Peter Poobalasingam

Andrew Zigmond · Post by **Andrew Zigmond** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:24 pm

The ECF have just tweeted this shocking news. https://twitter.com/ecfchess

JustinHorton · Post by **JustinHorton** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:27 pm

LawrenceCooper · Post by **LawrenceCooper** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:46 pm

From Facebook:

‎Jaananni Srissanthirarasa Gandhi‎
1 hr ·
I am sorry to say that my beloved cousin, Peter Poobalasingam has passed away on Friday 1st September. We are praying for his soul to find peace. Funeral arrangements to be confirmed this week.
Contact Ritheni 07402977139 — with Peter Poobalasingam.

David Sedgwick · Post by **David Sedgwick** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 4:20 pm

Desperately sad news. Igor Kurnosov and Jessie Gilbert come to mind.

Andrew Martin · Post by **Andrew Martin** » Sun Sep 03, 2017 7:02 pm

I am so sorry to hear that. A terrible shock .

My sincere condolences to his family and friends.

Jonathan Rogers · Post by **Jonathan Rogers** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:12 am

Peter was a Barbican player and needless to say the news has come as a dreadful shock to us all. Everything we could say about him has already been said by others: he was unfailingly polite, modest and humorous. He was also a great fighter over the board; he never seemed to draw. He put a lot of pressure on himself to do well for the team and would (quite unnecessarily) apologise when he lost.

He seemed to play the Grunfeld especially well. This was his first win for us, against Craig Hanley (as ever, I beg the favour of those able to post the game properly)

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1575484

But perhaps his best game, and one that might be used in obituaries, was this win over Jorge Cori, then rated 2486, but now an established grandmaster playing (and currently doing very well) in the World Cup

https://www.365chess.com/view_game.php?g=3735844

It would be nice to see a diagram just before the excellent 20...Bd1: this is an unusual tactical device, in fact I don't remember seeing it before at all. But it is quite neccessary, else White will play 21.Rc2, then Rbc1 and round up the c-pawn: presumably that is what Cori had expected.

RIP Peter.

LawrenceCooper · Post by **LawrenceCooper** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:27 am

I can only echo the above and found this write-up on his 2007 Terafinal win: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/ches ... -pack.html

Adam Raoof · Post by **Adam Raoof** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:39 am

Please post details of the funeral and other arrangements here as soon as you have them; Peter was a lovely boy and a fine man and a great team mate at Hendon Chess Club.

Richard Bates · Post by **Richard Bates** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 9:55 am

Jonathan Rogers wrote:Peter was a Barbican player and needless to say the news has come as a dreadful shock to us all. Everything we could say about him has already been said by others: he was unfailingly polite, modest and humorous. He was also a great fighter over the board; he never seemed to draw. He put a lot of pressure on himself to do well for the team and would (quite unnecessarily) apologise when he lost.

Indeed. In fact, from a personal perspective, his last tournament game seems to have been a miracle save (a draw!) with no time on the clock against Lorin D'Costa in the last round of the British rapidplay last year (which gave me a share of first place - he had beaten me in the round before...). Incredibly sad.

Here's the diagram from the game you mentioned.

John Upham · Post by **John Upham** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 10:26 am

David Sedgwick wrote:Desperately sad news. Igor Kurnosov and Jessie Gilbert come to mind.

plus Gordon Crown, Ian Wells, Micheal Uriely and others

Jonathan Rogers · Post by **Jonathan Rogers** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 11:27 am

There does seem to be some truth in the saying that only the good die young. One of my Barbican colleagues has suggested to me that Peter probably won the Stephen Joseph memorial when he was younger. Stephen was another tragic loss. I came across him while I was a student in Nottingham (and he a junior). Very nice young lad, never complained about a thing. But he must have known for much of his life that he was destined to die young (from cystic fibrosis), having seen at least one sibling predecease him. (Keith Arkell wrote a nice tribute to him in CHESS in 1993).

Ben Purton · Post by **Ben Purton** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 12:56 pm

This is very sad indeed, given the suddenness of it. My deepest condolences to Bala and the rest of his family, they are well loved in the chess community.

To our 4NCL friends(and rivals) @ Barbican, sorry for your loss. Also to people like Matt Turner and his family who I know helped Peter loads throughout his chess childhood.

Peter was one of only 2 Barbican players I have desperately tried to sign for the Sharks, the other being Chris(because he's from Grantham), Peter was fiercely loyal to you which is something I respected and was one of his many admirable characteristics. We must have played around 15 times in total including junior games and he was a fantastic player but a better human being. I shared many lifts with him to 4NCL for about 3-4 years when he was in Reading, as well as playing alongside him for Richmond and Reading.

He is a huge loss to English chess and we will have to likely look for many years to no avail to find a nicer person.

Brendan O'Gorman · Post by **Brendan O'Gorman** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 2:17 pm

Peter's game against Jorge Cori:

Sarah Longson · Post by **Sarah Longson** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 4:57 pm

I have put a tribute on the ECF website - it's really hard to describe how great he was. He helped me with lots of grunfeld ideas when we were students and then we both decided to pack it in as it was too complicated (for me anyway!) when we had less time! He always helped me with my chess and always put others first. Was so successful in everything he put his mind to!

Haven't included any chess games but thanks for those who have shared them on here. Really enjoyed 20...Bd1! Hadn't seen that because he never showed off...!

http://www.englishchess.org.uk/rip-peter-poobalasingam/

IM Jack Rudd · Post by **IM Jack Rudd** » Mon Sep 04, 2017 5:12 pm

Here's a win of his against me from a few years ago.

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