tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616663802653641892024-03-08T11:33:27.515+00:00John Saunders' Chess BlogJohn Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.comBlogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-91279435964121205562023-12-04T23:58:00.009+00:002023-12-05T13:06:46.296+00:00Using ChessBase: A Technophobe's Guide to Sending Chess Game Scores by Email<p>This is a personal guide to emailing chess games when using ChessBase*. Like everything else, it's easy when you know how, but I've come across experienced players, long established in the chess world, even professional players, who are a little unsure about how best to go about it.</p><p>I'll give you an example of someone who is a little unsure about it: me. OK, I'm joking but there is a point to this. It occurs to me that ChessBase probably has a built-in 'email game' function but I don't know, despite being an assiduous and regular user of their software for nigh on 30 years. Does it? I just checked and it does, right there on the File drop-down menu - 'Email Selected Database'. But there is no way in the world that I am ever going to use it as I don't need to. I choose to use the email client of my choice, giving me control over the drafting of the message and the attachment of files. This is a purely personal guide to how I carry out this function.</p><p><i>(* note: I use ChessBase 14 - I can't guarantee that all of the functions and options I refer to in what follows will be present in earlier or later versions of ChessBase)</i></p><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">FIRST STEP: SETTING THE 'OLD PGN' OPTION IN CHESSBASE</h3><div>In my first draft of this post, I completely forgot to include this first step. It's easy enough to do but a bit harder to explain why it's necessary. So I won't bother - just trust me, OK?</div><div><br /></div><div>In ChessBase, press <b>CTRL+ALT+O</b> to invoke the options menu - that's three keys pressed simultaneously, and it's the letter 'o' not zero. </div><div><br /></div><div>A small window headed '<b>Options</b>' will appear in the centre of your screen. Click where you see <b>Clipboard</b> on the left, and you should now see a screen that looks something like the following...</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50BiuQ_vs_u7tvv8ewLQ843ajuRUdruah9n5L0RyB1Ysaemb6rHTJFAwHZXflGvegntD39BVQ4l3y0TCGpDjMIZmWsfOscw7imAHWFDp4-ZZaLrwu8Mx273dOyfm5U9pc5Gz-5kDWe5uPjT3sSwkLOIWq4SyPNVL8UfVTaKN5pXouJKNZUbh9n2oBB7Y/s632/options.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="632" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg50BiuQ_vs_u7tvv8ewLQ843ajuRUdruah9n5L0RyB1Ysaemb6rHTJFAwHZXflGvegntD39BVQ4l3y0TCGpDjMIZmWsfOscw7imAHWFDp4-ZZaLrwu8Mx273dOyfm5U9pc5Gz-5kDWe5uPjT3sSwkLOIWq4SyPNVL8UfVTaKN5pXouJKNZUbh9n2oBB7Y/w640-h360/options.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Options window: set PGN to Old Format</span></i></div><br /><div>There are various clickable options towards the right of the screen, but the only one we care about right now is the one I've crudely surrounded by a red circle. Set that to <b>OLD FORMAT</b> and then click <b>OK</b>. That's the set-up done. (I personally leave this option set permanently to OLD FORMAT and have suffered no ill effects from it.)</div><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">SENDING A SINGLE GAME</h3><p>Let's say you want to send someone a single game. This is fairly simple and doesn't require a deep knowledge of ChessBase functionality. I'm assuming the reader has some basic knowledge of how ChessBase works.</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>load the game in a ChessBase window;</li><li>copy it (CTRL + C on Windows, COMMAND+C on a Mac);</li><li>switch to your email client and start a new message;</li><li>paste the game (CTRL+V or COMMAND+V) into the message window.</li></ol><p></p><p>In the email message window the game will look something like the text between the lines below...</p><hr /><p>[Event "Hastings Premier 1932/33 13th"]<br />[Site "White Rock Pavilion"]<br />[Date "1932.12.31"]<br />[Round "4"]<br />[White "Sultan Khan, Mir"]<br />[Black "Menchik, Vera"]<br />[Result "1-0"]<br />[ECO "D35"]<br />[PlyCount "79"]<br />[EventDate "1932.12.28"]<br />[EventType "tourn"]<br />[EventRounds "9"]<br />[EventCountry "ENG"]<br />[SourceTitle "BritBase"]<br />[Source "John Saunders"]<br />[SourceDate "2023.12.02"]<br />[SourceVersion "1"]<br />[SourceVersionDate "2023.12.02"]<br />[SourceQuality "1"]</p><p>1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 d5 4. Nc3 Nbd7 5. cxd5 exd5 6. g3 Bd6 7. Bg2 c6 8.O-O O-O 9. Nh4 Re8 10. Nf5 Bf8 11. Qc2 Nb6 12. Nh4 Be6 13. Rd1 Qd7 14. a4 Rad8 15. a5 Nc8 16. Na4 Bh3 17. Bg5 Bxg2 18. Nxg2 Qg4 19. Bxf6 Rxe2 20. Qxe2 Qxe2 21. Bxd8 f6 22. Bc7 g5 23. Ne3 h5 24. a6 bxa6 25. Rdc1 Qb5 26. Nc3 Qxb2 27. Rab1 Qd2 28. Rc2 Qd3 29. Rb8 Ne7 30. Bd6 Kf7 31. Ncd1 a5 32. Rcb2 a4 33. R2b7 a3 34. Rxa7 a2 35. Rxa2 f5 36. Raa8 Bg7 37. Rb7 Bf6 38. Bxe7 Bxe7 39. Raa7 f4 40. Rxe7+ {Sources: The Times, 3 January 1933; Birmingham Daily Post, 5 January 1933} 1-0</p><hr /><p>... but don't be put off by the looks of it or be tempted to edit it to look friendlier to the human eye. It's a PGN representation of a chess game score, where PGN stands for Portable Game Notation - and the recipient of your email (assuming they are reasonably ChessBase-savvy and are interested in the game) will be more than happy to see it set out like this. They'll copy your game score straight from your email with one deft stroke of their mouse, paste it into a new ChessBase game window and save it into their own database without having to retype a single character.</p><p>5) Any explanatory text and comments you can add to the email before or after the PGN game score segment.</p><p>6) Type in the recipient's email address, click send and you're done. And you've hardly needed to know anything about ChessBase except how to load a game and copy it.</p><p></p><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">SENDING MULTIPLE GAMES</h3><p style="text-align: left;">Now let's find the best way to send more than one game: two games, half a dozen, 20, 30...</p><div>You could simply follow the above directions, cut and paste multiple games into an email window as before. That's a reasonable solution where you're only dealing with 2-6 games but it's a bit cumbersome when you're starting to deal with a larger number of games. This is where you're need to learn a few ChessBase tricks.</div><div><br /></div><div>In ChessBase we're not going to start from a game window this time but from a <b>game list</b>, which includes the games that we wish to transmit.</div><div><br /></div><div>Starting from the database window which we can think of as ChessBase's home page, double-click on the database that has the game scores that you want to send by email.</div><div><br /></div><div>1) <b>mouse-click left</b> on the 'Games' tab to show you a list of games in the database<br />2) highlight a game by <b>mouse-clicking left</b> on a game in the list;<br />3) <i>whilst holding down the shift key</i>, <b>mouse-click left</b> on another game below (or above) the game already highlighted, so that you've got about half a dozen games highlighted;</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKy5m1Cy8Cfbw4jGdiMqDkZFjQOdDqJahiEkNaSlHtWQZmvYLkiVTPqBbGSLOULmW00KVTMuiuuFSwdHHhLLiR07HoV4XyzET0yBM1TK7K8vVjistAyRinTdTrXAPqrlid2s30bmZ4rWiCv_Al8bTLAu-mlQWedWk0nBdZjqSVlyUV-BsIf3L7U5Lj9CY/s1327/gamelist.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="472" data-original-width="1327" height="229" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKy5m1Cy8Cfbw4jGdiMqDkZFjQOdDqJahiEkNaSlHtWQZmvYLkiVTPqBbGSLOULmW00KVTMuiuuFSwdHHhLLiR07HoV4XyzET0yBM1TK7K8vVjistAyRinTdTrXAPqrlid2s30bmZ4rWiCv_Al8bTLAu-mlQWedWk0nBdZjqSVlyUV-BsIf3L7U5Lj9CY/w640-h229/gamelist.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Highlight the games to include in the PGN file</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></i></div><div>What you see on the screen should look something like the above, showing a number of games highlighted. These are the games which we are about to turn into a PGN file which can be sent to an email recipient.</div><div><br /></div><div>4) position the mouse pointer somewhere in the highlighted area and <b>mouse-click <span style="color: red;">right</span></b>; you should now see a drop-down menu. Now move the mouse pointer over the <b>OUTPUT</b> option, which reveals a further drop-down where you're going to choose the <b>SELECTION TO TEXT FILE</b> option...</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's what you should be looking at on the screen...</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVNv4kz4Hn9JMQAVJWjFxIlZJQUX9cP3eH9YtfwvOpgm7Q6lRX0ciAPrrR6B8Lk500qmmdR15kPexgXFcgDynFm7kVEgvSuFeR7RHZxGZvV8q5tyDq5J6CeG-XFprbQCcJHy0ewbY8zQJQaVzOBw4ADvb2RPZjtr8tEu08ENVELyb_YhmTu_BgzvDGzxM/s1339/selection%20to%20text%20file.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1339" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVNv4kz4Hn9JMQAVJWjFxIlZJQUX9cP3eH9YtfwvOpgm7Q6lRX0ciAPrrR6B8Lk500qmmdR15kPexgXFcgDynFm7kVEgvSuFeR7RHZxGZvV8q5tyDq5J6CeG-XFprbQCcJHy0ewbY8zQJQaVzOBw4ADvb2RPZjtr8tEu08ENVELyb_YhmTu_BgzvDGzxM/w640-h318/selection%20to%20text%20file.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Highlight the games to be sent, hover over OUTPUT, click SELECTION TO TEXT FILE</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">... with the red circles I've crudely drawn showing where <b>OUTPUT </b>and <b>SELECTION TO TEXT FILE</b> options appear on the screen.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">5) You now want to <b>mouse-click left</b> on <b>SELECTION TO TEXT FILE</b> (but PLEASE DON'T CLICK on the Email Selected games option immediately above it! That might sound like the thing that you want to be doing but, trust me, it isn't)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This opens up a new small window on the screen...</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0md35jY5FS0CTISQw2lGYjuJftGGnSvVBAb1ko1WVTwBYI7wwjr-KEqP6BuK_9gk-OrMr9TAjPhqHQWJnWTy02_4nSoU6U0US8bp6hpSWlUdO6mj2L5FJOzKTOK2gfdIe7BOETeqBFrgcbbbxT4y_7HA1p8L0ZRnTzOaGmzJFTD2sulajZUzu60xGhVw/s488/textfileoptions.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="272" data-original-width="488" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0md35jY5FS0CTISQw2lGYjuJftGGnSvVBAb1ko1WVTwBYI7wwjr-KEqP6BuK_9gk-OrMr9TAjPhqHQWJnWTy02_4nSoU6U0US8bp6hpSWlUdO6mj2L5FJOzKTOK2gfdIe7BOETeqBFrgcbbbxT4y_7HA1p8L0ZRnTzOaGmzJFTD2sulajZUzu60xGhVw/w400-h223/textfileoptions.png" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on PGN in the left-hand column (not the middle column)</span></i></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div>6) ignore the two columns to the right for now and in the <b>left-hand column</b>, <b>6th item down</b>, click <b>PGN</b><div><br /></div><div>This opens up another window, which looks like this...</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUS7WY48Im8jgl6nMBqZ-od28i9UG6kLNNC6br5FikTlID8TtbVzi8JzyuHt3sFRzdwMZVEmRrECU2BCHL6aR9HlA-ia8r7Uwhsgr9JRamTn939xfwXLmk06oJ7AQdT4hKsNI-6nWhFRjd3Z4ePaLjg5uVbMjFiyEYnvCkYP0bahCgPbG1viID_RrwcJQ/s487/oldformatpgn.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="487" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUS7WY48Im8jgl6nMBqZ-od28i9UG6kLNNC6br5FikTlID8TtbVzi8JzyuHt3sFRzdwMZVEmRrECU2BCHL6aR9HlA-ia8r7Uwhsgr9JRamTn939xfwXLmk06oJ7AQdT4hKsNI-6nWhFRjd3Z4ePaLjg5uVbMjFiyEYnvCkYP0bahCgPbG1viID_RrwcJQ/w400-h221/oldformatpgn.png" width="400" /></a><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click on PGN (left-hand column) and put a tick in the OLD FORMAT box</span></i></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>7) mouse-click left where it says <b>OLD FORMAT</b> to put a tick in the box and click <b>OK</b>. (I could explain why we make this choice but it's better not to know and just trust me.)</div><div><br /></div><div>8) This opens up a new window which is inviting you to create a PGN file containing the games that you have previously highlighted. First making sure that the SAVE AS TYPE field shows PGN Format (*.pgn), it's now up to you to choose a meaningful name for the file you are creating and a suitable folder to locate it.</div><p style="text-align: left;">That concludes the ChessBase part of the process. You can now prepare your email message, attach the PGN file which you have just created (just the one file suffixed *.PGN - ChessBase may create other small files with the same name but different suffixes but you don't need to send them) and send the email. Job Done.</p><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">THERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO DO THIS BUT BEWARE...</h3><p style="text-align: left;">... it may seem simpler at first but it can work out more problematic in the long run. I'll describe it in outline: you create a PGN database in ChessBase, copy games into it, then attach it to an email, and then send it. Sounds simpler and more logical but there are snags. Over the years I've come to dislike creating PGN files in that way. For one thing ChessBase is very 'clingy' when it comes to such databases. For example, it might not let you upload PGN files created in this way to the web without first closing the ChessBase software. (That's the sort of thing that could take you hours to figure out.) And the resultant PGN file may also include some strange-looking gobbledegook generated by later versions of ChessBase that may confuse recipients of your email. (That all-important tick in the OLD FORMAT box at step 7 above eliminates this strange stuff. Similarly, I can now reveal that the reason we took that first step, right at the beginning of the post, to set PGN to OLD FORMAT in the Options menu, was to eliminate this meaningless gunk from appearing in PGN notation when copied from a game window)</p><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">CHOOSING WHICH GAMES TO SEND</h3><p style="text-align: left;">This is slightly off-topic and more about understanding ChessBase functionality but I thought I would share a couple of thoughts about how to get games ready for transmission.</p><div style="text-align: left;">The example I gave above was simplistic - a sequence of half a dozen games in precise order on a games list. The games you want to send out may be from different areas of your ChessBase set-up, e.g. from a player index, a tournament Index or from separate databases.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In those circumstances, the <b>Clip Database</b> function in ChessBase is your friend. It's worth getting to know how it works, how to put games in it, how to sort them into a given order, how to clear it, etc.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPuGciWNnlBpQx4_C42LsIuSjrDQhD4BSWPTMAe2H1j8UOwuiVYjY2Ij7__TdDBUS7bPuPT2dyAYh8deJ14cTakw1Pfb0OAxJ0JXhY6C-nfL9v0S8cl09PkE-sYl7O23Mk5hUnlwai2gbOnSpLViR7Oe1sfN7gYRBLlNVddVkcFKJId95DKkTaLQJkvbA/s1013/clip%20database.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="405" data-original-width="1013" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPuGciWNnlBpQx4_C42LsIuSjrDQhD4BSWPTMAe2H1j8UOwuiVYjY2Ij7__TdDBUS7bPuPT2dyAYh8deJ14cTakw1Pfb0OAxJ0JXhY6C-nfL9v0S8cl09PkE-sYl7O23Mk5hUnlwai2gbOnSpLViR7Oe1sfN7gYRBLlNVddVkcFKJId95DKkTaLQJkvbA/w640-h256/clip%20database.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">ChessBase's Clip Database is your friend</span></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Database Window (Home Screen - 'My Databases') should have a database icon labelled CLIP DATABASE. One important use for it is to gather together some games which you want to send to someone.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Double-click on CLIP DATABASE. If you've never used it before, it will be empty. Just headers, no games. If it has games in it, and assuming that you've now finished whatever it was you were doing with them, you can get rid of them. To do this, go back to the database window, <b>mouse-click right</b> on the icon and choose <b>ERASE CLIPBOARD</b> (or <b>CTRL-ALT-V</b>) on the keyboard. Don't let the word ERASE frighten you - none of the games on your databases will be harmed in the process. This does NOT delete games from the database in which they reside, it simply removes them from the Clip Database, which you can think of as a place where you temporarily make copies of games and group them for further action.