nerves, which affected her confidence. She has matured however into quite a formidable opponent and has now had good success playing in several formats, including for the Basingstoke A and B-teams in the Southampton League, and in Basingstoke's Surrey Border League team. She is now in University in Surrey studying maths and plays for a team in an online Lichess league where she regularly beats players rated over 2000 (she is rated 2091 in that format, while her classical ECF rating is just under 1700).”

To be continued …