English Chess Forum

If the sole objective is to reduce the number of draw offers, then the following should be considered. The player makes his move, then offers a draw and presses the clock. Now that draw offer stands until turned down by the opponent. Thus the opponent can do anything he likes, but can accept the dra...

3/1/0 has not been tried often enough to form any conclusions. When it was first allowed in the Laws, I as secretary of the Rules Commission and Geurt Gijssen as chairman were against it because of the possibility of collusion between two players, especially in the last round of Swisses.

To MJMcCready That would be giving too much discretion to the arbiter. We have the 5 fold occurrence of position now in case people keep on repeating. The real problem is that so many games are drawn at the higher levels. The 12 in Carlsen v Caruana brought the matter to everybody's attention. The p...

Kevin >If he can score at a run rate of 200+, he should stick to cricket temporarily... He can practise chess when it's raining though.<
But, if he is fielding, surely there is time to play chess by communicating the moves? I won't cal it blindfold, as he needs to have sight of the pitch.

In one of the Evening Standard London Chess Congresses two players came and consulted me. The first named player wanted to have the first move, but also wanted to choose the Black pieces. 'After all, that is the rule'. I assured him that the rule was that he had to take the white pieces. Off they we...

Richard Christie. Yes, i meant where the chess venue was either owned (like Hastings) or on a log lease. Edinburgh CC is also a dedicated venue. So New Zealand Christchurch, Dunedin,Wellington, Auckland when I was there in 1995. I guess they still exist and has not Murray Chander opened one? The tra...

ANDREW that is good news indeed. I have never visited the 3Cs establishment, but understand it meets some of the criteria. Losing the National Chess Centre in the 1950s in London was a serious blow. Marshall CC in Manhattan i still going. In the 1960s there were several others, including the late la...

PAWN SACRIFICE is being shown on BBC2 Saturday 23 January 23.30 to 01.15.
It is, of course based on the Fischer-Spassky match. I have often wondered why it took so long to make a film based on the match. It was made in 2014. Toby Maguire played the role of Bobby.

I thought there was some 'poetic license' in the fact that the players often moved without first recording the previous moves. I do realise they would have been playing according to the US Rules of the 1960s.not the FIDE Laws.

Sunday 17 Jan the final of The Master Snooker on BBC2. John Higgins was arranging his bottles on the occasional table by his seat. The commentator said, 'John would make a good chess player.' It did indeed look like he was analysing chess moves. I have just noticed Simon Rogers had already commented...

Boris Spassky speculated to me, when we were in Gibraltar, about why they removed the two pawns from his game against David Bronstein. He thought it might have been because the film makers otherwise would have feared breach of copyright. Of course we know there is no copyright in chess games.

Geoff, there is small fly in your ointment.
The rematch was not staged in London. That in 1986 was the match AFTER Kasparov had beaten Karpov. Moreover we only had half the 1986 match; we shared it with Leningrad.

Closing Gambit is well worth seeing. It tells the story. mainly without voice-overs, using mainly contemporary footage.

I have never met Bruce Pandolfini, but I don't think you should assume the way he was portrayed in a film, is a mirror of real life. I was very puzzled by the climatic game, which wasn't at all like how strong children chessplayers play. Then I had dinner with, among others, Bruce's fellow consultan...

I have often wondered why they changed the original name, 'Searching for Bobby Fischer', to 'Innocent Moves' in Britain.

I always recommend this film to parents with aspiring child chessplayers. It is one everybody can watch and enjoy.

Josh became an IM, but turned his attention to martial arts.