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now you have an empty clip database, you can (re)populate it with the selection of games you wish to put in your PGN file to send out. You do this by going to any database, highlighting a game or games from a list and clicking function key F5 (there's another mouse-driven alternative to using the function key but it's a bit clunky so let's not worry about it - just try to remember that F5 adds games to the Clip Database, or, if they are already on it, removes them). </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Once you've finished selecting the games you want to put in your PGN file, you return to the database window, double-click on the Clip Database icon and you should see all the games that you've added. If you've accidentally added a couple that you don't intend to send, highlight them and press the F5 function key again and they'll disappear from the Clip Database (again, they will not disappear from their home database, just from the Clip Database). </div><p style="text-align: left;">You can change the order in which the clipped games appear on the screen by clicking a header. (Typically, you'll want to put them in chronological order so you'll probably click the 'date' header.) Once you've got the list of games you want to send in the order that you like, you highlight all the games. CTRL+A highlights all the games in the Clip Database window. Now you can proceed to <b>point 4 above</b> to create the output PGN file. The rest of the steps are the same as given there. </p><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">SENDING BIG DATABASES</h3><p style="text-align: left;">A much less likely scenario arises when you want to send a really big database, let's say, one containing upwards of 20,000 games. For this the PGN file option is not ideal. In fact, it may not work. A lot of email servers prevent users from sending large attachments. A PGN file of 20,000 games could weigh in at 10+ megabytes. In those circumstances ChessBase's own solution becomes almost essential, namely a ChessBase archive file (suffixed *.cbv in the Windows Explorer list).</p><div>Creating a ChessBase archive file is quite easy. Highlight a database in the database window by mouse-clicking left, then <b>mouse-click right</b>, hover with the mouse over the <b>TOOLS</b> option and select <b>BACKUP DATABASE</b>. (the keyboard equivalent is easier - CTRL + Z). A small window appears, offering encrypted or non-encrypted format, set unencrypted (it's the default setting) and click OK. It now invites you to choose a name for the backup/archive file. Make sure you choose a meaningful name and remember which folder you chose to save it in. The backup file (look for the file you named suffixed *.cbv in Windows Explorer - ignore all the other files suffixed otherwise) contains the entire database in a more compact format and can be sent as an email attachment with a better chance of staying within limits for email transmission.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmML6xEyeJqF5T419WavyHoyrJ56zac2gqy7xtvhWbzdt3WCw9xiTTsBpxK96diLiZO7njZ7DZu3GWgWHG-L0fJI09sGqqp_F5Pf6F2TFpfHHVdSXOAtaq4BFZ8QmG8HQTMGGZtraRWXW_747QbTrTyRmUfDsJ-79Kqo0Kh-ddbYWygHnNEsaoQQK1ITE/s665/backup.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="459" data-original-width="665" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmML6xEyeJqF5T419WavyHoyrJ56zac2gqy7xtvhWbzdt3WCw9xiTTsBpxK96diLiZO7njZ7DZu3GWgWHG-L0fJI09sGqqp_F5Pf6F2TFpfHHVdSXOAtaq4BFZ8QmG8HQTMGGZtraRWXW_747QbTrTyRmUfDsJ-79Kqo0Kh-ddbYWygHnNEsaoQQK1ITE/w640-h442/backup.png" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Back-up to a ChessBase archive (*.cbv) file - CTRL+Z or right-click TOOLS / BACKUP DATABASE</i></span></div><h3 style="text-align: left;"><br /></h3><hr /><h3 style="text-align: left;">WHY DON'T I RECOMMEND CHESSBASE ARCHIVE (*.CBV) FILES FOR SENDING ANY DATABASES? </h3><p style="text-align: left;">Now I've told you about the advantages of creating ChessBase archives - ease of creation, saving space - you might be tempted to use them for sending database files of small and medium sizes, not just whoppers. You create a new ChessBase database, put all the games you need to send in it, archive it and attach the archive to an email and that's it.</p><div>Yes, you can do that. But I wouldn't recommend it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The problem is <b>compatibility</b>, or, rather, incompatibility. For a start, not everyone uses ChessBase and, if they don't, a ChessBase archive (*.cbv) will be unreadable on their computer, whereas the PGN format is universal - all chess software is (or should be) capable of importing it. </div><div><br /></div><div>The incompatibility situation has worsened in the past year or so. Even if your intended recipient has ChessBase, their version of the software and yours may be incompatible. This didn't use to be a problem but ChessBase have seen fit to bring out a new version, ChessBase 17, which uses a database system which is incompatible with all previous versions in this respect. So if you're using ChessBase 17 and you create a database archive using the latest database format and send it to a friend who is still using an earlier version, they won't be able to do anything with it.</div><div><br /></div><div>I personally use ChessBase 14. It is stable and does everything I need it to do and am not planning to upgrade to ChessBase 17. People occasionally send me CBV files (as I call ChessBase archive files) produced in ChessBase 17 and there's nothing I can do with them. I could ask them to send me material in the older database format, which CB 17 still supports - allegedly - but they could then get confused. (If you don't believe me, take a look at the <a href="https://help.chessbase.com/CBase/17/Eng/index.html?000001.htm" target="_blank">300+ pages of the ChessBase 17 user manual</a> - it does have solutions to compatibility problems but they are not easily discoverable. Seriously, if you are a ChessBase 17 user and wondering how to create a file of games which will be compatible with other people's chess databases, go to the linked page, click where it says 'Reference' on the left-hand menu, then 'Database Formats', then 'Database Formats' - or <a href="https://help.chessbase.com/CBase/17/Eng/index.html?database_formats.htm" target="_blank">simply click on this link</a> to go straight to the relevant page - and you can see how you can create a PGN format database in ChessBase 17.</div><p style="text-align: left;">So let's just stick to PGN for transmitting games. I hope this has been of some use to those who are unfamiliar with ChessBase - and if you know better ways to do some of these things, don't hesitate to get in contact with me at <a href="https://www.saund.org.uk/email.html">BritBase.info</a>. That said, I probably won't take a blind bit of notice and carry on doing what I always do anyway. I'm an experienced user but a technophobe at heart.</p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Finally, a belated acknowledgement to Nick Murphy who, many years ago, achieved the impossible in weaning this grumpy old technophobe off ChessBase 7 and onto later versions of the software.</i></p>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-78676297940021774702023-10-04T12:22:00.003+01:002023-10-04T12:55:40.217+01:00 Mrs Ludovici, Chess Player<p style="text-align: left;">I don't blog here very often but I thought it would be a good place to post stray games which I come across in my researches. Here's a game between the well-known Mary Rudge and a lesser known adversary, Mrs Ludovici. Annotations are by Miss Rudge...</p><p><br /></p><p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=1586$zlax9RvkYXKkHmDKCxeSXoMZ_ZD5YncXG14sMuotuKMilhO$Qxf9ZXeBCLqpo0ilheKl8$yd2A$9r$e2LEG8sZmFWvfX9pNmXX5Hh0oXKSXm0F0vY5oUYUVbTFFfjQzvHKj2D4QuIbvtx_tu4TjQzJzuGXGf8fXnjQzxQXJvkYMLjQzHTFGYqQKCP1VKRBfeguKexX9pNkW7KmSNYlP19j4co7Hm3kHutHh05r69$jT020ilha4M4q6TKcNf9SNYXF9pNgnJ7GqKNYmqZ05f9pNgnJ7GpZZmFRu4V04wHX9pMnn33M0cfv328bvpC7n1$BIgWzn0$kpryspryf75FijdWM6$fbzN6pzMZvD3dzg$Nm4yv7to$hlD6$yq7sFg6V29$xVE3f4Kz5b10Fbwrtmfo$7VfPsh7UZvO$grzpdQ7qY0H$lmk7pdzr_fqf757x0IVvS$grzp0BHfnD323Sx0FPg0C$fclx7dBr0$QjIfcmMDbd0$M5a1_p7_H6DHXZ8VM4fNFrlZvuwAnHXhaGgXZwXgeLolae3vApetki7$_KY0C$$0$ksH_fnr1azOa$FPg14$f4I308pvKOEZt82ZCOTz8wxTyZ$DIY2Dl7pmRxOLo_5_xeQi_lvut2xf_7F_80Vb_oCZeUnvL7WfPsRU13$v9y718x3b0$RPf4Kj6jb$$308nvKXKKvU_4x2UKnbFB6DpmRyUm7KgziRSVNSP3GgWNFo$6Y_Dgv3cbwaz7P1ebvKXTG6MrgX_28Kl$uP0kXN3r06u5v9BDfj15Hf3QN3d$l285yE67fd0$Nq7EF59$wFIcf4lBDnn3sYF5JfM$7WmS7aX_e0CXmD2eTtXZSzmDXFHYHJXGqNo$Y6CX0otD6fGXeThZuj7_yU89ae3yE_CXtkS$ZmKWfeLND2ZyKC7nL3sGUOY$kuda5n04OMDa_cu4Lokd$NKIAM6Qx9RNaP2WTJ8J5nxY4KD1o5LOZ9e$xfn0$g_e0G3wWRTHZ23RHIY2uaMtxOM72oo3iYA$ZZaxfO38b2P2YTcgVaX5uKTVKRBh2DuKvTbFCzmwW_fZ7zgX_xSPtuMUnuWno_iTJ7Z8J9e3D66Z0b_D1Fzx5p0$MbfmVTJ7ZNZZ2vNFr0k8v0_f4jB7a_bZmKF3eZvqUYoTyUko_e0zTefuCAWU_KMtwiz2u4M0XPgY0C0Nv74CK2TzcXK4TBTYpae3xZXeBCLqpo76M1l29EG5xl6U19MuCOX3oXKSXm0F0vY5opbUzQUkZ6DXGJaX5uKTKL7VKRBfef3Z2eWuo$45oUYUVbTFFs8_ABuaY_4LpvnefG__o86uzNeCTtwGUXG26RTOpOVezDbTLF$NHoAK88ueIwVcwxqw0joZmU4V22Ab0Uo_0xeRKq7F6DOM6LZXFmvgBe3vutuevMcMBE$NGTcgVbZmWZavQ$P0AnbUOj0Ana9EUtkS6AsL_7fueQAKDtXm3y7bm3S$olbXgXeK9AVae3u3XAnyT0_fDtbHl$0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p><p>I did a bit of biographical research on Mrs Ludovici. Her maiden name was Sarah Anne Rogers and she was born in Stafford (or thereabouts) in the third quarter of 1837. Her brother John was also a chess player, incidentally. Sarah married a German, Heinrich Ludovici, in 1865 and thereafter they seem to have lived in Germany though Sarah returned to the UK to play chess occasionally (and this game score has a reference to her in St Albans). She died in Wiesbaden on 27 July 1904.</p><p>'BatGirl' on Chess.com has previously published a couple of games played by her: <a href="https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/madame-ludovici-of-wiesbaden">https://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/madame-ludovici-of-wiesbaden</a></p><p>There are further biographical details on Sarah Anne Ludovici at the <a href="http://www.edochess.ca/players/p1576.html">EDO Historical Ratings website</a>.</p>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-69752984626496071072022-07-10T18:32:00.001+01:002022-07-11T11:36:54.448+01:00Calling All Would-Be Bicycle Thieves...<p>Here's a bit of advice for would-be bicycle thieves. Let's imagine you've been apprehended eyeing up some bikes by an observant member of the constabulary and you're in the nick being given the third degree. Speaking as your (admittedly unqualified) brief, I'm recommending you keep schtum for the time being as the optimal time for using your trump card will be when you're up before the beak.</p><p>That's when you play your get-out-of-jail-free card. Or rather three cards. You tell the magistrate...</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>I was waiting for my brother; </li><li>I can't ride a bike; </li><li>I'm a chess player.</li></ul><p></p><p style="text-align: left;">Sounds ridiculous? It worked for this bloke...</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB9wvLmMgkKSGFfblN3lQZJBOPxH40lEtKH8MCa7SPMdodae9XauTqO4KaMI9Z6oOeZH_X_oTg5oqJGGgEDGhH3HzBZA4SkpI5VUnV9HBq1NcrskD5gX4w3JEPo5i1Y338Z6thfth8sPqV5Wn9Hql8GsxE9rnAes4E7tVH9MEuc0qcMaSQg-Nk4YQb/s715/1932-09-24-Croydon-Times-Gilbert-Victor-Butler.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="715" data-original-width="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB9wvLmMgkKSGFfblN3lQZJBOPxH40lEtKH8MCa7SPMdodae9XauTqO4KaMI9Z6oOeZH_X_oTg5oqJGGgEDGhH3HzBZA4SkpI5VUnV9HBq1NcrskD5gX4w3JEPo5i1Y338Z6thfth8sPqV5Wn9Hql8GsxE9rnAes4E7tVH9MEuc0qcMaSQg-Nk4YQb/s16000/1932-09-24-Croydon-Times-Gilbert-Victor-Butler.jpg" /></a><br /><i>Croydon Times - Saturday 24 September 1932</i></div><p>Warning: you attempt this at your own risk - don't come crying to me if you get sent to prison. (And if anyone from Crown Prosecution Service happens to be reading this, it's not an incitement to crime, <i>I'm joking</i>, for heaven's sake.) Interesting, though, isn't it? Particularly that phrase "<i>chess playing would account for concentrated gazing</i>."</p><p>Seriously, though, folks: I can't help wondering, though I've zero evidence for this, whether Gilbert Victor Butler might have suffered from something along the lines of Asperger's Syndrome which might have caused him to stand and stare in an unusual way that the watching constable found suspicious. </p><p>There seems little doubt that Gilbert Butler was entirely innocent of this bizarre charge brought against him. His track record as a chess player was impressive. Sadly, he contracted tuberculosis and died on 9 August 1942, aged only 39. His obituary appeared in the January 1943 issue of BCM:</p><blockquote><p>"The passing of G. V. Butler deprives Sussex of one of their strongest and most dependable players. He had been ailing for some time and he died at Thornton Heath a comparatively young man, under 40.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>"He was a former Sussex Champion as his father, H. W. Butler, the founder of the Sussex Chess Association was before him. It was no unusual occurrence for G. V. Butler to go through a season of the Counties’ Championship without loss, playing for Sussex on a high board, a tribute to his steadiness and resource. The following games demonstrate his unusual talent for carrying out powerful attacks by the simplest means. A great loss to British chess."</p></blockquote><p>Gilbert Butler was born on 2 November 1902 and in 1939 he was living with his widowed mother and shown in the September 1939 as having no occupation. This was unusual in wartime and perhaps another indicator that he was unwell or unfit, although we know from the newspaper cutting that he had been a store-keeper in 1932, so maybe he was one of many who lost his job in the hungry Thirties.</p><p>Here are the three games given in the BCM obituary:</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=763$zlax9RvkXXZ2eWgueaSQ6DaD1YpM6OXCwilhO$Qxf7t4co7ZYnz1bdLD$t6v2LX9pNmuAVJT3e1BHA_e0G3vfhZRg6Ltye0HBxeGg_LpAKCLEG80otD6faZ7Zk2j2vY5t8XZi79pNmheQZkD3nXD9pNgpZmf9ZnD9pNkW7KmSNYlP1QDjQzxMrglMYVM73nswf$Xe$6wTjQzxMrglMZaOrz1HiLZe2WQFe1BHzlax9RKKAVICMtvgnqe1BHA_e0G3eMe2V0mOOTb_I4XXKujtv8X5itIXF9pNflmF0MZ8Tuf7aQG3ueNt4coaZt2l7uxt6QYXKkHZaP1a2oTjQzvHKj2yXiLZKKAVICMtvgnqe1BHl500bfij701l71EF5$vo8zqU5$f4i32jU5vgIz28ryv75DN$zXfj16Bf4HF6$fcW1L8Gz2vfckGztFQN29$wrtmfcWj5b13FzQ5VzQ0z$vpEcf3iz5n1$xbvpIbfq$75Gi1LpEbfqf7sho$Nm7cL3sXfPayNV24$vnBDWmN7bT1$zYfWK6V22vgrXx0IAfwf3dEHl2k8F3506pzQ1m7fv30khU6pErw2$gRFm7WTP7L1dE7v87F3p045fWW37T1dQh9lmkh9w0f7shoZxUcN3d$wStKP4_BuaSQ16_f4umTegCWNF_OTKfnswvtwJo$72UmuG3S0V9uaXILPgnnrMgZuP5e9a4v0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=678$zlax9RvkYXKkHmD6PoxYZ_8jYrglLEG8ovpM73e1BHzutHh056nj$e2L0Tt4coaKNYmr16wilh_CvQxf78uq7yTegCvRig6QD_TchSOTjQzvHKj2D4CmSx9wMbvY5pz29KvQ6wilhVgZKNI$y6A0ilhamNV00974co9YzmGWUtGp0nn9pNgnJ7GnZYnz1bdLD$t6v2LX9pNgnJ7Gn_4UJh0l8Tu6wYVQ6wilha4M4qmSNYlOTKf7HcCwilh_CvQx6TCwY$HMt_uzF9pNflmF0MZ8Tuf9TxIwilh_CvQx6TCwYuuaQqexY$xLRt4co7aaQ$T_3XeGWUtGoXmD3l5OLEG4wvfi328rw$75DNcVwv78mtD5GKjn05Xfcly7P15FPo0dgL30qo4cfj10zBghJXfT0ohJXfWWmV0L71Rx$BHfof3ayNV$FWg0y$vpJPfciz5f10BBfWgz5n1dzc1TXJvR$gPy4yGl7cD3jo2JZfqv75Rx5JfnD30kt9_gskTF2d$vnB7shM0wL7stQZxUcN39$voejsRTHfn3sho2I1Dfv32kh9vKXOUtZDf_V$GV_0Vb_tkmZu4V22Hb2PcO700YVM7kZI$rGXeQnegiUuAInPh$NHlt80wO46T2ZvMUgnH$0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=691$zlax9RvfmGl7ZuzY0s4Lokc_qUjjQzHLcnz1O4WUXfK1BHzutHh056nj$e2L0Tt4coaKNYmr16wilh_CvQxf78uq7yTegCvRig6QD_TchSOTjQzvHKj2D4uuo3uwVdwFetuqvnwr5N4coaE6V_9P1btj4co7IuaD33DvjQzGRgtKKAVID3Lr9pNgnJ7GnZYnz1bdLD$t6v2LX9pNgnJ7Gn_4UJh0l8Tu6wYVQ6DdPZueKX9pNgnJ7GqKNYmqZ0d1BHzlax9RKKAVICMtvgnqe1BHA_e0G3eMe2V00tInyUZiLEG80otD66TCwY$GvNFqZSNDEG8uOLpM2XiLZKKAVICMtvgnqe1BHz4AVvruxt6QYXKkHZaP1a2oTjQxLL78x0zJfv32jo5YfL33GKj2kSFb$yt75Ggzp02kpbwezr0$lRf3Bk0f757x4MUs2v4xTXJxBD6$v7y71iM0A$fzN9kSx25049WM$gdfo$7VPp0FrvO$gRGgj2kSx2n0$gba0FzgZvRvfWjx71GU35T1dWc$kbfnD3dzc$k5foL3sGIN$Fzc0wL7WmOzsGUN39$yGgAwuUCNYYfw_P0mQZ2PoZXFKXZaP56nn6DqZi80z$vZYnz8Z6M7qUtaMcL5uLGYp$UmTuFveV26A4xL0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-70416827095254144592020-11-08T12:53:00.000+00:002020-11-08T12:53:41.721+00:00Shooting Chess Players: No.1 - Caruana - Korchnoi, Gibraltar 2011Here's a photo you might have seen before...
