Postal players

Historical knowledge and information regarding our great game.
Roger de Coverly
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Postal players

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Jul 24, 2009 10:30 am

Postal players were cold war spies. At least that's what it says in a Telegraph article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... rthed.html

Personally I think the journalist or the quoted "expert" have read too many stories about Blueberry yogurts. Mitchell was international level at correspondence chess and postcards containing 4 digit numbers were the established international method of communicating moves. I've also seen it quoted that the games were shown to Hugh Alexander who did know a thing or two about both codes and chess and he dismissed any suggestion that the games were artificial.

Leonard Barden
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Re: Postal players

Post by Leonard Barden » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:16 pm

Balogh and (John) Collins, the teacher of Fischer, were if I remember right participants, as was Mitchell, in the world correspondence championship won by Cecil Purdy. The name of Dr E Adam rings a bell too as a postal expert. I guess these are moves from that world correspndence championship and zilch to do with espionage or the Cold War.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Postal players

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Jul 24, 2009 2:58 pm

As Leonard notes, the players and games mentioned come from the ICCF 1950 first(?) world championship. Obviously the ICCF was a front for international communism.

Paul McKeown
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Re: Postal players

Post by Paul McKeown » Fri Jul 24, 2009 3:19 pm

I'm sure I've come across this nonsensical story before - recycled drivel and cheap journalism. Do I recall BH Wood commenting on this farago some decades before?

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JustinHorton
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Re: Postal players

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Jul 24, 2009 5:43 pm

I've emailed Gordon Thomas, the expert quoted in the story, to ask if he has any specifc information about intelligence disguised as chess moves or the section devoted to it in the KGB handbook.
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Roger de Coverly
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Re: Postal players

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:12 pm

This rather silly story has now made it to the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... found.html

Here's the whole game shown in the picture.

[Event "corr W-01ch"]
[Site "ICCF"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Adam Edmund (GER)"]
[Black "Mitchell Graham Russell (ENG)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C84"]
[WhiteElo "0"]
[BlackElo "2371"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]
[Remark ""]

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.c4 Nxe4 7.d4
exd4 8.Nxd4 O-O 9.Re1 Nc5 10.Bc2 d6 11.Nc3 Bf6 12.Nxc6 bxc6 13.Be3
Ne6 14.Qf3 Rb8 15.Qxc6 Rxb2 16.Qe4 g6 17.Nd5 Bg7 18.Bb3 Re8 19.Qd3
c5 20.Ba4 Bd7 21.Qa3 Qa5 0-1

6 c4 in the opening looks a bit odd, but it has been played elsewhere. Other players have preferred 7 Re1.

Paul McKeown
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Re: Postal players

Post by Paul McKeown » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:49 pm

I think I recall CJS Purdy writing about some similar episode during WWII. If I'm right (and I might not be) that is likely to found in the anthology that was published of Purdy's more interesting columns. I don't have access to that, but perhaps some reader does?

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John Upham
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Re: Postal players

Post by John Upham » Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:49 pm

The quality of the research in this article is indicated by
He was even suspected as being in cahoots with the notorious Cambridge Five and was named by the Spycatcher author Peter White as a spy.
Who was Peter White? My copy of Spycatcher was authored by Peter Wright. Maybe this is typographical error but one would hope that The Daily Telegraph would avoid such blunders?

This article appears to be conjecture rather than factually based : it assertions are the sort of thing people might want to believe rather than truths.

J.
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JustinHorton
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Re: Postal players

Post by JustinHorton » Sun Jul 26, 2009 12:48 pm

I notice that neither story is by a named individual. I suppose it's possible that they may have been written by the same person.

Annoyingly, my email to Gordon Thomas has bounced back and his agents do not display one on their website.

6.c4 is indeed a bit odd. Might it have been an error on the part of White, who may have meant to play 6-d4 but wrote the wrong code?
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Paul McKeown
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Re: Postal players

Post by Paul McKeown » Sun Jul 26, 2009 12:58 pm

Thanks for this, Justin. Perhaps 6. c4 was THE code? Perhaps it might something like, "valve blown in the transmitter, send replacement?" :wink:

John Moore
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Re: Postal players

Post by John Moore » Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:25 pm

Edmund Adam was European Champion at the time of the first World Correspondence Championship. He had not qualified through the prelims - but was admitted on the basis of his title. He played 6 c4 in two games in the finals - vs Purdy and Barda. The game against Purdy is annotated in "How Purdy Won". This is the book that has all Purdy's correspondence games - published by Thinkers Press in 1998. Quite a difficult book to find.

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John Upham
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Re: Postal players

Post by John Upham » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:02 pm

John Moore wrote:This is the book that has all Purdy's correspondence games
There are 14 copies of this book available from http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Searc ... +purdy+won

Don't forget that later in life Purdy appropriately teamed up with Gambit and a mutual friend called Steed. As a teenager I had a poster of Purdy on my bedroom wall next to the one of Kate Bush :lol:
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John Moore
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Re: Postal players

Post by John Moore » Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:07 pm

well done John

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Postal players

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:02 pm

I have been told that a postal chessplayer applied for a job with MI5 some years ago, and the interview went well, but he was then turned down for the job, because he had been "exchanging coded messages with Bulgaria", which (you guessed it) were something like 1.5254 5755 etc.

That seems much more likely than the Telegraph story!
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JustinHorton
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Re: Postal players

Post by JustinHorton » Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:52 pm

Talking of postal players - does anybody know of an online resource covering CC Olympiads with results and so on? I had a good old hunt this afternoon and couldn't find anything.
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

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