Battersea vs Krommenie: 80 Years of Unfinished Business
Chess is a universal language. So globally iconic is chess that, if two players want to play the game, they can have a conversation without uttering a single word to each other, chess the single locus of communication between the two. In the opposite direction, chess makes a polyglot of all of its players; in English, we can fianchetto (Italian) our bishop to put our opponent in Zugzwang (German), and onlookers might kibitz (Yiddish) about the game we’re playing. In a perfect world without war or politics, chess is borderless, above the differences between peoples.
In this spirit on September 15th 2026, Battersea Chess Club and Chess Club Krommenie came together over the internet to complete a match lain dormant for 80 years. I will not go into great detail, for Krommenie have gratefully sent their article to us (published in their local newspaper De Krommenieër) for the website, but the condensed idea is that these two chess clubs played a correspondence game in 1946 and, with Europe lurching, reeling out of WW2, had to unfortunately postpone this match. Without further ado, please find below Chess Club Krommenie’s excellent write up of this special event, who we thank for their time and chess, and below that, please find every game played with annotations by myself (there’s a thing or two to learn about these games so do have a look!).
Krommenie article:
Soon, February next year, Chess Club Krommenie will be 95 years old. In the run-up to this anniversary, which will be celebrated with the release of a bulky Jubilee Book 1932-2027, a team from the Krommeniese chess club played a computer match last week against a team from the renowned Battersea Chess Club from London. How that contact came about, we can classify that story under the heading of ‘reliving old times’!
In an earlier anniversary book of SV Krommenie we read in the historical overview of the year 1946 the intriguing words: ‘In the context of a sports exchange, a correspondence game is played against the Battersea Chess Club’.
Yes, that’s how it went back then, in the pre-computer era: you sent a move to your opponent by letter, and then a week later you received the move back from your opponent by post. But… Further information from this party was completely lacking, no result, no moves, and it was also not known how those contacts with BCC had come about at the time.
Rich history
The chess club became curious about the background of the correspondence game and through e-mail they came into contact with Stephen Welch, chairman of the famous London chess club, a chess club that has a rich history dating back to 1885, the year it was founded. Big names such as Isidor Gunsberg, in 1890 challenger to chess world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, and, more recently, grandmaster Raymond Keene and master Bill Hartston, were on the list of members. At the request of the Krommenieërs, BCC delved into the archives, but “London” also failed to find information or the party notation about their correspondence game against Krommenie from 1946.
Computermatch
Too bad of course, but this did result in the strengthening of the ties between the two chess clubs. And that eventually resulted in the computer match, eleven against eleven, last Tuesday, September 15. A revenge match, eighty years later! This worked to the advantage that both clubs hold club nights on Tuesday evenings. A chess match between two clubs by computer: a fairly normal thing for the Londoners; because of the great distances you have to travel for an external chess match in the UK, they do it more often there. But for the Krommenie chess players a first, for which a separate room was set aside for the chess team in community center De Pelikaan.
Narrow defeat
Both teams, both from London and Krommenie, formed a nice cross-section of their respective clubs, with chess players from all sections of the ranking (on elorating). The fairly inexperienced chess players of Krommenie, at least inexperienced in the field of matches by computer, used to sitting behind a wooden chessboard, got off to an extremely rough start. Pieces were given away and mistakes when executing a move with the computer mouse led to a 5-1 deficit in no time. The players all had an hour to think about their game, but at the end of the playing time the chess tide started to turn and Krommenie had to settle for only the smallest possible defeat, 6-5. Especially the five top boards of Krommenie, with 31/2 points out of 5 games, contributed significantly to this.
Great fun
With a big smile on the face of the players, the (small) defeat was collected: it could certainly not spoil the fun of this computer match, a new phenomenon for SV Krommenie. The computer games had the necessary interest from the club members, who simultaneously played their weekly game for the internal competition in the main hall of De Pelikaan. Chess match by computer? Yes, that’s definitely worth repeating, or, as the chairman of London’s Battersea said afterwards: “We also enjoyed it, and we certainly don’t have to wait another 80 years for another match! It was great fun!!”
The Games: Battersea 6 – 5 SV Krommenie
Board 1: CsvanDongen1 V TomFarrand
Board 2: jangrinjbzn v Xpic (Chris Rawlinson)
Board 3: De_Reiger v Mahogany95 (Onat Topal)
Board 4: Wibok1 v abracatlincoln (Hugo Bassa)
Board 5: HenkPM v Alanpalmer1
Board 6: krommeniedijk v francis173 (Francis Butterworth-Parr)
Board 7: The_Crimson_King88 vs Bill_D63 (Bill Drennan)
board 8: Krommenie v Cloudsoverspaghetti (Sam Riggs)
Board 9: KurtLundje v cliamg (Liam Cosgrove)
Board 10: petersvk v Colstonbassett (Reuben Clarke)
Board 11: Milanchess2008 v Luccu123 (Mustafa Lucman)