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeztNSY9Q6uN0jCnrCenmz1wVp2FrAnTxOJ_e7my3IcD9dboVV6JKEHPtBDRQPAfuLI93QaSBjx13HXFP78REvhWmxHgL8wbBBpbK7q0mly150ex8TNto35ct6UfV1mq98mqbTX5azEE/s1600/Caruana+Korchnoi.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeztNSY9Q6uN0jCnrCenmz1wVp2FrAnTxOJ_e7my3IcD9dboVV6JKEHPtBDRQPAfuLI93QaSBjx13HXFP78REvhWmxHgL8wbBBpbK7q0mly150ex8TNto35ct6UfV1mq98mqbTX5azEE/w640-h426/Caruana+Korchnoi.jpg" width="640" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLeztNSY9Q6uN0jCnrCenmz1wVp2FrAnTxOJ_e7my3IcD9dboVV6JKEHPtBDRQPAfuLI93QaSBjx13HXFP78REvhWmxHgL8wbBBpbK7q0mly150ex8TNto35ct6UfV1mq98mqbTX5azEE/s1600/Caruana+Korchnoi.jpg" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></a></div>
... of Fabiano Caruana playing Viktor Korchnoi in the Tradewise Gibraltar Masters in 2011. The age differential was an amazing 61 years (which is greater than that between, for example, Karpov and Alekhine). And, more amazing still - it was the older guy who won!<div><br /></div><div>I'm proud of the fact that I took this photo. Only this morning, renowned chess photographer David Llada <a href="https://twitter.com/davidllada/status/1325397872859344897?s=20">said of it</a>, "<i>That photo from Gib is a piece of chess history. I wouldn’t have minded to have taken it!</i>" That makes me prouder still - a bit like being a rank and file player and having Kasparov or Carlsen telling you, "that was a good game you played there."</div><div><br /></div><div>That said, David and I both know that, technically, it's actually a terrible photo! A professional photographer, judging it on a ten-point scale, might give it a generous 'one' on the grounds that at least the two heads of the players are in it and recognisable. Everything else sucks. The focus is sharpest on Korchnoi's water bottle. The composition isn't great; it looks like Korchnoi is about to reach out and play a move, though Fabi hasn't made his own first move yet. So definitely not what Cartier-Bresson would call the "decisive moment". To be fair to myself, the light coming through the window is challenging, as David Llada also pointed out, but I guess someone a bit more proficient with a camera than me could have coped better with that.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, little of the above matters. We could have wished that David Llada, Ray Morris-Hill, Lennart Ootes, Niki Riga, Maria Emelianova or Sophie Triay had been there to take the shot as they would surely have nailed it. With my infinitely better camera and significantly improved photographic technique of now (I've learnt a lot from the aforementioned photographers in the last decade and digital camera technology has also moved on by leaps and bounds) I might have done a bit better job had it been 2020 and not 2011. But no point dwelling on that: it was just me and my Nikon D90 and my shaky technique to capture this remarkable meeting of the generations with its sensational result, and that outweighs any photographic aesthetics. Famously, Viktor went on to defeat Fabi in a stunning game - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_UzOQS4B8&t=135s">see it analysed by Agadmator on YouTube</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Technical note: Nikon D90, 50.0mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 250, f/4.5, 1/60sec. Shot as a JPG. I've tried improving it using Adobe Lightroom software but with only marginal success.</i></div>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-35114396034193467592019-11-09T17:30:00.001+00:002019-11-09T18:10:33.924+00:00David Welch (1945-2019)I have just heard the sad news of the death of David Welch, who contributed so much to British chess as an arbiter and organiser over so many years.<br />
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<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">David Welch at the Gibraltar Festival in 2015 (photo John Saunders)</span></i></div>
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Dave was born in Brampton (Chesterfield), Derbyshire, on 30 October 1945. After attending Chesterfield Grammar School, where he captained the chess team, he took a degree at Cambridge University before taking up a teaching job at Liverpool in 1968. Also starting teaching the same day at the same school was Peter Purland, who like Dave was to become an equally distinguished servant of British chess over the past half century. The two spent their entire teaching careers at the same school, and often worked in tandem as arbiters and organisers over the same period of time and long into their retirement from teaching.<br />
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Dave joined Liverpool Chess Club in 1968 and eventually became its president, and organiser of the Liverpool Congress. He became involved in organising and arbiting at British Championships in 1981, later taking on roles as chief arbiter of the British (later English) Chess Federation and director/manager of congress chess. He was also chief arbiter of the 4NCL for some years. He was awarded the FIDE International Arbiter title in 1977 and the FIDE International Organiser title in 2010. He received the ECF President's Award in 2007.<br />
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I first came into regular contact with Dave at the Isle of Man and Gibraltar tournaments where he also officiated as chief arbiter for some years. His vast experience of chess organisation made him a safe pair of hands, and almost the automatic go-to man when a major congress needed someone to take charge, as happened at the Monarch Assurance Isle of Man tournament when Richard Furness passed away. Dave's firmness of resolve and stentorian voice (albeit not quite matching the <i>molto fortissimo</i> of his Welsh colleague Peter Purland) will remain a particular memory of these events. These schoolmasterly traits gave way to a more whimsical personality, and a wicked sense of humour, when off-duty over a pint in the bar at the end of play. One small example: when musing over the experimental one-game knock-out tournament format being proposed by Stewart Reuben for the Hastings Congress in 2004/5, Dave told me, "if it works, we will call it the Hastings System. If it doesn't work, we will call it the Reuben System."<br />
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Dave died on 9 November 2019 after suffering a stroke which left him greatly debilitated some two years ago. His is a great loss to British chess. I shall miss him greatly. RIP.<br />
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(c) 2019 John Saunders<br />
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<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-22560459250979949052018-12-01T17:16:00.000+00:002018-12-01T17:16:09.041+00:00Soviet School of SadismAs we all know, chess has a strong element of sado-masochism about it. Have you ever noticed how a crowd gathers round a board when some gruesomely obvious winning line or checkmate is about to happen? Hands up anyone who claims not to have done this? You are either a saint or, more likely, a liar. I do it myself, though it makes me feel like one of those awful rubberneckers who peers across at road accidents on motorways or even one of those people who once attended public executions. Even more despicably, I have been known to take photos...<br />
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... but enough of the self-loathing, let's cut to the chase. The following has a certain flavour of sadism. It comes from the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBvQ36SqgqM">live chess24.com broadcast of the Carlsen-Caruana tie-breaks</a> after Fabi had resigned the first game. Peter Svidler and Anish Giri were providing viewers with a thumbnail of how to win in the following sort of position which incidentally didn't happen in the game but might have done had Black carried on playing rather longer than was sensible. Of course, Fabi knew better than to do that.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTBKv3yyLnBMl25u_8PTSW2hTVuWqHCoonlwTKn4bISPgw8oqZd6vRqKRn7_XguFM9CgN_u8uvTNG3U28rn0d8H5cbtlHx0d-4Jf-VmbZTQ8OqObG9-YUE6kuYDqdV2BY-VCWSctmmWc/s1600/2018-Grischuk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkTBKv3yyLnBMl25u_8PTSW2hTVuWqHCoonlwTKn4bISPgw8oqZd6vRqKRn7_XguFM9CgN_u8uvTNG3U28rn0d8H5cbtlHx0d-4Jf-VmbZTQ8OqObG9-YUE6kuYDqdV2BY-VCWSctmmWc/s640/2018-Grischuk.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The position shown above is a reasonably easy win for White though there are a few pitfalls for the unwary along the way if you are careless. The quickest way starts 1.h7+ and is actually forced mate in five but Alexander Grischuk mentioned another way which, though considerably slower, is much wittier and arguably more sadistic, offering Black the briefest glimpse of salvation before having it cruelly snatched away.</div>
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Grischuk's way begins <b>1.g7</b> and Black has nothing better than to move his rook along the back rank, say, <b>1...Ra8</b> (after 1...Kh7 White simply plays 2.Rf8 and Black can't stop the g-pawn promoting or Rh8+ followed by same; the black rook can give a few checks but the white king strolls over to the queenside to close the game out). </div>
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Now comes the fun part: <b>2.Rf8+</b>:<b> </b>it's easy to imagine a Black player suddenly getting his hopes up. He sees 2...Rxf8 3.gxf8+ Kxf8 and for one ecstatic moment envisages a draw. But it's a mirage. <b>2...Rxf8</b> ("Just when I think I'm out...") <b>3.Kg6!</b> ("... they pull me back in!")</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSI7KPZBDGPdsXihwwuHSqnIJCx3GqmumYh5u8ZmpqkY-L-aSdqD5z3LUKXmXTfS82WVEf9hX30Xzk6EloWVNyk6dfapHQCGFWiAfh_r7zvcH-IpF7VQvwYsGMAkk6RlJHT3OKsi8gsmE/s1600/2018-Grischuk2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="576" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSI7KPZBDGPdsXihwwuHSqnIJCx3GqmumYh5u8ZmpqkY-L-aSdqD5z3LUKXmXTfS82WVEf9hX30Xzk6EloWVNyk6dfapHQCGFWiAfh_r7zvcH-IpF7VQvwYsGMAkk6RlJHT3OKsi8gsmE/s400/2018-Grischuk2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Giri and Svidler snickered on being shown this. Giri (to Svidler): "Have you seen this before?" Svidler: "No." Giri: "Quite embarrassingly, me neither." To which the laconic Grischuk responded: "Soviet school!"John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-26512868917435452922018-11-13T16:42:00.000+00:002018-11-13T17:17:44.578+00:00Carlsen-Caruana 2018: Through a Glass DarklyThis is my first blog post from the 2018 World Chess Championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Fabiano Caruana, being played at The College, Southampton Row, London.<br />
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<i>Game 1: the challenger Fabiano Caruana faces the champion Magnus Carlsen</i></div>
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The first thing to say is that I’m not intending to provide detailed coverage of the actual play. This is already being done excellently and professionally by the likes of <a href="http://chess.com/">Chess.com</a> (now working in tandem with ChessBomb), <a href="http://chess24.com/">Chess24.com</a>, <a href="http://chessbase.com/">ChessBase.com</a>, etc, and there would be no point in trying to compete with all these online chess outlets. Click on the links if that is what you are looking for.<br />
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What I’m looking to do here is provide a bit of colour and give a general picture of the event. As someone who edited major national chess magazines for 13 years between 1999 and 2012, and who still regularly covers big-time chess competitions such as the Gibraltar, Isle of Man and London Classic tournaments, I am naturally interested in the whole business of chess event coverage and how it has developed since the turn of the century.<br />
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<b>VERDICT ON THE VENUE: IT'S AWFUL...</b><br />
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Did I write 'provide a bit of colour'? Oh dear - precious little colour to be found at the venue, I'm afraid. It's called, somewhat cryptically, The College, and is located in Southampton Row in Central London. It used to be Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design but the college people moved elsewhere some time ago, since when their former building has been rented out and not acquired another permanent function. I daresay it could be tarted up to suit various purposes, such as exhibitions, assuming organisers applied a reasonable amount of imagination and put adequate resource into it, but what we have here is a complete dud. As presented by the organisers, <a href="https://worldchess.com/">WorldChess</a>, the building is about as friendly and welcoming as the <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubyanka_Building">Lubyanka</a> </b>in Moscow and totally unsuited to the purpose to which it is being put.<br />
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I was tempted to title this piece '<b>The Rooky Horror Show</b>' but I think I already coined that pun last year to describe <a href="https://www.gingergm.com/">GingerGM</a>'s Crypt Blitz Tournament, held in the crypt of a London church last year...<br />
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Not so much a <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/chess?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#chess</a> tournament, more the Rooky Horror Show... <a href="https://twitter.com/Atomrod?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Atomrod</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/fionchetta?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@fionchetta</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidHowellGM?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DavidHowellGM</a> Tamas Fodor <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cryptblitz?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#cryptblitz</a> <a href="https://t.co/TReq3oTClB">pic.twitter.com/TReq3oTClB</a></div>
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— John Saunders (@johnchess) <a href="https://twitter.com/johnchess/status/932204090679021568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 19, 2017</a></blockquote>
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... and which was a lot of fun, but I never imagined a world championship match being played anywhere similarly dark and forbidding. For the title I also toyed with '<b>The Lubyanka Experience</b>' as the venue arguably gives you a taste of old Soviet Russia. I'm only half-joking about this as the set-up of this tournament has its roots in Soviet culture - overcrowding, dim lights, queues for everything and burly security men watching your every move.<br />
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One comes away with the impression that WorldChess's priority was to give the match a central London location at the cheapest price possible, catering for the needs of VIPs, players, online spectators, onsite spectators and media in that order, with the last two groups being given only the smallest regard. Other considerations, e.g. the popularisation of chess in the host country and the wider world, the involvement of players and chess enthusiasts in the event... have received no attention whatsoever.<br />
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In a nutshell, the venue is gloomy, depressing and overcrowded. But don't take my word for it, here are some pictures I took...<br />
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<b>THE LUBYANKA EXPERIENCE...</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzdu_3IfhTm5I-vIb8h_6UuIScqTtLn03Ynze_zee776x-0xlpYwvyCBLsUspGP1Lk2QG87QO51YVqM-0SOzS0udmlJtsAO1xCVZqnk7n-tvWl0C99qE0bDVOpYMko0-MCTsreel1PAo/s1600/2018wc-game01-js-1049.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCzdu_3IfhTm5I-vIb8h_6UuIScqTtLn03Ynze_zee776x-0xlpYwvyCBLsUspGP1Lk2QG87QO51YVqM-0SOzS0udmlJtsAO1xCVZqnk7n-tvWl0C99qE0bDVOpYMko0-MCTsreel1PAo/s640/2018wc-game01-js-1049.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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"<i>You are now entering the Lubyanka</i>": the above photo is the first thing you see once you are into the building and a security man has checked your bag. He'll ask you: "<i>have you got anything sharp in your bag?</i>" I wish I had been as witty as an esteemed photographer friend of mine had been when he replied "<i>only my lenses.</i>"</div>
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Now you have a choice of corridors. This is starting to sound a bit like one of those <b>1980s text-only home computer adventure games</b>, isn't it? Back then I used to love playing the BBC Acorn game '<a href="http://bbcmicro.co.uk/game.php?id=2311"><b>Philosopher's Quest</b></a>' and only learnt recently that one of its co-authors was a chess player - the English GM Jonathan Mestel. I shall present the photos to you in the style of that game as a sort of homage...</div>
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"<i>You're in a dimly-lit corridor. You have a coloured wristband and a mobile phone in a plastic bag. Click R to turn right or L to turn left</i>."</div>
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"<i>You clicked R (right). Make sure the wristband is visible to the security guard as he will demand to see it. So will all the other security guards positioned along the corridor, on the way to the commentary room</i>." This will happen every few metres of your movements along corridors for the next seven hours or however long Magnus Carlsen tries to win a dead level endgame. Another photographer friend of mine said he was going to wear his wristband round his head in future to save having to hitch his sleeve up every few seconds as he was walking round.</div>
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"<i>You clicked L (left). Another gloomy corridor leading to the cafe and, eventually, the auditorium. Remember to keep your wristband visible at all times</i>." The cafe is crowded but the food is pretty good, if a bit overpriced (but that's London for you). The auditorium is, of course, tiny...</div>
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<i>"You're in the auditorium - a small room seating around 200, not very comfortably, from where you can peer through a glass screen at two men playing chess."</i> You might think that this is the main point of the exercise but quite soon you get bored sat staring at two blokes in suits who make moves very infrequently, so let's retrace our steps to the entrance foyer...</div>
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"<i>You are looking up a winding staircase. A burly security guard will prevent you from going up there as you have the wrong colour wristband. For all you know, there may be champagne, caviar and dancing girls up there - or it could just be an empty space - but since you are only on Level 1 of this game, you're not going to find out anytime soon. Sorry</i>." As a humble photo-journalist I'm only on Level 1 of the game myself so cannot enlighten you as to what happens up there. You could try bribing the guard but don't come crying to me if you end up in the gulag. Let's go back along the right-hand corridor for a bit...</div>
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"<i>You have reached the commentary room. Good luck trying to get in there.</i>" There seemed to be a bit of a hassle gaining admission to the commentary room on the first Saturday but if you're patient, you'll manage it. Remember, queuing up for things is an authentic Soviet experience, courtesy of ex-president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, so you may as well enjoy it. Actually, to be fair, it's also an authentic part of life in London, so, hey...</div>
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"<i>Well done. You're inside the commentary room, seated on a wooden box and listening to <a href="https://twitter.com/gmjuditpolgar?lang=en">Judit Polgar</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/Anna_Chess?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">Anna Rudolf</a>.</i>" Tip: this will probably prove to be the best part of your visit to the Lubyanka so you should consider staying there as long as possible and enjoying their excellent commentary. Credit where it's due: WorldChess got the choice of commentators right. Judit and Anna are a good team.</div>
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"<i>You're still in the commentary room...</i>" And that's Woody Harrelson, the Hollywood/TV actor. Woody tried to liven things up at the start of the match by fumbling with the pieces. (I might do a little skit on that later.) Sadly, your bottom is getting sore on that unyielding wooden box with no back rest, so it's time to move on...</div>
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"<i>You've got a green wristband which means you're a chess journalist. Bad luck! Lose at least half the income you would receive if you had normal, sensible employment. OK, it's a dirty job but someone's got to do it. And you have the inestimable privilege of entering the media room. Hmm... not that great a privilege, if truth be told. It's overcrowded. You've no chance finding desk space and a chair to sit on</i>." </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMdp7dVxfnyRJ63ZxxRkdgM2bd_Q4SQyEoRWw7mLpm3XzModcOdwAbw3l7oVFpWyEpKC5htH9RfB_9ZTp3qGPiYRkNzbkOuhDfXnHBn15PqqjP7gLjYKHUF9Q32dwPAlAmb4Ib1erO1o/s1600/2018wc-game01-js-1047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMdp7dVxfnyRJ63ZxxRkdgM2bd_Q4SQyEoRWw7mLpm3XzModcOdwAbw3l7oVFpWyEpKC5htH9RfB_9ZTp3qGPiYRkNzbkOuhDfXnHBn15PqqjP7gLjYKHUF9Q32dwPAlAmb4Ib1erO1o/s640/2018wc-game01-js-1047.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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"<i>You're in the even darker, more cluttered end of the press room</i>." There's tea, coffee and some tasty snacks available there so not all bad - but it's really horribly overcrowded.</div>
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That's the adventure game over for the moment but I hope you get the flavour of the place. There are a couple of other rooms I've not mentioned, where a few people were playing casual chess in the gloom (no clocks provided so bring your own) plus a place where you can buy world championship merchandise (check out <a href="https://twitter.com/johnchess?lang=en">my Twitter stream</a> for some facetious chat about that). Some of my chess friends who remember working/spectating at the London world championship matches of the 1980s and 1990s have compared the 2018 experience unfavourably with 20 or 30 years ago. I agree with them, though in some ways it is hard to make a comparison as the world we live in has changed so radically. Now the internet is the all-important factor, and the organisers might try to argue that their key priority is webcasting to the wider world rather than concern themselves unduly with the on-the-spot experience of those paying £70 for the privilege of seeing the match in the flesh. Did I not mention the price before? Yes, you pay £70 per day to see this, and you really get very little for your money compared to watching the game in the comfort of your own home. </div>
