Media comments on chess

[Nick Grey]

Sun 'fabulous' Mag... Chess with Freddie Flintoff.

It is not something I usually tell people (being a chess player).

Board is wrong way round too.

[Jonathan Bryant]

This week's segment includes World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov playing ten matches simultaneously in 1977 (presumably meaning a ten board simultaneous display) ....

I think it would have been a clock simul against 10 of England's top juniors sponsored by Lloyds Bank. If so it's an echo of Leonard Barden's original publicity coup mentioned in this post ...

RE: Publicity Coup
The Times’ covered this on their front page. Reproduced here

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... s-xvi.html


should anybody be interested,

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Sun 'fabulous' Mag... Chess with Freddie Flintoff.

It is not something I usually tell people (being a chess player)."

It's mentioned in one of his autobiographies. Apparently he beat Atherton during a rain delay and the opponent was furious...

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think there was a discussion on here a few years ago about FF's actual chess ability or otherwise.

Conclusive concrete evidence was frustratingly hard to pin down IIRC.

[Roger de Coverly]

Conclusive concrete evidence was frustratingly hard to pin down IIRC.

This is what the forum came up with
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=884

I don't think hard evidence like a team result sheet or a grading list was ever pinned down for certainty. Some reports suggest it was his brother who was rather more the junior chess player.

[Andrew Zigmond]

This week's segment includes World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov playing ten matches simultaneously in 1977 (presumably meaning a ten board simultaneous display). It seems strange for the BBC to highlight this as a ten board simul is hardly that spectacular and there have been far more significant moments in chess history, never mind history in general.

I think it would have been a clock simul against 10 of England's top juniors sponsored by Lloyds Bank. If so it's an echo of Leonard Barden's original publicity coup mentioned in this post
http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... pov#p15096 in which he notes

So the 1977 launch event , a clock simul Karpov v England juniors, made some newspaper front pages and later we began the Lloyds Bank Masters with a blitz game between a star GM and a child. I also got Lloyds Bank chess stories in local papers via the Press Association. The result was that at the peak there were around 700 Lloyds Bank chess press mentions a year, far more than all the bank's other sponsorships combined.

A simul by the world champion in England against the country's top juniors would have been biggish news at the time (and of course we now know that one of those juniors would pull off a shock candidates victory over Karpov sixteen years later). Even so my point that it's a curious thing for the BBC to highlight for a `week in history` segment still stands - although it's good for the game of chess that they did.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Trawling through IMDB, I found a short film called "Queen Sacrifice" (1988) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0227325/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_4

"Davey, a talented young chess player and Wil Bevan, his history teacher are in Bournemouth for the British Chess Championships. When Davey meets up with Helen, a punk girl from London. Wil is faced with the problem of steering his charge through the championship and the trauma of first love."

It sounds exciting - Anyone know any more? I suppose I should ask Stewart first!

It seemed to end the career of the young male lead immediately and the female lead soon decided to run an addiction clinic. However, it did get good reviews and BBC bought it.

[Stewart Reuben]

I did see Queen Sacrifice. It was not very good, I think it was a knockout. Teh story was whether the player should meet up with a girl, or go for the final.
I cannot remember which he chose and now have a plane to catch in Porto.

[Kevin Thurlow]

Talking of planes...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/trave ... -crew.html

A club colleague and I travelled from Warsaw to Dusseldorf some years ago and there were only 4 passengers. The cabin crew tossed a coin to see who would serve drinks and who would sit in First class being served drinks. The Dusseldorf - London part of the trip was packed.

[David Sedgwick]

Talking of planes...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/trave ... -crew.html

A club colleague and I travelled from Warsaw to Dusseldorf some years ago and there were only 4 passengers. The cabin crew tossed a coin to see who would serve drinks and who would sit in First class being served drinks. The Dusseldorf - London part of the trip was packed.

Also http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02zhjb ... w_facebook, although that link may not be valid indefinitely.

[Matt Mackenzie]

I did see Queen Sacrifice. It was not very good, I think it was a knockout. Teh story was whether the player should meet up with a girl, or go for the final.
I cannot remember which he chose and now have a plane to catch in Porto.

It was on TV again a few years ago and I saw it and thought it was OK.

The treatment of chess was more realistic than some depictions I have seen on screen.

[David Lettington]

I think there was a discussion on here a few years ago about FF's actual chess ability or otherwise.

Conclusive concrete evidence was frustratingly hard to pin down IIRC.

According to his interview on Desert Island Discs, he played for Lancashire as a junior and his brother played for England. The chessy bit is around 12 minutes in: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b060yk4m

[JonManley]

Defensive moves: Greece treated 'like a pawn to be sacrificed on a larger chessboard' (at 26:53): http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2015/08/31/va ... cumentary/

[JustinHorton]

David Squires

[JustinHorton]

Meanwhile the Mirror seems to be devoting itself to repeating the unlikely claims of a professional self-publicist with a book out.