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<i>Example of WorldChess merchandise: a shopping bag with their controversial<br />x-certificate logo on it. Just the thing for your grocery shopping - or perhaps not.</i></div>
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This match as organised by WorldChess is a tragic wasted opportunity for chess. It is perfectly possible to combine an elite event with an inclusive and enjoyable chess experience for all standards of players and spectators, as proved year after year at the <a href="https://www.londonchessclassic.com/">London Chess Classic</a>. The contrast between the Classic and the WC match is massive. At the Classic, you step out of the lift into a huge inviting space bathed in light, and the first thing you see is kids milling about having fun playing on a giant chess board, or with their coaches and teachers playing blitz. Amongst them will be GMs giving demos, signing autographs, talking to the media, and competition players chatting with old friends. Move a few metres along wide, airy corridors and you have the auditorium in one direction, vastly bigger than the one in the Lubyanka, where the elite players play their games and the audience are comfortably seated, and a large commentary room with orthodox, comfortable conference seating, or maybe you go in the other direction and find a large room of competition players playing their own serious chess. </div>
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So the difference comes down to location, location location. The Olympia Conference Centre in West London, where the Classic is held, is fit for purpose, whereas The College/Lubyanka simply isn't. Putting this match in such an unsuitable place might look like a massive blunder on the part of the organisers but I fear it is worse than that. It was not so much a blunder as a deliberate move demonstrating that WorldChess simply didn't care what the paying public and outside media think of their event. That's another familiar flavour of the old Soviet Union as regards the organisation of chess. It's happened here before: a few years ago they put on a FIDE Grand Prix event in London to which the public wasn't admitted at all. I didn't attend the 2016 world championship in New York but I have chatted about it with those who did and they were highly critical of the arrangements there too.</div>
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Notice that I have referred to the organisers as WorldChess rather than FIDE. The point is that WorldChess (part of Agon Ltd) is the entity to which FIDE outsourced the organisation of the world championship, but the arrangements for this match were of course put in place by the outgoing FIDE administration. The new FIDE administration will argue that it was too late to do anything about this as they've barely had time to get their feet under the table before the world championship match was upon them. Fair enough, but the chess world is going to be watching them like hawks from now on to see if they can effect a radical change in their approach to such major events.</div>
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Though I don't doubt that a successful world championship event could be mounted in London if it were carefully planned, I do wonder whether major international cities really make the best venues for big chess matches. I feel slightly disloyal writing this as a London resident but I am in two minds about the place. I love it and hate it in almost equal measure. I live in the suburbs and rarely venture into the central part of town as it is choked with tourists, very expensive and just generally wearisome for a man of my advancing years. Putting a chess competition into the middle of it, however exalted and important the event might seem to us chess people, means absolutely nothing to London and garners next to no publicity. I guess the same was true of New York in 2016. Compare and contrast Reykjavik and Baguio City, whose very names still evoke the chess matches played there many years ago, probably as much to their non-playing residents as to us chess obsessives. Wouldn't it be better to locate world chess championships somewhere where they will make a difference or be better appreciated by the residents? No, I don't mean Khanty-Mansiysk in the middle of Siberia: but maybe another city in Britain or elsewhere in western Europe. My vote would go to Manchester, a city which was promised a world championship match in the 1990s but had it cruelly snatched away. I've been to Manchester a few times in recent years and found it a really agreeable city. They have an excellent transport system, an airport and, significantly, a large proportion of the BBC's television service which has decamped there from London, maybe giving a better chance of getting chess on national TV there. Just a thought...</div>
John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-71321623810127917252018-05-17T12:36:00.001+01:002018-05-17T12:36:57.432+01:00The Seventh Sealed Move (2)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6sHMU1wRYsLuSKaJ0XQtCV-NJJHCL2se30TkFX4WlVJn5RwpnSq6EDAcBkbPIyqDev7NwSWFS6KCiTPalSpQJTxbWpgq7dtxXkqzuQYEiJhQCJPBw1g6qkYVNEIhly1unrRCPHEOGlII/s1600/seventh_seal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1381" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6sHMU1wRYsLuSKaJ0XQtCV-NJJHCL2se30TkFX4WlVJn5RwpnSq6EDAcBkbPIyqDev7NwSWFS6KCiTPalSpQJTxbWpgq7dtxXkqzuQYEiJhQCJPBw1g6qkYVNEIhly1unrRCPHEOGlII/s640/seventh_seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">"Let's see if I've got this straight. If I lose, I die and go straight to hell. If I win, I get an extra 200 rating points and an IM norm. Is that right? OK... seems like a good deal... let's play!"</span></i></div>
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-14431397680836373312018-05-16T16:06:00.000+01:002018-05-16T16:06:36.127+01:00Seventh Sealed Move (1)<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkurPMOPrveDF2JZqyJnVU1bODNjocZEwFopZJsPr_gQC3OWLYLwBdJuoGGlrZv2BhKg0E72gEqwlwsQP4YWjWteZXWx3T09q7C74OQnAC6WYNzlI0pTbsglXloKW-UBV3-a54VSW-6g/s1600/seventh_seal.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1381" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRkurPMOPrveDF2JZqyJnVU1bODNjocZEwFopZJsPr_gQC3OWLYLwBdJuoGGlrZv2BhKg0E72gEqwlwsQP4YWjWteZXWx3T09q7C74OQnAC6WYNzlI0pTbsglXloKW-UBV3-a54VSW-6g/s640/seventh_seal.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">"Adjudication or adjournment? You're 'avin' a laugh! It's quickplay finish or increments these days, sunshine!"</span></i></div>
John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-3643924168649248062018-05-09T22:45:00.004+01:002023-04-27T14:43:39.770+01:00It's a Game of Chess, Football and Cricket Out There...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>A rambling tale of three soccer-playing chessers...</i></h4>
A couple of posts back, I revived and adapted the old <a href="http://www.richardjames.org.uk/addict/" target="_blank">Fox and James</a> '<a href="http://johnchess.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/winning-with-reverse-iagocot.html" target="_blank">IAGOCOT</a>' trope but this time I'm casting an eye over more tangible links between chess and soccer. One of the first and most fundamental connections is that we might not even have the word 'soccer' were it not for a footballing chess player. It's an oft-told tale but I have garnished it with a few new details.<br />
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<a class="gie-single" href="http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/78981499" id="5UxvrQsNSndwCO1YPlhV3Q" style="border: none; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Embed from Getty Images</a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'5UxvrQsNSndwCO1YPlhV3Q',sig:'zqe4y97m7_Nk1hWqPpaZRM-CGxjIjXUYEsJmSPAhIn4=',w:'402px',h:'594px',items:'78981499',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});</script><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embed-cdn.gettyimages.com/widgets.js"></script><br />
The man whom legend says coined the word 'soccer' was <b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Wreford-Brown" target="_blank">Charles Wreford-Brown</a> </b>(1866-1951) who was an all-round sportsman at Oxford University who captained his university team and Corinthians FC, and went on to captain England before becoming a leading administrator and team selector for the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Football_Association" target="_blank">Football Association</a>. The story about him coining the term 'soccer' (taking a key syllable from the official name 'association football' and adding 'cer') is apocryphal—Oxford University <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_%22-er%22" target="_blank">slang terms where '-er' is added to various nouns</a>, often in a sporting context, pre-dated his time at the university—but it's perfectly possible.<br />
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Wreford-Brown played in an era when the class system dictated that pro players needed a patrician amateur at their helm, with, one suspects, less regard to his objective value as a player. This phenomenon is more familiar to us from the world of cricket, where less gifted amateur captains often led teams of professional players well into the 20th century. We shouldn't see Wreford-Brown as the technical equal of such great names as Bobby Moore but he must have been a more than decent player and leader to be put in charge of the highly skilled pro footballers who would have been his team-mates in the 1890s.<br />
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Wreford-Brown was a more than competent chess player. He was selected to play in the <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/193307bcf-viewer.html" target="_blank">1933 British Chess Championship</a>, in which he lasted two rounds before withdrawing on medical advice. If this is ringing cynical bells in anybody's head—withdrawals on grounds of ill health tending to be made by players with negative scores—I should point out that he had scored a creditable 1½/2 from those games. The very fact that he was selected to play in this elite 12-player event in the first place tells us that he must have been a player of some ability. That said, the selectors who picked him were hardly looking to the future as he was 66 years old at the time. He was a late selection, not appearing amongst the 11 names of competitors published in the Times on 17 July 1933, a fortnight before the tournament started. The final sentence of this reference—<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"the twelfth place in the British Championship Tournament rests between two players, and depends on voting papers yet to be received from some members of the committee."</i>—gives an insight into how the BCF selection procedure worked.<i> </i>(There was quite a lot of grumbling about this over the years and it led to the abandonment of the round-robin format in favour of a more open Swiss system in the late 1940s.) Looking at the line-up that year, I'd say it was a tournament of two halves, with the first six players being of a high standard, and the bottom six being much of a muchness, Wreford-Brown included (though that might be a little unfair to the blind player Rupert Cross who was arguably more talented than the others).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wreford-Brown's selection for the 1933 championship was published in the Times on 31 July when he was referred to as the "old Corinthians footballer". </span>BCM's report on the tournament (September 1933, p366) reveals that the other player on the selectors' ballot paper was the much younger <a href="https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=2154" target="_blank">Alfred Mortlock</a> (1910-99), the 1928 British Boys' (Under-18) Champion who ultimately replaced the sick Wreford-Brown in the 1933 competition.<br />
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Here's a 'Quotes and Queries' entry from Ken Whyld in BCM, November 1988, page 507):<br />
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<i>No. 4752 — This is Olympiad month, so here is a question with which to win a few bets! Which England footballer played for Great Britain in a chess Olympiad? If clues are needed, he not only played football for England, but was captain, and what’s more, he coined the word “soccer”. The answer is, Charles Wreford Brown, who died in 1951 aged 85. The Olympiad was Paris 1924, before the present format was adopted. Britain had only three players (the other two being Mrs Holloway and Handasyde), and finished below those countries with four players but above Russia (next to last, with only two emigrés in the team) and Yugoslavia, whose sole player had to withdraw at the half way stage.</i></blockquote>
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11 of Wreford-Brown's games from the 1924 Paris Olympiad (most of which he lost) may be found on ChessBase's Big/Mega Database.<br />
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Another intriguing episode was referred to in BCM (September 1937, p471):-<br />
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<i>C. Wreford Brown, while in New Zealand as joint manager of the English amateur Association football team, was induced to give an exhibition of simultaneous chess at the Auckland C.C. on on June 15 [1937], and out of 15 games won 11, drew 3 (unfinished, but agreed), and lost one to T. G. Symonds, against whom he made a slip which cost a piece to save his Q. We understand that by arrangement the single player adopted as his opening one in which White sacrifices a Kt on his 3rd move—which sounds like what used to be called the “Tin Pot”!</i></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">... and I'm afraid I've never heard of the "Tin Pot" either. What is that final sentence about? Answers on a postcard, please...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now Wreford-Brown in his own write (as John Lennon might have put it): a letter published in BCM, September 1939, p405:</span><br />
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<i>To the Editor of The </i>British Chess Magazine</blockquote>
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<i>Dear Sir,</i></blockquote>
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<i>Owing to absence from England during most of this—so-called—summer, my chess activities have been dormant, and the July number of the </i>British Chess Magazine<i> has only within the last few days come into my hands. I have therein found and studied with interest, as usual, an article by my old friend Koltanowski. I recall that ten or twelve years ago we had several games together and I enjoyed more than one struggle in the defence against the Max Lange opening. I think that honours were fairly even since I was particularly careful not to engage him in any sans voir matches. But I am claiming now to be distinctly his superior in the matter of chess dreaming. For my imagination has suggested to me that in or about the year 1918 I played a game against a Mr. Gibbs, now deceased, a member of the Imperial Chess Club, when the exact position diagrammed by the Belgian Master was reached and the same conclusion arrived at. I can even recollect the exact moves of the game which may perhaps be of some interest to your readers, though my imagination suggests that my dream game was analysed by the late Amos Burn in The Field in, or about, December of the year mentioned. Assuredly, there is nothing new under the sun! </i></blockquote>
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<i>Yours faithfully, </i></blockquote>
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<i>C. WREFORD BROWN </i></blockquote>
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<i>62 Pelham Court, S. W. 3 </i></blockquote>
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<i>21st August, 1939</i></blockquote>
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Edward Winter has further details about Wreford-Brown in <a href="http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter30.html#cn_4793" target="_blank">CN 4793</a>. Here is the game which Wreford-Brown refers to above.<br />
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=847$zlax9Rvgu2UJgX5YA4Yu1BHAB0G3vluu9WZk4co7ZYnz1bdbT$t6v2LX9pNmuAVJT3e1BHA_e0G3vmXZ7AXZRt1uu2Yjeguetuo3uxBHz4AVvs$HX5ppuwVaM6Q1Y6u2_7vX9pNmheQZkD3nXD9pNgpZmf9ZQLjQzGRgtKKAVID3MvEG84xTxIyWQxf7LTOv0Tt$e2LEG84xTxIyXmBU73eKlDX9pNgnJ7GpZZmFRu4V04wHX9pNloXKuj7uvQHxf78X5H4UZfjQzHOUtZDh0oZZtkybXKkRgX_4coabZmKF3eKl8$z99n$nL4b1BHABuaSQ1uXgX_2u9L7LEG8oCNYYfC_3ueLSNEYVM73wgi$25$EvjQzHOUtZDgQuW7cnKf8$EG4wvfi33Q1$fbzN0Frwv71Ex0zJfsn$$71EFb$wrtmfbANc$yt78mt7aXb_xOM76SMrgoXZRgY1nnJ7G$ol$GV_0VbLytM0XPgY0wO0LtwKwig_uVb$yt78mt7P14MUs$kcgL33Q5Yfj0nhFm7SlB7r06h5_grzU$T308VwdFm7bD1$CJuDJirvMvfcgz08TvN$fbi30crvO$fVg1LnBDcv32k8F$Fzg0I$vqoj4ZZ7_28FKLY6Fj0$kYuvY0wO0M_f4Wj5T10IQhUZwRFm7bj0nckaC_Da_bZmKF3eZxZ5y0fUz6j994uT32$10$lmF0M_CX9Z6M7i24M4nX_vlt2cceMf5kw_XKuj7_vXHqKKBKco4VaM6Q1Y6u2_7zoTbPP_2Pq$nryftwEup4uGfogh_Y41eGt29LtyeRnuP5e9a4v0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>
One or two other Wreford-Brown snippets: I found reference (<i>Falkirk Herald</i>, 20 June 1928) to him drawing a game with Alekhine in a blindfold simul at the Gambit Café, London, in 1928. Once again, like Amundsen to my Scott, only now do I find that Edward Winter has got there first: he found the score of the game in the <i>Brooklyn Daily Eagle</i> and posted it in his <a href="http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter119.html#8700._Alekhine_v_Wreford_Brown" target="_blank">CN 8700</a>.<br />
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<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=898$zlax9RvltXeBvQDKK83yb22Uuz9pNln5Hh0oYXGKUjjQzyWQxf7LU2v4d$jr4coaKNYmr16wilh_CvQxfado32CvNE$Y5rN8mNJNewilh1NYfdvmXZ7AXZRt1uu2Yjeguetuo3uxBHAPyYuAp05q7e5q74co7IuaD33DnjQzGRgtKKAVID4LDjQzxMrglMYVM73nrwL1C$9d1BHzlax9ReMtqzviXbeAZfEG84xTxIGWUtGoXmD3l5OLEG8oCNYYfwZ2lN8$vCLpLmCU0ilhOeAWVw74CWUUlbONYmo6OXjQzHOUtZDfZYnz1fDwv4b$fj9pNloXKuj8_M6OXcXG$y1BHABuaSQ1uXgX_2u9CSG3vh43b$Ev11wilhOeAWVw6k_HvQxY$y1BHl500bgKj7009WQ$Nm7n1cTvpJYgv328bxC7P1$x7v8ajr01TXJvC7904bfbAN6$fcgxL7wj2vgPwD5pRk0A$f3Ax4MUs0y$voW32epvN$fckaj2khM0B$vpE1KPdQ7k0H$v88xMQG35P16sDvoez5T15BgSRS7bj1dZRp0zJfoL3dPg2KIfnr10xnyIsTw1v75FAOXHiFAN3501q7VAIN3704Np7WI37n16lyfVCF3n06pWg6pWg1c$yEbfWWj7T1dzg$Mca34$v8WjsFg37r0$kh7wSp7fd02EbfbCN59$yR7hQ22$wQ8zdEVwx$grzp6p5_fMv4ANp7siQ2b$xU7P4_BuaSQ16_f3ZZZ2HxXG0YTczmDatiN76DbdyeN_7KfnrwLefSXBh3r2P4LqNNZ5r9jjvVlRe_eIM_0Aq3uuT_DbRftbRfHl$0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>
The following year Wreford-Brown went one better, defeating Sultan Khan in a simul (source: <i>The Observer</i>, 29 Sept 1929). The display was organised on behalf of St. Dunstan's the Imperial Chess Club and played at the ballroom of Grosvenor House, 28 Sept 1929. Sultan Khan's result was p33, +26, =3, -4 games (Miss W. F. Brown, F. W. Chambers, Ernest Irving and C. Wreford-Brown). Amongst his other opponents were his patron Sir <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malik_Umar_Hayat_Khan" target="_blank">Umar Hayat Khan</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Plunkett" target="_blank">Sir Horace Plunkett</a>, the Hon. F.G.Hamilton Russell and Miss Rita Gregory, the British girl champion. The newspaper reports that "<i>Mir Sultan Khan was slow in going round his boards, and only half a dozen games had been finished between 3.15 and 6.30. Unfinished games were adjudicated at 7.30pm</i>."<br />
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<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="373" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=D91v&bscs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=1311$zlax9RvltuueNTxKOVbQZmKNf_22Uuz9pNln5Hh0oYXGKUjefmLZqzu0KogumLEG86SG3vgwN0L40L3d1BHASUtGJ02LEG8uOLpM74BaXGtkxUWNDtx_0CLEG80otD6faZu3hZuqe0eKwZF6DKCKeHxeMilhVgZKNI$A2MwilhamNV0oOi0ilhKo4VZZmFRvlC0ilha4M4q6SG3vgwN0L40L3d1BHzlax9ReMtqzviXbeAZfEG84xTxIGWUtGoXmD3l5OLEG4wvgK3qU1$gi32q9wv75DN1py$7SF0zPJgD33M$g1DT13BfbQN1vfbBg32epwL3cblayNV0L717N3Ifof33FAFdQhQ0y$we3sFzN270$klJf4ke35n16Bf3AF2n0$hh71tLHcD328HyIjzfqv7JFzx0FEHvMf7Jig2FtDbT16p5wQez56$xUU32khcZw1v7Wk7PdEH_a3504OMDsFXOY13$xUbPdEH_fwv7Jtc$iO7gv3sic2FieP7P1aCzgQ8N3r0$ROf3zp34$ldzo2GRDfT1dQhc6pE5w$T3dKbv8cCV1_OeAWVw6U_PoxYmuxY0Z22TyXegN4Qauc3ufnrvs_Xv_e3laBCU6MrgX6Dfdyb7SI0wN0L7O$LZmUlXFiUt_ynoZSNXmDpaPmTbZybmUlXG4OSAnZkwDySHzDZhloAv6NYk_qNE_CTtyUXCUjb_8J5xY4CxfmLZqzu0Kogue3uKTKHAWjtkS2uaMt8JelxOM7pYAzZZZ6NOU9bXZZuAM4uCPoGXKuz2P7ryb7SI0wN0L7qHn6D_7T6DOgvtvYx3_2TyZ2IZ2eSXuLbV$8YXeQfY5s0_$lmOSwXPgX_2P4CNE6YDaUXm0AjTXGJaT6XZ7AXZRt1uu2Ym_$yd2WUkc_p6vOZeGe3ugXSq_9zkH_vuzu3le0CXc_luu9MB0CP0XeKeDOmMtYpaCK9wVbLbZycuCSF3xYzKk2xlH6DHXhbQZk05s0CvoGTu0HGu9GdGSWXBljtkS4Z2eSXs2lY5tu3iZu4TegoTz0evQvOYV3LOW99et6OrcXF1aX5ugBaXGtkxUWNH2_OYn_NZ6X0AniZ29ELZZmFWwTb_wGWOWqXegUmru9U4V6Ko8gVc_oJgl3_2TyZ6KqwDw4nh29wCWMcG5xl6U19LL0IgUmrr$Mf30XFz5k2eSxqweLZ7_vuzu3yRL_aYwFtHirtI0f59cMX12JoXKuj7uXHeOM7mceNexTyTefvs5ngKp22z2KXuP96ya4v0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe></p>
Wreford-Brown met Alekhine socially on at least one other occasion: here's a link to a <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/arch30c.htm" target="_blank">1932 photo</a> on BritBase showing them together at a soirée given by Sir Umar Hayat Khan.<br />
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Most of the above covers known ground but here's something of which I was hitherto unaware. Though I knew that Wreford-Brown had played a few games of first-class cricket, the following (from the Times, 27 April 1885) came as a surprise...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGqbLscjsBlBYGRuQxxtxJTXRbrSLdOGzIvvsM5Zh5ak6laASoYTKEB0NJTVf1zJgABI5_dx7pbcB2jx5eMmg2lyOiIqybMB8l2vyEBIq0cILncb8yi9QAVt1HF8bIPbCQtOKPZF4Ib0/s1600/1885-04-27+Wreford-Brown+dismisses+WG+Grace.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="734" data-original-width="628" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTGqbLscjsBlBYGRuQxxtxJTXRbrSLdOGzIvvsM5Zh5ak6laASoYTKEB0NJTVf1zJgABI5_dx7pbcB2jx5eMmg2lyOiIqybMB8l2vyEBIq0cILncb8yi9QAVt1HF8bIPbCQtOKPZF4Ib0/s400/1885-04-27+Wreford-Brown+dismisses+WG+Grace.jpg" width="341" /></a></div>
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Not first-class cricket, of course, but six wickets—including that of the legendary <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._G._Grace" target="_blank">WG Grace</a>— makes for remarkable reading. The stuff of schoolboy daydreams... 1885, dismisses WG Grace, 1890s captains the England football team, and in the 1920s, gets a draw with the world chess champion Alexander Alekhine. Incidentally, that's by no means the end of his cricketing successes: Wreford-Brown went on to dismiss WG Grace in other higher status matches, including in both innings of an Oxford University versus MCC match in 1888. The legendary Doctor probably preferred having Wreford-Brown on his own team: they played alongside each other for Gloucestershire in the late 1880s, when the entry 'c Wreford-Brown b W.G. Grace' featured on the scorecard. I'll leave others to trawl through newspaper records of Wreford-Brown's physical sports exploits – there's a huge amount of material to plough through.</div>
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Back on the soccer pitch, 1899 brings us another tantalising piece of '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_of_the_Rovers" target="_blank">Roy of the Rovers</a>' material. Wikipedia has a page on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/England%E2%80%93Germany_football_rivalry" target="_blank">England vs Germany football rivalry</a> and here is their introductory sentence about its earliest origins:</div>
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T<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Football_Association" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="The Football Association">he Football Association</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> instigated a four-game tour of Germany and Austria by a representative England team in November 1899. The England team played a representative German team in Berlin on 23 November 1899. The German side lost 13–2. Two days later a slightly altered German side lost 10–2. The third and fourth matches were played in </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Prague">Prague</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> and </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsruhe" style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Karlsruhe">Karlsruhe</a><span face="sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: 14px;"> against a combined Austrian and German side, and England won 6–0 and 7–0. Those games cannot be considered as "official" because the German federation (DFB) was not founded until 28 January 1900.</span></blockquote>
Like to have a guess as to the captain of the English representative squad which pummelled the Germans by 13-2?...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5khAgZsrJvNnbMb8iikvFH_NrXdoUdlMnrKljh2TVyU5ukEbXdzQIPW4g23MxfV6_1qj8gB16q14NZm_cxY6gcEkX-gxeAK8GN1qEwMac_k33msYWJMizKisNghmcL40PCNVtqbTHgM/s1600/1899+Wreford-Brown+captains+England+v+Germany.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="618" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5khAgZsrJvNnbMb8iikvFH_NrXdoUdlMnrKljh2TVyU5ukEbXdzQIPW4g23MxfV6_1qj8gB16q14NZm_cxY6gcEkX-gxeAK8GN1qEwMac_k33msYWJMizKisNghmcL40PCNVtqbTHgM/s400/1899+Wreford-Brown+captains+England+v+Germany.jpg" width="362" /></a></div>
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Yes, of course, it's our man again – and I'm beginning to think I was quite wrong in not putting him alongside Bobby Moore in the football hall of fame. If England's hero of the 1966 World Cup had ever written a series of books called <i>My Great Predecessors</i>, he would surely have had to make Charles Wreford-Brown the subject of Chapter One. </div>
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<i>But wait!</i>... this particular <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripping_Yarns" target="_blank">Ripping Yarn</a> turns out to be a mirage. Despite being appointed captain of the team for these matches, when the time came to travel <a href="http://www.englandfootballonline.com/Seas1872-00/1899-1900/UM008Ger1899.html" target="_blank">Wreford-Brown was indisposed and had to stay at home</a>. It's like <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/football/2002/apr/11/newsstory.sport3" target="_blank">David Beckham's metatarsal all over again, isn't it</a>? Our beautiful dream of Wreford-Brown orchestrating England's very first defeat of a German football team is just that - a dream. Replacing him in the team was his younger brother Oswald. So, sadly, we can't add another improbable laurel to Charles' already bulging collection. Even more sadly, brother Oswald's next encounter with the Germans was tragic as <a href="https://www.gloscricket.co.uk/news/remembering-captain-oswald-eric-wreford-brown/" target="_blank">he died during the Battle of the Somme in 1916</a>.</div>
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OK, I'm going to stop looking things up in <i>The Times</i> now for fear of finding even more remarkable achievements by Charles Wreford-Brown. Did he win the Boer War singlehandedly? Or the 1925 Euro-wireless Song Contest with an impeccable rendition of <i>Come into the Garden, Maud</i>? If he did, someone else will have to do the googling. And the really funny thing is that, when I sat down to write this post, I had no intention of writing more than a couple of sentences about him. Then I was going to say a little about another famous grandmaster of football and chess—Simen Agdestein— and that would lead neatly into a little bit of new information I had gleaned about a third chess player who had some distinction as a footballer. Champagne Charlie Wreford-Brown has rather stolen the show. But let's move on...</div>
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SIMEN AGDESTEIN</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvolxMLD7IFIxAldIfFeZ7gRY2UaJEwAKuZ6ycFkxAd3eOG8xHvX5D-DI_LvhSxENb9ahKQvvpkXsgV2GBFYC6-eXh5sJFAQwubmvgSPSLN4O1otmU2AKh9Cpt7A5rmYlYE0cfqktMk0/s1600/2008agdestein-js.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="665" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisvolxMLD7IFIxAldIfFeZ7gRY2UaJEwAKuZ6ycFkxAd3eOG8xHvX5D-DI_LvhSxENb9ahKQvvpkXsgV2GBFYC6-eXh5sJFAQwubmvgSPSLN4O1otmU2AKh9Cpt7A5rmYlYE0cfqktMk0/s320/2008agdestein-js.jpg" title="Simen Agdestein, 2008, Gibraltar" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Simen Agdestein, Gibraltar 2008</td></tr>
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I'm going to skip lightly over <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simen_Agdestein" target="_blank">Simen Agdestein</a> and let Wikipedia take the strain, mainly because I've got nothing new to say about him. I've no doubt that, objectively, Simen was ten times the footballer that Wreford-Brown was, and a hundred times the chess player—and perhaps a thousand times more influential and important in the development of chess as an early coach to the young Magnus Carlsen—but comparisons between people of different eras are inherently unfair. Both chess and football have developed out of all recognition in the past century, with modern-day practitioners being more technically proficient as a result of advances in communications, technology and sports science. I could tell you a few stories about what a lovely chap Simen is, the work he has done for Norwegian chess and how he likes Monty Python but I think I'll move on to write about another footballing chess player. By all means click on the above link to Simen's Wikipedia page and learn about his grandmaster title, his international caps for Norway and time playing for Lyn Oslo in the Norwegian League – and be amazed. Given the level of dedication required to pursue either discipline to such a high level, these are truly incredible achievements. That he has since become so influential as a chess coach and teacher, and in the course of this work transformed the climate for chess in his own country makes it all the more remarkable.<br />
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JOHN WILLIAM NAYLOR</h3>
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After a ludicrously long intro, I've finally arrived at the original point of this blog post. My intention had been to say not too much about Wreford-Brown and Agdestein and their chess/soccer achievements before retailing a few newly-unearthed tidbits about another soccer-playing chesser whose name popped up whilst I was researching the British Chess Championships of the 1950s and 1960s. But I got rather carried away with Wreford-Brown. I hope this doesn't detract from the memory of the man I'm about to discuss. True, his achievements in the two fields of endeavour may not match those of the two gentlemen discussed above, but they are still quite interesting.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg60-fn_YBNW13dNeKKaAUEFrmJyWzloTxxqBdydRaNjm7DFtYlN8-hVo0wNH2gmZS7HODZFsMz_LYWven-yP00MirB8Taf78kNFLpgGfiACEzJyixqO2zrTLk8r5mRfU2x74T9b0RDTiE/s1600/1936-12+JW+Naylor+in+goal+for+Oxford+v+Cambridge+at+Highbury.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="889" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg60-fn_YBNW13dNeKKaAUEFrmJyWzloTxxqBdydRaNjm7DFtYlN8-hVo0wNH2gmZS7HODZFsMz_LYWven-yP00MirB8Taf78kNFLpgGfiACEzJyixqO2zrTLk8r5mRfU2x74T9b0RDTiE/s400/1936-12+JW+Naylor+in+goal+for+Oxford+v+Cambridge+at+Highbury.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Friday 18 December 1936</span></td></tr>
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This line of enquiry started with a triviality. I wanted to discover the forename(s) of JW Naylor, who played in the British Chess Championships of 1957, 1959 and 1960. One thing that irks me about old magazine and newspaper reports is the use of initials with surnames. It makes it so hard to compile biographical information about players when you can only find references to them as (say) D.A. Smith (and then find there are two D.A. Smiths playing at the same congress). That said, there are disadvantages to the modern naming convention, too; first name and surname are given, but middle names and initials are cast to the winds. Trying to find more info about someone called David Smith is as bad as someone called D. A. Smith, in fact a lot of the time it is worse. But enough already...<br />
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I scoured the internet to no avail for JW Naylor's forenames and then did what I should have done in the first place – checked my existing notes. There was his full name amongst my Varsity chess match notes, gleaned from the late Jeremy Gaige's booklet listing the results of all these matches from 1873 to 1987 (and for the full names I think I have ultimately to thank the estimable Timothy G Whitworth who did the name research for Gaige, and sent me the booklet). </div>
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<b>John William Naylor </b>was at Exeter College, Oxford, and played on board five (and lost) for Oxford when they had lost 3-4 to Cambridge in the 1937 Varsity chess match. I went on to discover that he was born in Steyning, Sussex, in 1916, the son of <a href="https://www.oldashburton.co.uk/mr-naylors-enterprises.php" target="_blank">Henry Naylor</a>, who was a schoolmaster there and later at Ashburton in Devon, where Naylor snr set up his own school and Naylor jnr and his siblings were educated. John Naylor became a schoolteacher himself, teaching modern languages in Wellingborough, with his father in Ashburton for a while after the war, then later in Liverpool, West Ham, Ilkley and Leeds, judging from his places of residence given when he competed in chess tournaments or as per the grading list.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Le6ousAof6VUqI9PbDnujEsqp-9_pvM8kWk78bzEOQs5a1-16hjftNMus_qHdNVLuY-Bk7nz0lpYvaySd-IPhGnoLDWJYL0NnfeIol7_w0Ge37lgwko_cniMaVg7R3FP7EHsgmrNTtA/s1600/1937-10-28+JW+Naylor+goalie+for+Oxford+University.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="880" data-original-width="1225" height="452" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4Le6ousAof6VUqI9PbDnujEsqp-9_pvM8kWk78bzEOQs5a1-16hjftNMus_qHdNVLuY-Bk7nz0lpYvaySd-IPhGnoLDWJYL0NnfeIol7_w0Ge37lgwko_cniMaVg7R3FP7EHsgmrNTtA/s640/1937-10-28+JW+Naylor+goalie+for+Oxford+University.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Birmingham Daily Gazette - Friday 29 October 1937. It's easy to spot a goalkeeper - different shirt.</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj533Fcw19BR1ZXF3zzjejSnHaCLFFkPDrMqzPaTSJ1MUb4aooIO_u8jnmHG0JYxB3WemUtNTRXYw_xQjLOqzmhiLe30Q9VxU2gG3lPyOaodYRjoY6Ld3q5TFA9rR0IOaAtn4nAOu6ZuwU/s1600/1937-12+JW+Naylor+in+goal+at+Highbury.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="1263" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj533Fcw19BR1ZXF3zzjejSnHaCLFFkPDrMqzPaTSJ1MUb4aooIO_u8jnmHG0JYxB3WemUtNTRXYw_xQjLOqzmhiLe30Q9VxU2gG3lPyOaodYRjoY6Ld3q5TFA9rR0IOaAtn4nAOu6ZuwU/s640/1937-12+JW+Naylor+in+goal+at+Highbury.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Friday 17 December 1937</span></td></tr>
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Naylor was obviously quite a strong player as it would have been very difficult to qualify for the (typically) 30 to 36-player British Chess Championships of the 1950s and 1960s without being of around 2200 (Elo) / 200 (BCF/ECF) standard rating/grade. He was consistently a tad below that. In 1961 he was category 4a, equating to 193-200. I found a few grades for him in the late 1960s and early 1970s, from 191 to 197, and he disappears from the list in 1971.<br />
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Naylor did not make a big impact on his three appearances in the British Chess Championship, making 5/11 (1957), 2½/11 (1959) and 5½/11 (1960) but two of those aren't bad scores by any means. In 1967 he scored 6½/11 in the Major Open and then 7½/11 in 1969 in Rhyl.</div>
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His last hurrah was a very creditable 7½/11 in the 1976 Major Open in Portsmouth. He didn't play in 1977 or 1978 but I noticed his listing as an associate member of the federation in both the 1977/78 and 1978/79 BCF yearbooks showing his place of residence as Tripoli. His name didn't appear in the 1979/80 yearbook. There is a statutory record for a John William Naylor having died in Ewell, Surrey, in 1978, and I fear that may be him, but I cannot be absolutely sure I have the right man.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6aU7o1GA3rnMqEhq_M9TEEgtGJAo0RUzpCioFyO06RAdUceaQt5fikyadCX99tExGXLJt_nq91AWNmptaPtJEjhMnqPhnS5UFkRqT4N6Y9n2FypRMg-uhOhkPZRnwx8z4HMGjiR_lsw/s1600/1938+JW+Naylor+goalie+for+Oxford+University.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="949" data-original-width="1313" height="288" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk6aU7o1GA3rnMqEhq_M9TEEgtGJAo0RUzpCioFyO06RAdUceaQt5fikyadCX99tExGXLJt_nq91AWNmptaPtJEjhMnqPhnS5UFkRqT4N6Y9n2FypRMg-uhOhkPZRnwx8z4HMGjiR_lsw/s400/1938+JW+Naylor+goalie+for+Oxford+University.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - Friday 09 December 1938</span></td></tr>
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It was when I cast my search net a bit wider that I discovered that John Naylor was a footballer. He won blues for the sport at Oxford in each of the four seasons 1935/36 to 1938/39, with the Cambridge match being held at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_Stadium" target="_blank">Highbury</a> on each of the first three occasions. He was a goalkeeper and gets mentioned in press reports on a number of occasions. Like Wreford-Brown before him he was a player for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinthian_F.C." target="_blank">Corinthians FC</a> and represented them in the FA Cup at a time when they were still a formidable side (and not the below-par team I used to watch being thrashed by Wycombe Wanderers in the 1960s). So there's another possible pub quiz question for you to torture your friends with, particularly the Arsenal supporters – "who played in three British Chess Championships, and also three representative football matches at Highbury?"<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Incidentally, it might seem like statement of the blindingly obvious, but, just to avoid confusion, this is a completely different John Naylor<sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*</span></sup> from the current English chess player of that name who is in his early forties. I don't think he's ever played football at Highbury. I could be wrong, of course. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That's about it, really. Except for some nice photos of John Naylor from his footballing days.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*</span></sup> sadly, since writing this piece the younger John Naylor has died aged only 48. <a href="https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=10984" target="_blank">Link to a thread about him at the English Chess Forum</a>.</span></div>
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John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-32118379504075651512018-04-26T16:43:00.001+01:002018-04-26T17:58:16.877+01:00J A M Osborn, 1935 British Chess ChampionshipWhile I was researching the <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/193507bcf-viewer.html" target="_blank">1935 British Chess Championship</a>, I came upon this nice photo on Getty images...<br />
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<a class="gie-single" href="http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/526755961" id="F0aGknxATglTE3OKVZWzfg" style="border: none; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Embed from Getty Images</a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'F0aGknxATglTE3OKVZWzfg',sig:'jjt02qrVwwv8AAz5lTzLFDIlWzgM-dM0iY4QvB8wza0=',w:'594px',h:'463px',items:'526755961',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});</script><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embed-cdn.gettyimages.com/widgets.js"></script><br />
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This is J A M Osborn, from British Guiana (as it then was), who played in the First Class B section and scored 4½/11. Does anyone know his forenames? The photo is dated 11 July 1935.<br />
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There is also a photo of Sir George Thomas from the same congress in Great Yarmouth...<br />
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<a class="gie-single" href="http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/575434347" id="cqXtIlFGSaJPI4EogeYvQg" style="border: none; color: #a7a7a7; display: inline-block; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Embed from Getty Images</a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'cqXtIlFGSaJPI4EogeYvQg',sig:'8fCLA24gfM3JCIOCfxL3oBk3V3P9zrmDMK5RV8UlBdM=',w:'438px',h:'594px',items:'575434347',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});</script><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//embed-cdn.gettyimages.com/widgets.js"></script>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-66632928573404368482018-04-04T14:05:00.005+01:002024-02-07T13:05:30.947+00:00Winning with the Reverse IAGOCOTLike the snappy title? It's a parody of all those chess opening book titles from the 1980s onwards and a cynical attempt to boost clicks on this post by luring in opening obsessives to see what they're missing. (OK, three days too late for April Fool's Day but I've never been good with deadlines.)<br />
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<span style="color: red;">1. IAGOCOT - "<b><u>I</u></b>t's <b><u>A</u></b> <b><u>G</u></b>ame <b><u>O</u></b>f <b><u>C</u></b>hess <b><u>O</u></b>ut <b><u>T</u></b>here"</span></div>
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For the uninitiated, IAGOCOT is not a chess opening. (There will now be a slight pause as we wait for the disappointed people hoping to learn something new about chess openings as they leave the blog. The rest of you are still interested, right?) It is an acronym standing for "<i>it's a game of chess out there</i>" and coined by famed chess writers Mike Fox and <a href="http://www.richardjames.org.uk/index.htm" target="_blank">Richard James</a> in their legendary column in <a href="https://www.chess.co.uk/chess-magazine/" target="_blank">CHESS Magazine</a>, and later their book <i>The Even More Complete Chess Addict</i> (a wonderful read and still available second-hand all over the internet) as a tribute to all those sports commentators who insist on comparing chess with whatever it is they are reporting on (usually football).<br />
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Listen out next time you watch sport on TV, and when you hear the commentator make a comparison with chess (usually during a particularly boring passage of play when nothing much is happening and they are getting desperate for something to talk about) leap to your feet and triumphantly exclaim "ha! IAGOCOT!" Of course, if you're watching with any non-chess friends, they will think you've gone completely bonkers but, hey, if they already know you're a competition chess player, they'll think you're mad anyway.<br />
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Richard James, writing <a href="https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?t=3637#p76332" target="_blank">here</a>, gives full credit for the creation of this splendid meme to his late colleague Mike Fox: "IAGOCOT was coined by the late Mike Fox and used extensively in Addicts' Corner in CHESS over many years. Eventually we wound it down... because there was just too much." That's the thing - barely a sports broadcast goes by without a reference to chess.<br />
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So IAGOCOTs aren't really news any more. For a while we chess observers cast around desperately for what might be loosely termed a semi-IAGOCOT - any ludicrous or inappropriate chess/sport comparison made by a sports person, not necessarily a commentator or writer. The ultimate accolade in this category has to go to German footballer Lukas Podolski and his legendary "<i>Football is like chess, only without the dice</i>." As Sam Goldwyn might have said (but didn't), it's not possible to improve on perfect imperfection. Thus the semi-IAGOCOT became obsolete, much as political satire did when Henry Kissinger received the Nobel Peace Prize (Tom Lehrer really did say that one).<br />
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<span style="color: red;">2. Reverse IAGOCOT (or should that be TOCOGAI?) </span></div>
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But what about the <b>Reverse IAGOCOT</b>? By that I mean comparisons made by chess writers to other games and sports in their game annotations and commentaries. The thought came to me when I was browsing chess columns in old newspapers and came across a real <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doosra" target="_blank">doosra</a> of a reverse IAGOCOT. You see what I did there? I just can't help myself. Let's not pretend that we chess scribblers are any different when it comes to dreaming up absurd sporting comparisons. I'm sure I've done it dozens, if not hundreds, of times and will continue to do so unashamedly until someone comes to wrest this computer keyboard from my cold, dead hands (I think I might be quoting Charlton Heston this time but I'm not sure).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FcfFkwMia1sov5h-xDPXIwBZvKtgMpG-os-He8dffLybEXQ_kBMA6GRhW7f7JHuvMqpMwdKaa6oMIYh5JxYPocgVjCCeTbj3CXPDDt0a9utpVuU1wqOLDSKdvZVWAypvv8WIyYuNr3E/s1600/1981_dw_anderton_bh_wood.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="470" data-original-width="700" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8FcfFkwMia1sov5h-xDPXIwBZvKtgMpG-os-He8dffLybEXQ_kBMA6GRhW7f7JHuvMqpMwdKaa6oMIYh5JxYPocgVjCCeTbj3CXPDDt0a9utpVuU1wqOLDSKdvZVWAypvv8WIyYuNr3E/s640/1981_dw_anderton_bh_wood.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>BH Wood (right) tries a Reverse IAGOCOT on David Anderton in 1981</i></div>
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Here's the founding editor of CHESS Magazine, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baruch_Harold_Wood" target="_blank">Baruch H Wood</a>, writing in the <i>Illustrated London News</i> of 25 August 1956.<br />
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In May 1952 I observed, of a game I had given here: "This has a good claim to be regarded as the most remarkable game of chess ever played.” It was the game between Edward Lasker and Sir George Thomas in which Lasker drew his opponent’s king right across the board, finally mating it on his own back rank. The game will certainly bear repetition... </blockquote>
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<i>[JS note: here BHW gives the score of the 1912 game Ed.Lasker-Thomas but I'm not going to reproduce it here as most chess players will have seen it dozens of times already - <a href="http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1259009" target="_blank">here's a link to a play-through</a> if you want to refresh your memory of what happened the important thing to reiterate is that White drives Black's king right across the board to his own back rank before delivering mate]</i>. </blockquote>
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It has been done again. Though certain features are missing which must be considered as unlikely ever to be seen again as Jim Laker’s nineteen wickets in a Test — for instance the queen sacrifice and the delicious concluding move "Castles, mate" — the new game has entire originality and some piquant features.</blockquote>
There you have a reverse IAGOCOT: BH Wood compares the legendary <a href="http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/laskerthomas.html" target="_blank">Ed.Lasker-Thomas game</a> to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2013/may/13/20-great-ashes-moments-jim-laker" target="_blank">English cricketer Jim Laker taking 19 Australian wickets in Manchester at the end of July 1956</a>, i.e. only a matter of weeks before BHW's article was published and thus highly topical. Apologies to non-cricket-savvy readers trying to make sense of this but this record is perhaps the most remarkable in cricket history - and still stands to this day.<br />
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That wasn't the end of BH Wood's article as he proceeds to present the 'new' game he refers to which, as far as I can tell, has not found its way into any databases and perhaps deserves a wider audience. The 1952 game is not nearly as good as the 1912 classic in any respect, with chess engines being decidedly sniffy about the quality of play by both sides, but you can see the common theme. The final position is quite amusing, too.<br />
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<iframe height='800' width='750' frameborder='0' scrolling='no' marginheight='0' marginwidth='0' src='https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.05/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=36&ps=d&pf=d&lcs=YeiP&dcs=AWR_&bbcs=Lb2$&hm=n&hcs=Udiz&bd=s&cbcs=YeiP&ctcs=$$$$&hd=j&md=f&tm=18&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=16&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=Qcij&fms=16&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=____&fp=18&hl=t&fh=800&fw=750&pe=1604$zlax9RvlpzNuwAfTb9pNln5Hh0oFi8Z5k2vLEG86SG3vgwRz$6wT$Xe1BHASUtGJ02LEG8uOLpM73uvLZqzu0vY4SHx4LnjQzvHKj2D4Bu0AfNE4gilhVgZKNI$y6A0ilhamNV0mRxwilhOxFKQKlZufaZZZR6D1XZmPtycgilhKo4VZZmFRvlB1BHzlax9ReKl8$y2I7$e2L0Tt4co7Hm3kIuuaQqexY$HVmLLEG8oCNYYfC_3ueLSNEYVM73wfOv4b$jL9pMnmUu9MuK4V22I7vKDZpuzu4McwVezDY1uwXh1ZwWRTi24M4nt7Z7uY$yXX5uLYU_6DiZZS4bK0wY4KAyg7u3iXZRirtuMoTz2WU_p6M0YUX6tpN81uwXhezDDXgZ_vwrgY2uaMt8H34Yp0_U_4CxfCTu3lc3HeN3kvIHuZuqyeKeLTyVe9Wyb2eDOMeCNo7eOSLZX_vbG$_t2jtyeKeLTyVcKx2Z6vOYoXSq_9zkHuU_$r5kiwX5itI6FeKCWZae3wGWOWntw7bGWa7KfeKl29EL5I6NHe0CXu2Yl5Kj2Dutk2va2XXh3_2Tz2XcAA41eGt29U4V5xtufZ7S8ncncXG3CYeCM7ZhweLZ85utuwM6MT_eu2WOZr$vKGfYUZHp7glc_9zyNuvND7eOSNYcV93ulX5kw7CGaSM6Xtu3vu0CWXbFC$_t2jtvuaSYDp84eAmTqo6McGeeTmFU0vTBgtvwrgY4KDp82Xw4nXCTbG6CXoZ22VbZX63u6ZuLF5k8nw4n6TpvrhOZ$NHtv_3uRvXHhZuf5kuRXGfzlt85qaN3kw_VyTbz5Dhe9WxOM7Ri7cfcXKuMiUlBh_nokd0YXm3vkYU_q7yXea0YVM0ftxOM7k7eTiXexfYU_04q0CM7Zu0zLNKHvQxY6AsL_Z6M7qwHRmZkI1gelmKxeL6Y0vfi1LBDf10zBfcizb0$kbfbANb$voejqQ5vfhJYfcK3r045fQF1vf3zp2_MD5GKjd$vnB4yGR76$vocz23U0A$f4kGmV$IAfnL71GHGY4QsAfo$7sho$M3Hfov7Sx$IXvR$gJEcadK3rvRvf4ka32khM0J$wrtmf4jBDbj1dWcZvau7bT10Kbwej56$yIsX_ghJZfwf3dI4uAAMdfvL75hQ4QjIfsaXeYXKxCAnuP7Gp$QDEXevNFn7eOM6M76_CX0M19LSZuRe2WUYnvZleN9R22TxIDHYVP0otD6f_tZmUqwmTuLYTJ82sXgaQ1qxOM7EUKotZ86Njlt8$rF5itI2gteV4x2$$10x7_fmWhZPthHgXuP7f1azygskaj4__e0G3xCAn6Tol5xXuP7n16pE4uDJ8F1_d_eDfL$$aaxn_M_fy$7WHSZw1$fWk7GY4Mbfwv7VfSVaIHw5$fVAGY4RPfyf75EyY4Qh5vKOJpzeX_llt7Z8uY_yZw6$fVPqY4M3fvD3dE5_Y0uUCNYYfw_P4YAzKuRutHiroYXGKUl0x2YZ6DgFbTKimKWa22IrvY$lpM_uuqxCRhXu9CY0yNxMn0'>your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe><br />
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-43086480023726919912017-12-05T12:06:00.000+00:002018-01-18T14:16:10.791+00:00Blitz Bonus to combat Drawfest Tournaments?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguyyZh1LY3ETsniZVGii20JUOiBvyMtTc2p0Q1b96hNDrgwfkt9hFABaUHjxwLBeqhQg9zDpYju_XdwBBijcaycU1z0NPH6t_fNkBLPFL3d9W589UEQ8PfSI53smQxYpY8PX78evKebAI/s1600/STANDINGS_AFTER+R3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguyyZh1LY3ETsniZVGii20JUOiBvyMtTc2p0Q1b96hNDrgwfkt9hFABaUHjxwLBeqhQg9zDpYju_XdwBBijcaycU1z0NPH6t_fNkBLPFL3d9W589UEQ8PfSI53smQxYpY8PX78evKebAI/s640/STANDINGS_AFTER+R3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Not very excited by the above results table? Me neither. Here's a quick blog post for an idea I had that I can't accommodate into a Tweet.<br />
<br />
I'm not in favour of changing chess simply because a few super-tournaments have too many draws. I think it is better to address tournament formats, time controls and the mix of players.<br />
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Here's my idea. In elite tournaments, where the players are just too damned good at defending bad positions, we allow them to play their classical games exactly as now, with the same time control and draw rules and rating changes, etc, and they score 1-½-0 as now. The difference is that every draw has to be followed by a <b>#BonusBlitz</b> tie-break match of two blitz games (further sets of two games or maybe an Armageddon if they end 1-1) for an <b>extra ½ point</b> <b>on the scoreboard for the winner</b>. The players get ushered into a special TV studio with plenty of cameras and commentators on hand so that the audience can enjoy them to the max. So the scoring system becomes 1 point (if you win the classical or the blitz decider), ½ (if you draw the classical game but lose the #BonusBlitz) and 0 (if you lose the classical game).<br />
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I'm not a statistician / mathematician / logician so I imagine there'll be holes to pick in my idea but perhaps it's worth debating. It would save us from dreary results tables like the one above. And the bonus from the spectator point of view is that you are guaranteed to see some blood spilt, come what may.<br />
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EDIT: in response to the well-made firs<span style="font-family: inherit;">t comment below <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; text-align: justify;">I'm wondering whether a point system of <b>3-2-1-0</b> might be better <b>(3 for a classical win, 2 for a blitz win, 1 for a blitz loss, 0 for classical loss)</b>.</span></span><br />
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<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-67639619925150256942017-10-10T13:19:00.000+01:002017-10-10T13:19:03.461+01:00The Great Spalding Chess Controversy of 1864Here's something I came across whilst browsing old newspapers for something entirely different...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWDMO8fm0rotFaYHXr489937BUC2ZVB17pR7R347rprhcJfO5wuOucfbGIH-hTQtAONQiQ4s5-le8cwxr-btx-DuRbyKbH3MqpgIdIFtp_tSIpKkwwkRXMISa24duB-RIqP6NcJWkhXp0/s1600/1864_spalding_chess_controversy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1106" data-original-width="405" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWDMO8fm0rotFaYHXr489937BUC2ZVB17pR7R347rprhcJfO5wuOucfbGIH-hTQtAONQiQ4s5-le8cwxr-btx-DuRbyKbH3MqpgIdIFtp_tSIpKkwwkRXMISa24duB-RIqP6NcJWkhXp0/s1600/1864_spalding_chess_controversy.jpg" /></a></div>
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From the Lincolnshire Chronicle - Friday 15 January 1864</div>
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(<i>Though,
frustratingly, the town where the Mechanics’ Institute referred to in the
following account is never explicitly mentioned, the article is part of a
larger section of news related to the town of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding,_Lincolnshire" target="_blank">Spalding, Lincolnshire</a>. So I am assuming that this is where it
took place. JS</i>)</div>
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This is an amusing tale, but perhaps also a salutary one, of what can happen when chess players more or less take over a community facility intended for more general or educational use. Elsewhere in the UK and the world at large, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics%27_Institutes" target="_blank">Mechanics Institutes</a> have proved a congenial venue for chess playing, notably in San Francisco, California, which boasts one of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanics%27_Institute_Chess_Club" target="_blank">oldest chess clubs in the world</a>, pre-dating the Spalding news story by some ten years. I believe that the Mechanics' Institute in Birmingham, UK, also used to have a thriving chess club and may still have.</div>
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Chess players depicted as 'spongers': over the years I have heard many a chess organiser complaining about how chess players want their fun on the cheap, and it would seem that this viewpoint has some age to it. Me? I'm saying nothing. But enjoy this free read...</div>
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<i>Hereafter the full text of the news clipping for those who find the small print a bit hard to make out...</i></div>
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<b>The Great Chess Controversy.</b>—The large room of the [Spalding] Mechanics’ Institute was crowded on Thursday evening [<i>either 7 or 14 January 1864</i>] with members, it being the
general annual meeting, and the exciting subject of the introduction of chess
was to be settled by vote. Mr. Cartwright was in the chair, and several leading
inhabitants of the town were present. After the usual routine business had been
gone through, Mr. Thos. Sharman said he was an old member of that institution,
and worked for it in the early years, and loved it as an assignation calculated
and intended for the use of the humbler members of society, and he strongly
objected to their subscriptions being applied to an amusement which was not
adapted for their institute. He proposed that the game of chess and draughts be
discontinued, unless paid for by those indulging in the same. Mr. Barrell
seconded, and said nine tenths of those who had indulged in this game of chess
were well able to pay for their amusement, and he should as soon have thought
of their applying for a dorcas ticket [<i>an
unfamiliar term to me but I think it must have meant something like a
charitable ticket or free pass - JS</i>] as using the funds of this society for
their own gratification. –Mr. Watson; Chess is for those who like it, but not for
those who do not.—The Rev. Mr. Jones, baptist minister, said he thought chess
had its place, but not there. Some might think a separate room for religious
periodicals desirable. This was not the place for them; they must have a wide
platform, and afford the greatest means of improvement to the largest number.
This was a class movement; if carried, it would go on throughout the county
that the party in its favour were “sponging” upon the poorer members' rights,
and would gentlemen (using the term ironically) condescend to meet the
plebeians. (Confusion.)—Mr. Elstop spoke in favour of the game of chess as an
intellectual training for the mind, and condemned the tone of the last
speaker's remarks. –The Rev. Mr. Jones explained that he was only speaking
sarcastically, and with jocular humour. Mr. Elstop had construed him too literally.
–Mr. Calthrop spoke in a conciliatory manner, and implored the members not to
divide, but endeavour to meet each others’ views.— Mr. Kingston somewhat
soothed the troubled waters, and reminded the meeting how much they had
magnified this question, and how much it was to be regretted that they could not
decide it in better feeling; he feared the outside world would laugh at their
proceedings. – Mr. Crust and Mr. Donington spoke in favour of the proposition. –Mr.
Fountain proposed an amendment that chess be continued. —Dr. Ball seconded the
amendment.—The votes were taken, when there appeared—59 for the amendment, for
chess, and 72 for Mr. Sharman’s proposition, against it. The anti-chessmen
received this decision with tremendous cheering.</div>
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Mechanics’ Institute.—Adjourned Meeting —Since the meeting
on Thursday evening, a strong canvas has been made by the chess and anti-chess
members (as they now style themselves, which names had better for the good of
the institution be discontinued) on behalf of candidates for the post of
committeeman. Voting papers were issued on both sides. On Tuesday evening last,
the members met (by adjournment) for the election of officers. The following
officers were unanimously and with acclamation elected:—Mr. F. A. Cartwright (president),
Mr. Stubbs (hon. sec.), Mr. Cunningham (librarian), Mr. Tidswell (auditor), Mr.
Wm. Cammack (treasurer), Mr. Spencer and Mr. Atton (assistant librarians). For
the vice-presidentship four names were proposed, viz.,—Mr. W. Willmott, Mr. Geo.
Barrell, Mr. Saml. Kingston, and Mr. Watkinson. The result of the voting showed
that Mr. Kingston and Mr. Willmott were elected. There were then 18 parties
proposed, out of which eight committee-men were to be elected. The following
seven were elected by the first voting paper:– Messrs. Fountain, Ball, Crust,
Sharman, Long, Cave, and Squires. The votes being equal, viz., 51 each, for
Messrs. Watson, Woodrow, and Dawson, a second voting took place, which resulted
in the election of Mr. Watson.—A vote of thanks was given to the president and
officers of the past year, and the meeting terminated.</div>
John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-20518296511981848762016-10-27T16:30:00.002+01:002016-10-27T16:35:50.996+01:00Educating The RookieGuardian journalist Stephen Moss has written a book about his personal chess quest, called 'The Rookie' (Bloomsbury, 2016). Stephen learnt chess when he was at school but put it aside after university. Like so many other ex-players, he still had a hankering for the game and wondered whether he 'could have been a contender'. The book tells the tale of his re-entry to the world of chess, including his own chessboard triumphs and disasters, and his meetings with the game's great names.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcqjwL-qkEvM_z7dX6vRtjwaN-uAOx7tXZJAcOg88q1-tXKN4c3pZWqPhLB3UnpLihDWztXihDRpb02STzfPAxCx6LNctHuY3quLnMqXp7OvLjdg8aLTytshox9fEpmihMRGQApyVxCw/s1600/2009-moss-carlsen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDcqjwL-qkEvM_z7dX6vRtjwaN-uAOx7tXZJAcOg88q1-tXKN4c3pZWqPhLB3UnpLihDWztXihDRpb02STzfPAxCx6LNctHuY3quLnMqXp7OvLjdg8aLTytshox9fEpmihMRGQApyVxCw/s400/2009-moss-carlsen.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>Stephen Moss goes head-to-head with world chess champion Magnus Carlsen in 2009</i></div>
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Link to a Guardian review of the book: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/27/the-rookie-stephen-moss-review-an-odyssey-through-chess-and-life">https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/27/the-rookie-stephen-moss-review-an-odyssey-through-chess-and-life</a><br />
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Link to a place where you can buy the book: <a href="http://www.chess.co.uk/rookie-odyssey-chess-life-stephen-moss/">http://www.chess.co.uk/rookie-odyssey-chess-life-stephen-moss/</a><br />
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I played a part in Stephen's quest as his chess coach. He and I only lived a few streets away from each other, so over the years I became his 'local GP' who attended to his chess ailments, while he also consulted a few 'Harley Street specialists' in the form of grandmasters such as Nigel Short, Stuart Conquest, Vladislav Tkachiev, etc. Hence I was referred to in the book as 'Doc Saunders'.<br />
<br />
I've written about my part in Stephen's quest in the September 2016 copy of CHESS Magazine. The article may be found here online: <a href="http://www.chess.co.uk/downloads/chess-magazine-september-2016-sample.pdf">http://www.chess.co.uk/downloads/chess-magazine-september-2016-sample.pdf</a>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-15412771648199270342016-06-30T10:34:00.001+01:002016-06-30T10:46:38.853+01:00Brexit Chess TweetI like to post what I am pleased to think of as chess-related witticisms on Twitter now and again, and when I saw something amusing on Peter Doggers' (of chess.com) Facebook page relating #Brexit to the English opening, it gave me an idea and I quickly knocked up the following graphic...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0iJfR_ree_H59g7aOU77fmUMCi1P3Hi8a6BnArktyrE37GiaUkQzbUINf_Tn5Ic3mLu2UMDH9Nce4oaB00y-3cV1VmjIQVEQkkX_6ge2rEE0HO4L_hv1nohheyL9GvlJsA-Hmh8yJFs/s1600/brexit_chess.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0iJfR_ree_H59g7aOU77fmUMCi1P3Hi8a6BnArktyrE37GiaUkQzbUINf_Tn5Ic3mLu2UMDH9Nce4oaB00y-3cV1VmjIQVEQkkX_6ge2rEE0HO4L_hv1nohheyL9GvlJsA-Hmh8yJFs/s1600/brexit_chess.jpg" /></a></div>
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It's a simple idea. The English opening, 1.c4, happens to open up a diagonal for the white queen (which I am using to represent HM Queen Elizabeth of England), so I show her exiting the board (representing the EU) on the following turn to an imaginary square beyond the d1-a4 diagonal. Took me ten minutes to knock it together and put it on Twitter.<br />
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I'm usually pleased if my little jokes get half a dozen retweets and a similar number of 'likes'. I think I might have had as many as 20 or 30 retweets on a good day. But, by those modest standards, this one proved positively viral - 675 retweets to date, and 733 likes, without me doing anything to promote it (well, until this blog post). It has been translated into other languages, and had people arguing over what the symbols represent (it has entered a wider, non-chess-literate sphere). Hat tip to Peter Doggers for prompting the idea. Still slightly gobsmacked that it struck such a chord with people.<br />
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-16698216984160258972016-02-23T11:55:00.001+00:002016-03-23T00:27:40.100+00:00Chess Snippet No.3: Mir Sultan Khan (1905-66)From the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, 13 August 1929, page 4<br />
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An interesting snippet about Mir Sultan Khan (1905-66), who had just won the <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/192907bcf-viewer.html" target="_blank">1929 British Chess Championship</a>:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAlynZhPAgX2oJ2vWWc9-BIerqmRVWZuuIMPO4w7dr54LvbUPxV5YUHc4hJABIO1YbFHgi-wlHIsXifDxLxVTmsHQdXTl4d4xkMW7F6equ_Ij5b6ix42AIMIVQUcgvr4Ng38sN2god34/s1600/1929_sultan_khan_guardian.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxAlynZhPAgX2oJ2vWWc9-BIerqmRVWZuuIMPO4w7dr54LvbUPxV5YUHc4hJABIO1YbFHgi-wlHIsXifDxLxVTmsHQdXTl4d4xkMW7F6equ_Ij5b6ix42AIMIVQUcgvr4Ng38sN2god34/s400/1929_sultan_khan_guardian.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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Transcription follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The New Chess Champion.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Hafiz Mian Sultan Khan, the new British chess champion and first Indian to win the distinction, is "the son of Mir Nizamuddin, the religious leader of Mitha Tiwana, in the Shahpur district of the Punjab. He is 24 years of age, and has spent the greater part of his youth in learning the Koran by heart, so effectively that he has earned the title of "Hafiz," accorded to one able to repeat from memory the whole of the Koran. He has nine brothers, all of whom are advanced players of chess.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Colonel Malik Nawab Sir Umar Hayat Khan Tiwana, who belongs to the same district as Sultan Khan, took a great interest in him because of the remarkable aptitude he showed whenever he played a game with the Nawab. The Nawab therefore organised a special all-India tournament, which Sultan Khan won. The new champion does not speak English, and consequently he cannot read any book written on the subject of chess. There are no chess books in the vernacular of his country. Sir Umar therefore engaged an English tutor to teach him the English moves of the game, as the Indian moves differ from the English. During the tournament at Ramsgate Sultan Khan, who contracted malaria in India, developed such a high temperature that it was considered necessary to scratch him, but he refused to submit to the ruling and persisted in continuing to play.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-27019641878756113912016-02-21T18:02:00.002+00:002016-02-21T18:03:27.256+00:00Miss Fatima, 1933 British Women's Chess Champion<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic11tmCh4eQJYrgnp9QYAUamUU6vMTZV4tuE-KtJfJZD_joqyB0-R5ptFrKYR13Yg4QHrV-n0xf1nk83K3WM3QD3vqtASB5Sv0bqXZ9kyaYFF_ynjgRQb9cLZc6XmFUGvVe5sWSzqciio/s1600/1933-Miss-Fatima.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic11tmCh4eQJYrgnp9QYAUamUU6vMTZV4tuE-KtJfJZD_joqyB0-R5ptFrKYR13Yg4QHrV-n0xf1nk83K3WM3QD3vqtASB5Sv0bqXZ9kyaYFF_ynjgRQb9cLZc6XmFUGvVe5sWSzqciio/s400/1933-Miss-Fatima.jpg" width="225" /></a></div>
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Above is a cutting from an article which appeared in the <i>Western Morning News</i> on Saturday 12 August 1933, page 7. Here is the text<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>INDIAN GIRL OF 31<br />WINNER OF BRITISH WOMEN'S CHESS CHAMPIONSHIP<br />FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.<br />Hastings, Friday [11 August 1933]</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Miss Fatima, a young Indian woman, with faultless features and dressed in Eastern style, won to-day at Hastings, the British women's chess championship.</i></blockquote>
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<i><t dlshipipp="" p="" ship.="">Her eleven opponents were mostly of many years’ experience, and included no fewer than four ex-champions, yet out of ten games played she had won nine and drawn one by really remarkable play.</t></i> </blockquote>
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<i><t dlshipipp="" p="" ship.="">No such score has ever been made in a series of similar contests extending over nearly 30 years.</t></i> </blockquote>
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<i><t dlshipipp="" p="" ship.="">Miss Fatima has been for five years n England in the household of Sir Umar Hayat Khan, in or near London, living a rather secluded life. She speaks only a little simple English.</t></i></blockquote>
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Miss Fatima has been described as still in her teens, but in an interview to-day after her victory, she <b>admitted to 21 years and one month</b>. She learnt all her chess in England, having started playing, she said, only two years ago.</t></i></blockquote>
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Unfortunately this is likely to be her last tournament in England, as according to present arrangements, she is returning to India shortly.</t></i></blockquote>
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<t dlshipipp="" p="" ship.="">From the foregoing, it would suggest that Miss Fatima was born around June/July 1912, rather than the year 1914, as is generally given. Of course, this is not proof, merely evidence.</t><br />
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<t dlshipipp="" p="" ship.="">Wikipedia entry for Miss Fatima: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Fatima">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Fatima</a></t>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-81965772772084442132016-02-19T16:22:00.002+00:002020-12-31T17:10:14.926+00:00Great ScottHere's a little poser...<br />
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White, to play his 41st move, has a huge material advantage - queen for bishop and pawn. But he has two problems: (1) his queen is holed up in a corner; (2) his opponent's d-pawn is two squares away from queening and there's no obvious way to stop it. The e7-bishop can't get back to cover the d2-square, while the white K can't get there in time either, e.g. 1.Kf2 d2 and the K can't go to e2 because the c4-bishop covers e2.</div>
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So what to do? It turns out that White had actually gone into this position with his eyes open. In the following position...</div>
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... he had played <b>39.Re7+ Qxe7 40.Bxe7 d3</b>. And, from the first diagram, he now found the killer move...</div>
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<b>41.Bf8! </b>and Black resigned. If 41...Kxf8 42.Qxg6 d2 43.Qc2 Bh6 44.Kf2! (Without this precise move Black might still escape) when White will play g3 and f4 and then capture the d2-pawn after which IAMOT (you can work out this abbreviated cliché from the context).</div>
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Here's the full game score. White was RHV Scott and he won the game in the penultimate round of the 1920 British Championship in Edinburgh. His opponent was JH Blake. The following day Scott went on to win his final round game against EG Sergeant to clinch the British Championship title. I am grateful to Gerard Killoran for discovering the final position and move, after which I tracked down the full game score in the Yorkshire Post for 23 August 1920.</div>
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John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-89378995784723928522015-12-17T10:45:00.001+00:002015-12-17T11:01:29.359+00:00Thinking Allowed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Enjoyed my chat about chess with Laurie Taylor and Gary Fine on yesterday's (16 December 2015) BBC Radio 4 programme <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rz91s#play" target="_blank">Thinking Allowed</a></i>. Laurie was a very affable and relaxed host, and I enjoyed his company. I also enjoyed meeting Professor Simon Down of Anglia Ruskin University, who was the guest for the first part of the programme.<br />
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It looks as if the programme will be available indefinitely online as an MP3 download. So if the above link fails to work after a time, you could try <a href="http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/5/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p03c8msz.mp3" target="_blank">downloading the MP3 version here</a>. The chess content starts around 12 minutes into the show.<br />
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I am very grateful to all four UK chess federations (<a href="http://www.englishchess.org.uk/" target="_blank">English Chess Federation</a>, <a href="http://www.chessscotland.com/" target="_blank">Chess Scotland</a>, <a href="http://www.welshchessunion.org.uk/" target="_blank">Welsh Chess Union</a>, <a href="http://www.ulsterchess.org/" target="_blank">Ulster Chess Union</a>) for their prompt and helpful responses to my request for figures of active competitive players in their respective countries. For the record, the figures I quoted on the programme were 20,000 currently active and/or registered competition chess players in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland combined, and 48,200 schoolchildren who competed in the 2015 Delancey UK Schools Chess Challenge (I found the figure <a href="http://www.delanceyukschoolschesschallenge.com/downloads/entry2016.pdf" target="_blank">here in the 2016 entry form</a>). As I said on the programme, there will be an overlap between the two figures which is not readily quantifiable.<br />
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Other links:<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Taylor_(sociologist)" target="_blank">Laurie Taylor on Wikipedia</a><br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Alan_Fine" target="_blank">Gary Alan Fine on Wikipedia</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.anglia.ac.uk/lord-ashcroft-international-business-school/about/our-staff/faculty-staff/simon-down" target="_blank">Profile of Professor Simon Down</a><br />
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-51325854836384004392015-12-15T14:25:00.000+00:002015-12-15T14:29:31.821+00:00London Chess ClassicThe last fortnight has been very busy but highly enjoyable, writing reports for the <a href="http://www.londonchessclassic.com/" target="_blank">London Chess Classic</a> (go to the linked page and click on 'Reports' in the left-hand menu). On the free day there were more chess responsibilities, writing my monthly column for <a href="http://www.chess.co.uk/chess-magazine/" target="_blank">CHESS Magazine</a>, as well as another historical article on the British Championships of the 1960s.<br />
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My chess activity doesn't stop there: on Wednesday 15 December at 4pm I'm appearing on the BBC Radio 4 programme <i><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06rz91s" target="_blank">Thinking Allowed</a></i> to talk about sociological aspects of chess with presenter Laurie Taylor and Gary Alan Fine, Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, whose recent book <i><a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo20299117.html" target="_blank">Players and Pawns: How Chess Builds Community and Culture</a></i> forms the basis for the discussion. The programme goes out live so you'll have to tune in to see how the discussion goes.<br />
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Incidentally, many of you will be wondering whether Professor Fine is a relative of the legendary Reuben Fine. He isn't, and he doesn't claim to be a strong competition chess player but that's probably a good thing as it gives him a more independent standpoint. I've read the book: he's done some thorough research and written an excellent work which goes to the heart of our game and the culture surrounding it, coming up with a number of intriguing sociological conclusions.<br />
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<i>Photo of world champion Magnus Carlsen on stage for the final round of the London Classic</i></div>
<br />John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-20794300871926455432015-10-10T15:53:00.001+01:002015-10-12T15:29:40.604+01:00James Bond, ECF Grade 007: Licensed to Lose At Chess<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chess players are always so snooty and picky about chess as depicted in the media and on film, so it is only fair that we should show a bit of balance and give praise where praise is due. I really like this photo of Daniel Craig as James Bond (from the front cover of today's <i>Daily Telegraph</i> Review section) for the following reasons: </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(1) it's a proper Staunton pattern set (I've got a more or less identical one at home), rather than some ludicrous themed set, or excessively upmarket ivory job; </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(2) the pieces and board are covered in dust (ditto, comment in brackets above); </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(3) the board is the right way round. Even if you don't know the correct orientation of a chess board, the chances of getting it right are 50-50, but, mystifyingly, in real life, this seems to work out more like 10-90;</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(4) the pieces are in a reasonably authentic configuration (hmm, maybe less so the white rook and king in the foreground, and you would expect the captured pieces nearest Bond to be white and not black, but I promised not to be picky); </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(5) here I am assuming that the queen on b7 is protected by a bishop on the long diagonal and that Black has been mated... (EDIT: <i>B on f3 - see note below</i>)... James Bond has lost - the only result which makes sense, given the time he dedicates to gambling, fornication and saving the world from baddies, and the extreme improbability of him learning to be a decent chess player in what little free time remains to him;</span><br />
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<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">(6) he is wearing the universal expression of the checkmated player, encompassing humiliation, disbelief and resentment. One could almost imagine him saying: "'Ere, you jammy sod!" (The writer was told exactly that when on the point of checkmating someone at a tournament long ago.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, well done, Bond Organisation, you did a good job here.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;">P.S. Later Edit, thanks to Peter Doggers we now know that the position on the complete board was...</span></span><br />
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<i>NN 1-0 James Bond<br />Position after Qxb7 mate</i></div>
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... except that the white king seems to be half-off the board around b0/c0, and there is a mysterious ring on d7. Maybe it was a play-off to decide which was the world's greatest cinematic series and he had just been checkmated by Gandalf. Can't wait to find out when the film is released...</div>
<span style="color: #373e4d; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-3821637948244393122015-09-08T22:08:00.001+01:002022-01-06T12:18:55.215+00:00Chess Snippet No.2 Grace Moore Curling (née Ellis) (1875-1958), 1908 British Ladies' Chess ChampionGrace Curling won the fifth British Ladies' Championship at Tunbridge Wells in 1908. Strictly speaking, she didn't actually win it until a three-way play-off was completed, in London in February 1909, but she goes down in the record books as the British Ladies' Champion for 1908.<br />
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Grace Moore Curling, 1908 British Ladies' Chess Champion</div>
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<i>(Photo: Chess Pie, publ. BCF, 1922)</i></div>
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My reason for blogging about her is because there doesn't seem to be much biographical information about her in the standard works. Jeremy Gaige, in his <i>Chess Personalia</i> (McFarland, 1987) records her name, Mrs Grace Curling, and the fact that her maiden name was Ellis - but no dates were given. (I am aware that there is a later, unpublished edition of Gaige's excellent work, but I don't have access to it so can't know if there is more information to be found there.)</div>
<br />
I therefore took to the computer to see what I could find. What follows comes mainly from a scan of <a href="http://www.ancestry.co.uk/" target="_blank">Ancestry</a> records, and also the online <a href="http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/search" target="_blank">British Newspaper archive</a>. If anyone has something to add, feel free to comment on this post.<br />
<br />
Here are the basic details I have found: she was born Grace Moore Ellis in the first quarter of 1875 in Bangor, Anglesey to the Welsh-born cleric Rev. David Henry Ellis and Grace (<i>née</i>) Moore, who had married in London in 1872. Sadly, her mother's death is also recorded for the same time and place, so we have to conclude that she died in childbirth leaving Grace without a mother.<br />
<br />
Subsequent censuses show that Grace lived with her maternal grandmother, Mary Yorke Moore (who was born in Philadelphia, USA, in about 1831, but who was a British subject). In 1881 Grace and her grandmother were living in Bibury, near Northleach, in Gloucestershire, in 1891 in Weston super Mare, Somerset, and in 1901 in Kensington, London. In the latter census Grace's profession was given as "professional musician, pianist" but I have not followed up this interesting lead.<br />
<br />
In November 1906 Grace married Allan Lee Curling, who was about the same age as her and from Hernhill in Kent. Allan's father was a hop farmer and he himself a merchant, according to one census, although thereafter he was referred to as a local manager of the National Telephone Company. Grace's father had remarried after his first wife's death but died in 1902. Grace's <strike>half-sister</strike> stepmother Ada Throsby Ellis attended her wedding. <i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(corrected 6 January 2022 - my thanks to Kate Dupree for the information)</span></i><br />
<br />
Grace and Allan Curling lived in Tunbridge Wells in Kent and were both members of the Tunbridge Wells Chess Club and (I think) Sevenoaks Chess Club. Grace tended to play a board or two above husband Allan in matches. In 1912 Grace won the Tunbridge Wells Club Championship in what was quite a useful field.<br />
<br />
Their names can be found in many newspaper reports in the period 1909-1913, particularly the Kent & Sussex Courier and the Sevenoaks Chronicle and Kentish Advertiser.<br />
<br />
Grace Curling won the 1908 British Ladies' Championship, held in her home town of Tunbridge Wells (an aside - has anyone else won a British Chess Championship in their home town? Quite possibly but I've not bothered to check yet.) Despite being the home town favourite, the local paper didn't have much faith in her:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There does not appear to be very much prospect of Mrs Curling winning the British Ladles' Championship this time, although she is bracketed third with Mrs Anderson In the tournament. It would certainly have been a great honour for Tunbridge Wells if the British Ladies' Trophy could have remained in the town, as, owing to the absence from home of several members of the local Club, Mrs Curling is the only Tunbridge Wells competitor who has the opportunity of securing the honour for the town and the Club. A reference to her scores will at once Indicate that she has so far succeeded admirably. having up to Wednesday night, played 9 games, won 6, drawn 1, and lost 2.
</i></blockquote>
<br />
So wrote the <i>Kent and Sussex Courier</i> on Friday 21 August 1908, the day on which the final round was to be played at Tunbridge Wells. A week later they had to eat their words:
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In the Ladies' Championship Tournament an exciting incident marked the last day's play. Miss Lawson had then lost 1½ points [the newspaper's weird way of referring to her score of 8½/10 - JS], while Mrs Anderson and Mrs Curling were 2½ down [scores of 7½/10]. The
first named had only to draw to secure the first prize and the championship. She was playing a very careful game against Mrs Curling, her last opponent, when suddenly she overlooked a trap which had been set for her Queen, and Mrs Curling won. This result has produced a triple tie between Miss Lawson. Mrs Curling and Mrs Anderson, who are 8½ each. In our notes last week we stated that although Mrs Curling had made a very good score, it appeared most improbable that she would be in running for the Championship. However, the unexpected happened, and Tunbridge Wells will, we feel sure, feel proud of so able an exponent of the great and intellectual game of chess and fervently hope that when the Championship is played off in London in January next, Mrs Curling may be successful in bringing the trophy back to Tunbridge Wells.</i></blockquote>
For the record here are the scores of the 1908 British Ladies' Championship (with full names): 1-3 Gertrude Alison Anderson, Grace Moore Curling and Agnes Bradley Lawson (later Stevenson) 8½/11, 4 Frances Dunn Herring 8, 5-6 Agnes Margaret Crum and Annie Sophia Roe 5½, Helen Eliza Sidney 5, Miss (Georgiana?) Watson 4½, Mary Mills Houlding and Emily Margaret Stevens 4, Hannah Maria Joughin and Anne Dick Smith-Cunninghame 2. (<a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/190808bcf-viewer.html" target="_blank">Crosstable here</a>) Incidentally, some interesting articles about these women's tournaments may be <a href="http://www.chess.com/blog/batgirl/the-ladies-chess-club-part-2" target="_blank">found here</a>, written by 'Batgirl'.<br />
<br />
The play-off took place in February in London and the scores were Grace Curling 2½, Agnes Lawson 2, Gertrude Anderson 1½.<br />
<br />
Thereafter Grace Moore Curling seems to have concentrated on mixed chess. In 1912 she played in the First-Class A section of the British Championship, scoring 5½/11 in a strong section.<br />
<br />
Returning for a moment to statutory data, at the time of the 1911 census Grace and Allan were living at 147 Upper Grosvenor Road, Tunbridge Wells, Allan was listed as the manager of a telephone company, while Grace's profession was blank, They must have been reasonably off as they had a live-in domestic servant, 25-year-old Fanny Bridger, from Tunbridge Wells.<br />
<br />
The Kent & Sussex Courier, on 13 September 1912, recorded the fact that Mr and Mrs Curling were moving to Sunderland. This was quite a blow for the Tunbridge Wells club. The Curlings had Tunbridge Wells CC’s best averages and didn't miss a match in the preceding season. They still played club matches until about November 1912, and correspondence chess for Kent until well into 1914. Allan Curling, although the lesser player, was also valuable as an organiser, having run the Easter 1912 Kent Congress at Tunbridge Wells.<br />
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<div>
The move to Sunderland didn't last long because, at the end of July 1914, just as the world war was about to begin, Grace and Allan Curling sailed for Africa, landing at Beira in Mozambique. Thereafter I have not been able to find out anything about them until the time of their deaths. Grace died on 13 Apr 1958, at the Arthur's Seat Hotel, Sea Point, Cape Town. Her home address at the time was 'Dunholm' Farm, Inyazura (now Nyazura),
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). She died leaving about £7700 in England. Allan Lee Curling died on 19 May 1964 at the above-mentioned address in Rhodesia.</div>
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That's about it - hopefully the entry for the 1908 British Ladies' Chess Champion in up-to-date chess records will henceforth read as follows:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Grace Moore Curling (<i>née </i>Ellis) (born 1875, Bangor, Wales, died 1958, Cape Town)</b></div>
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<br />
Finally, since I have it to hand, here are more items from Grace Curling's chess CV. As Grace Ellis she won the 1906 Ostend Ladies’ tournament with 11½/12, ahead of Gertrude Anderson 11, Frances Herring 10, etc. (<i>Year-Book of Chess</i> 1907, p96); and then joint winner (with Kate Finn) of the June 1907 Ostend Ladies’ Tournament (<i>The Field</i> 1907, p327 and p331, with 9/10. She beat Kate Finn in their individual game but lost to Mrs Roe. My understanding (I've not seen a direct source) is that there was a later play-off which was won by Kate Finn, scoring one win and two draws.<br />
<br />
I only have the one game played by Grace on my database. Here it is:<br />
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<br />
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</div>
John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-49494129561832162532015-09-08T15:50:00.003+01:002024-03-08T10:15:00.987+00:00Chess Snippet No.1: Kate Belinda Finn (1864-1932)As I mentioned in my last blog post, I'm spending more of my time as a chess detective these days, with a view to updating the game files on <a href="https://www.saund.co.org/britbase/whatsnew.html" target="_blank">BritBase</a>. That link should take you to the Britbase 'What's New' page where you should find a sudden spurt of activity around August/September 2015 after a relatively long fallow period.<br />
<br />
A by-product of my digging for old game scores is the odd historical snippet. I sometimes post these to the <a href="http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewforum.php?f=27" target="_blank">Chess History section of the English Chess Forum</a> but some of the things I find are perhaps a bit too long or involved for a forum post.<br />
<br />
So I propose to share them here on my hitherto largely neglected blog. Here are the first three such snippets. They won't necessarily be written in flowing prose: I don't intend to spend too much time turning them into the sort of finished articles that I write for CHESS Magazine; they may be little more than notes of facts and information, with a view to sharing information with other chess history researchers.<br />
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<h3>
Chess Snippet No. 1 </h3>
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</h3>
<h3>
Kate Belinda Finn (born 16 December 1864, died 8 March 1932)</h3>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeiW225HdLeRizu3xnSZWUZ7KFRnbOosJj5hTPjHW62xpjiYbUilpHKzNBqkfV0hwJG8n2eHkYKFCs0Wj11eSh-poMBVNvSsWpwH1fmQGn3GhvVfLcl7iuvewej73ZmhtH9zG-KPs4T5Y/s1600/1905_southport_kate_finn.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeiW225HdLeRizu3xnSZWUZ7KFRnbOosJj5hTPjHW62xpjiYbUilpHKzNBqkfV0hwJG8n2eHkYKFCs0Wj11eSh-poMBVNvSsWpwH1fmQGn3GhvVfLcl7iuvewej73ZmhtH9zG-KPs4T5Y/s1600/1905_southport_kate_finn.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Kate Belinda Finn (right, wearing pince nez) at the 1905 British Championship in Southport (Photo: Cleveland Collection)</i></td></tr>
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Kate Belinda Finn's claim to chess fame is that she was the first <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/britchamps.html" target="_blank">British Chess Federation Ladies' Chess Champion in 1904 and she retained her title in 1905</a>. The important piece of new information here I'm imparting is her date of birth, which has hitherto been quoted as 1870.<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBIu7hj24FPt5PUhW8RWZgpeftkdseogzVWjfRn06mTreT4z-RU-jFcYapKzy-Z28bqZauO2gqYVNJyr9NOrsX2r-SOiM5q_VO8do3RGNH_1p19y54fjCcMU5qyA5dMEBpO52yUojpgg/s442/1897-kate-finn.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="442" data-original-width="340" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBIu7hj24FPt5PUhW8RWZgpeftkdseogzVWjfRn06mTreT4z-RU-jFcYapKzy-Z28bqZauO2gqYVNJyr9NOrsX2r-SOiM5q_VO8do3RGNH_1p19y54fjCcMU5qyA5dMEBpO52yUojpgg/s320/1897-kate-finn.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Kate Finn as she was in 1897 (photo colorised by John Saunders)</i></div><div><br />
Her entry in Jeremy Gaige's <i>Chess Personalia</i> (McFarland, 1987) reads as follows:<br />
<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #ebeadd; background-origin: initial; background-position: 6px 8px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url(http://www.ecforum.org.uk/styles/prosilver/theme/images/quote.gif) 6px 8px no-repeat rgb(235, 234, 221); border: 1px solid rgb(219, 219, 206); color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.95em; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.2px; margin: 0.5em 1px 0px 25px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<cite style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Gaige wrote:</cite>Finn, Miss Kate Belinda<br />
b 16-12-1870<br />
d 08-03-1932, London ENG<br />
BCM, 1932, p. 167-168<br />
London Times, March 9, 1932, p.1, c.1</div>
</blockquote>
Here's her quoted <i>British Chess Magazine</i> obituary in full:<br />
<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #ebeadd; background-origin: initial; background-position: 6px 8px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url(http://www.ecforum.org.uk/styles/prosilver/theme/images/quote.gif) 6px 8px no-repeat rgb(235, 234, 221); border: 1px solid rgb(219, 219, 206); color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.95em; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.2px; margin: 0.5em 1px 0px 25px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<cite style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">BCM, April 1932, pps 166-167 wrote:</cite>Miss K. B. Finn, first British Lady Champion and one of the strongest women players of her day, died of bronchial pneumonia on March 8 [1932] at 12 Rugby Mansions, Kensington. She was the only daughter of the late Eugene Finn, M.D., of Patricks Hill, Cork. Her mother, who died in 1906, was fond of chess, encouraged her daughter to play and accompanied her to the various meetings. When the British Chess Federation was formed in 1904 she entered the Ladies’ Championship at Hastings and won with a score of 10½ out of 11, a wonderful performance. In the following year, at Southport, she again won the trophy, but the opposition was keener, her score being 9½. In neither event did she lose a game, the points she dropped being the result of drawn contests. Her mother’s serious illness prevented her from appearing at Shrewsbury in 1906, and as events turned out, she never again competed, but her strength a first-class player was maintained till quite recently, when ill-health and failing eyesight made her appearances more rare. For years she played top board for the original Ladies Chess Club, which then played in the “A” Division of the London League. Here she held her own with the leading London players. Latterly she joined the Imperial Chess Club, and was a regular and valued attendant.</div>
</blockquote>
And the Times reference is as follows:<br />
<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #ebeadd; background-origin: initial; background-position: 6px 8px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url(http://www.ecforum.org.uk/styles/prosilver/theme/images/quote.gif) 6px 8px no-repeat rgb(235, 234, 221); border: 1px solid rgb(219, 219, 206); color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.95em; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.2px; margin: 0.5em 1px 0px 25px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<cite style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Times, 9 March 1932 wrote:</cite>FINN - On March 8, 1932, at 12, Rugby Mansions, Kensington, W.14, of bronchial pneumonia, KATE BELINDA FINN, only daughter of the late Eugene Finn, M.D., of Patrick's Hill, Cork. Funeral strictly private. No mourning, no flowers.</div>
</blockquote>
Neither mentions her age or date of birth. But Ancestry reveals a birth registration as Catherine Belinda Finn on 16 December 1864, Cork, county of Cork, Ireland, parents Eugene Finn and Belinda (<i>née</i>) McCarthy, who were married on 30 Jan 1864 in Cork. Eugene was the eldest son of James Finn, esq, Kanturk [town in the NW of county Cork], and Belinda was the youngest daughter of Dr McCarthy, Newcastle, County Limerick.<br />
<br />
In 1901 Kate Belinda Finn was living (on her own means) at a salubrious address in Kensington with her widowed mother Belinda. Her age was given as 34, which is out by two years (should be 36). Her mother died in 1906 and I can't find Kate in the 1911 census, nor as yet in the censuses prior to 1901. Tim Harding has pointed out that she may still have been abroad at the time of the 1911 census as she played in (and won) the 1911 San Remo Ladies' International.<br />
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<br /></div>
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In the 1920s she lived at 12 Rugby Mansions, where her flat-mate was Eileen Florence Hodson Moriarty (1921 census plus 1921 and 1931 electoral records). Eileen (b 1880, Bray, Co.Wicklow, Ireland, d 1945, Wales) carried on living there for some time after Kate's death and eventually left £35,000 in her own will. In the 1921 census Kate's age was given more accurately as 56 years and 6 months. Her flat-mate was registered as a 'visitor'.<br />
<br />
Here is Kate Finn's probate record:<br />
<blockquote style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: #ebeadd; background-origin: initial; background-position: 6px 8px; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: initial; background: url(http://www.ecforum.org.uk/styles/prosilver/theme/images/quote.gif) 6px 8px no-repeat rgb(235, 234, 221); border: 1px solid rgb(219, 219, 206); color: #333333; font-family: "Lucida Grande", "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 0.95em; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 18.2px; margin: 0.5em 1px 0px 25px; overflow: hidden; padding: 5px; quotes: none; vertical-align: baseline;">
<div style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<cite style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: normal; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Index of Wills and Administrations, 1932 wrote:</cite>FINN Kate Belinda of 12 Rugby Mansions Addison Bridge Kensington Middlesex spinster died 8 March 1932 Probate London 10 May to John Charles Fitzmaurice Finn esquire. Effects £6000 12s. 3d.</div>
</blockquote>
£6,000 looks quite a tidy sum for those days. I think that John Finn was her (younger) brother. He spent a lot of time abroad and I suppose it is possible Kate did also, either with him or somewhere warm, for the sake of her health, which might explain where she was in 1911.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
The BCM obituary comment that "she never again competed" is a bit misleading as it is quite clear she carried on playing club chess for the rest of her life. References to her appearances for the Imperial Chess Club can be found in the Times. One of her last recorded appearances was in a rather grand match played on board the Union Castle passenger liner Llangibby Castle moored in Royal Albert Dock in London in 1930. (Ref. <i>The Times</i> (London, England), Wednesday, May 21, 1930; pg. 14; Issue 45518.) Mir Sultan Khan played on top board and only drew against W.Veitch - who may have been related to the Walter Veitch (1923-2004) who played in the 1950 British Championship, etc. The older Veitch was referred to as "of Union Castle".<br />
<br />
I've since found a couple of Times in memoriam notices for Kate Finn, on the anniversary of her death in 1934 and 1935, in both cases signed "J.F. and E.M." - presumably her brother John Finn and her friend and flat-mate Eileen Moriarty.<br />
<br />
Here is a game which Kate Finn won at the 1905 British Championship in Southport. The <i>Manchester Guardian</i> was coy about giving Black's name, for some reason.</div>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="463" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="https://www.saund.org.uk/pgn4web-3.03/board.html?am=n&d=3000&ss=45&ps=41&pf=d&lcs=UJuD&dcs=FWyg&bbcs=LHCg&hm=b&hcs=s8pI&bd=s&cbcs=PYGy&ctcs=l4It&hd=c&md=f&tm=25&fhcs=$$$$&fhs=19&fmcs=$$$$&fccs=v71$&hmcs=M___&fms=19&fcs=m&cd=i&bcs=VdyD&fp=25&hl=t&fh=b&fw=p&pe=668$zlax9RvfkYCiQ6KV39W4coab2l8$HOUuoUKXZH9pNgYVM73nrED1yv0Tt4coaKNYmr16wilh_CvQxfadwAkfY4SG3v7Bfomuwilh1NYfdvfLLEG8s7_mUlvgyNvEG84GUs$yUBwilhKo4VZZmFRvl1wilha4M4q6SG3vgwNBv9d$cvjQzxMrglMZaOrz1IXKu9xBHzlax9RWXKkR_vgy1BHzlax9RKKAVICMtvlt1V9pNloXKuj7uvQHxf78X5HQUZfjQzHOUtZDfZYnz1fDqf46$5b9pMnn3qM5Yfv3jM0dfL32jo$Nm7L1$zYgizp049WQ09WQ6$fgz0cnvD30qo2KIfT16p7l2cq9vr10zBfJeaDbD14MUs$kpbvMvfQly758x270$g1DVgN2b0$il7sDk0H$xB7sRTHcD3jGKjjGKj5T1dZDp3IfnD3dP9vqpm7bT10xpvaoj56$wRJS7VhJS7fD1dP9yKBC4x2$v7wjs7U13$v9Fm75FAN3b0$QsAfcmoj7L1dQRk0uxXGJ0_XF73oCNYYfw_NN_tkDXg_nyVbXKXZR5XF6DgFbTKivLUim_NbWW7d2evVbQ7ZYAHegNbLytP569peV26A4xL0" width="100%">your web browser and/or your host do not support iframes as required to display the chessboard</iframe>
<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>By the way, you may note that Kate Finn's last home, Rugby Mansions, is in Bishop Kings Road in W14 - rather a wonderful road name for a chess player. And, equally wonderfully, this is but <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Bishop+Kings+Road.W.,+London+W14/@51.495001,-0.2105355,18.25z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x48760feabfece99b:0x37a6f5ab237dab1d">a stone's throw from where the London Chess Classic is played</a>.
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Some of the content of this post first appeared on <a href="http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=7709" target="_blank">the EC Forum on 29 August 2015</a>.</i></span></div>
</div>John Saundershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03533087091700425575noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-461666380265364189.post-35347848054875260622015-07-10T16:58:00.004+01:002020-12-31T17:12:07.223+00:00Chess Detective<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPtu6qLoAXrBQyQOp3biEc2QtNmV2wWnPYOoBALCFkDhojPvi1u1-4_osFl0ZcnZgX0Hqhu8VLkg-aBPp_sTTB-6J_r22WDxEqrkKmnx791xkOOT6LZEuiu61iGsWMVHEr-fRvkipU-VY/s1600/2015-chessdetective-1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPtu6qLoAXrBQyQOp3biEc2QtNmV2wWnPYOoBALCFkDhojPvi1u1-4_osFl0ZcnZgX0Hqhu8VLkg-aBPp_sTTB-6J_r22WDxEqrkKmnx791xkOOT6LZEuiu61iGsWMVHEr-fRvkipU-VY/s400/2015-chessdetective-1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Now I'm retired from full-time chess magazine editing, I can indulge my various passions (family history, local history, photography, guitar playing, etc) with a clear conscience. And also pay some attention to <a href="http://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/index.html" target="_blank">Britbase</a>, the British chess game archive which I founded nearly 20 years ago.<br />
<br />
If I were asked to choose my favourite pastime, I think I would have to summarise it as "looking things up". This encompasses family history, chess database work, and one or two other things. It dates well before the advent of the internet (I used to spend days in musty records offices, tracing ancestors in ledgers back in the 1980s and 1990s, long before Google). There's nothing I like better than browsing through the index at the back of a book - almost any book - or trying to discover arcane facts on the internet. I wouldn't dignify it with the word "research" since it tends to be unstructured and serendipitous, but it occasionally leads me to doing something useful, almost by accident.<br />
<br />
I think this love of looking things up dates back to my discovery of chess literacy. I can't quite remember how or when I learnt to read, but I do remember the beginnings of my chess literacy. It was when I opened a book called <i>Chess for Children</i> by Raymond Bott and Stanley Morrison, probably around 1961 when I was eight. I had already been initiated into chess, thanks to my elder brother, so I didn't really need all the stuff about how the pieces moved but I was amazed to learn from the book that a chess game <i>could be written down</i>. That really was a light bulb moment for me. The thought that games could be recorded and played back at one's leisure greatly impressed me. I'm still not entirely sure why but it was a revelation. It still is. Imagine if one could watch historic football or cricket matches, from a hundred years ago, in full colour and all-round stereo sound - that's how it feels for me to play through some ancient chess game, witnessing the exact moves on the board that Staunton, Morphy or Steinitz played. Fifty years on the sense of wonder still hasn't worn off.<br />
<br />
A year or two later, still before I had played in any formal competitions or joined a club, I started writing down my own pitiful chess efforts, as well as cutting and pasting chess columns from newspapers into a sort of scrapbook. We took the <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, so that meant Leonard Barden and his wonderful <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/chess" target="_blank">Saturday column</a>, and also the <i>Sunday Times</i>, for which Hugh Alexander was an equally impressive chess writer. The recording was, if anything, more important to me than the playing, so it was almost in order to have an excuse to write more games down in my scrapbook that I felt the need to start playing competition chess in 1967.<br />
<br />
I still have this itch to record chess games, hence my creation of Britbase and my work over the years as a game inputter for various competitions. Of course, there are plenty of other people now engaged worldwide on this important work and I salute their efforts. These days I see myself more as a chess detective and a proof-reader, trying to cudgel the mountains of games being input into some semblance of order. I have to try and keep my tendency to perfectionism in check when I witness games being input and disseminated in industrial quantities, with an inevitably large number of mistakes being made. Rather than lambast sloppy inputters (as I admit I may have done on occasions), I think it is generally better to be constructive, bridle back the criticism and help game inputters in their Sisyphean task.<br />
<br />
We shouldn't be too surprised or shocked that commercial databases are not as accurate as we would like them to be. I know only too well the time pressures that game inputters are under to get games digitised to accompany press reports and website publicity. And once a given day's pile of scoresheets have been carted away to make room for the next batch it is often too late to fix any errors that may have crept in.<br />
<br />
The next stage of the process is when games are collated and published on disk to accompany database software. I'm not quite sure how this process is conducted as I have never personally been involved it, but I suspect very little resource is put into it. I would guess ChessBase (or whoever is producing the disk) hire a handful of editors, who then have to trawl the net and otherwise collate four or five million games, standardising tournament and names, adding ratings, etc, etc. I doubt that they tinker very much with the actual moves as recorded but other things tend to go awry: important bits of data (whether a player lost on time or by 'phone death', a note of the source of the game, etc) can be flushed away, and dodgy decisions made as to which Smith, Jones, Garcia or Sokolov was involved.<br />
<br />
Part of my self-imposed Britbase role is to go through old UK bulletins, looking for games which are missing completely from commercial and online databases, but also for games which might already have been recorded but are deficient in some important respect (e.g. misattributed, short on data, such as round numbers and dates, or more importantly with wrong moves). I may also generate 'stubs' or 'blanks', i.e. game records showing players, ratings, round number and date, but with no moves or only a brief textual overview of the game. This can be useful for the generation of crosstables, and also prompts future researchers to go looking for the game moves.<br />
<br />
Here's a case in point: I came across this game in Mega Database 2014. <b><i>N.B. </i></b><i><b>please don't add the following to your database</b> </i><b><i>as it contains a number of mistakes as it stands</i></b>:<br />
<br />
[Event "Lloyds Bank op"]<br />
[Site "London"]<br />
[Date "1973.??.??"]<br />
[Round "3"]<br />
[White "O'Kelly de Galway, Alberic"]<br />
[Black "Penrose, Jonathan"]<br />
[Result "1-0"]<br />
[ECO "A56"]<br />
[PlyCount "73"]<br />
[EventDate "1973.08.??"]<br />
[EventType "swiss"]<br />
[EventRounds "9"]<br />
[EventCountry "ENG"]<br />
[Source "ChessBase"]<br />
[SourceDate "2000.11.22"]<br />
<br />
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e5 4. Nc3 d6 5. e4 Be7 6. Qd3 O-O 7. g3 Na6 8. h4 Nc7<br />
9. a4 Na6 10. Bh3 Nb4 11. Qe2 Bxh3 12. Nxh3 Qd7 13. Kf1 Ne8 14. Kg2 f5 15. exf5<br />
Qxf5 16. Ne4 Nf6 17. Nhg5 h6 18. Nxf6+ Rxf6 19. Ne4 Rf7 20. Ra3 Raf8 21. g4 Qd7<br />
22. g5 Kh7 23. Rg3 Rf5 24. gxh6 g6 25. h5 g5 26. Bxg5 Bxg5 27. Nxg5+ Kxh6 28.<br />
Ne4 Rf4 29. Rg6+ Kh7 30. Ng5+ Kh8 31. Rh6+ Kg8 32. Ne6 R8f6 33. Rxf6 Rxf6 34.<br />
Qg4+ Kh8 35. h6 Rf7 36. Qg7+ Rxg7+ 37. hxg7+ 1-0<br />
<br />
I found this one amongst another batch of games attributed to Lloyds Bank op 1973. Which brings me to the first error: there was no Lloyds Bank Masters in 1973 (that wonderful series of tournaments didn't start until 1979). The other games I quickly figured out were played at the Islington weekender in December 1973 (which will be coming to Britbase very soon - my thanks to <a href="http://www.richardjames.org.uk/" target="_blank">Richard James</a> for lending this and several other bulletins) but this one clearly had nothing to do with it as nobody called O'Kelly or Penrose took part.<br />
<br />
The identity of the white player also made me suspicious. ChessBase had already confused the Belgian GM <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alb%C3%A9ric_O%27Kelly_de_Galway" target="_blank">Alberic O'Kelly de Galway</a> (1911-80) with the English player Rory O'Kelly (born 1950) several times in the 1990s, which I had reported to them and they had fixed a few years ago. It was even possible that Black was someone else - Jonathan has a brother Oliver who is a good player, albeit unlikely to play in London since he is based in Edinburgh. I noted that Jonathan Penrose had never played the Czech Benoni before, but of course players can change their opening repertoire at any time.<br />
<br />
My next step was to have a look through old magazines for 1973 but I couldn't find any trace of pairings between Penrose and either O'Kelly. Then I discovered that Ray Keene had annotated the game for Informator 17. Ray's version showed white as Rory O'Kelly, Black as Jonathan Penrose, the occasion simply as "England" and the game moves ending at 31.Rh6+.<br />
<br />
The next step was an easy one - contact Ray! The Times' chess columnist responded to my email within minutes and helpfully copied in his former school colleague Rory O'Kelly who, a few minutes later, contacted me to confirm that he was the player of the white pieces:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: tahoma; font-size: 13.3333px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">"The game was played between myself and Jonathan Penrose in a London League match between Mushrooms and Hampstead on 3rd April 1973. It actually ended 31 Rh6+ which was my sealed move. Penrose resigned without resuming. As I recall I felt confident enough to tell him what I had sealed.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: tahoma; font-size: 13.3333px;">
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; font-family: tahoma; font-size: 13.3333px;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">My 6 Qd3 was a TN - probably my only contribution to opening theory. The point was to play h4 and Bh3 without allowing a b5 sacrifice. In this case it also had the fortunate though unintended consequence of tempting my opponent into a very unhelpful excursion with his QN."</span></div>
</blockquote>
So, mystery solved. Here is the game, for your enjoyment, and to allow you to fix the game on the database*. My thanks to Ray and Rory for helping me to solve this mini-mystery.<br />
<br />
* To capture the PGN data, click on the c8 square on the board, then cut and paste from the pop-up window<br />
<br />
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