English Chess Forum

Happy 89th Leonard.

Today the problem posed would be 'What action should the arbiter take if he came upon this position, with White to play, in a tournament, and why?

Perhaps I will use that in my forthcoming arbiters' exam in Batumi.

Chris Rice >There must be a temptation to take one's foot off the peddle when you are a World Champion with no serious challengers. < I don't know about Hou Yifan. We have not discussed the matter. but a conversation with Nino Gurieli Georgia at the Lloyds Bank Masters: 'Why are you paying Smagin mo...

Past experience shows variance in the quality of games. Fischer-Spassky. Started out with nonsense. Then it settled down to fighting chess. Bobby said the most difficult phase was drawing his way to the title. That was not his usual style. Karpov-Korchnoi 1978. Was very tense. It reached 5-2 and the...

The disproportion is, of course, self-generating. If there are fewer strong players around, there will be fewer strong players. England became strong at chess and this had the effect that our players became stronger. There used to be virtually no Chinese or Indian players. Now both are power-houses....

John McKenna > Why is it that since the Polgar experiment no female player has got anywhere near the top of the FIDE rating list? As said before, it is the simple weight of numbers. Nowadays internationally women's chess is widely encouraged. A new idea. A minimum of 8 women should qualify for the 1...

Justin >As two of these were non-FIDE matches I am not sure this point possesses any great strength.<

Surely English people had some influence on the fact that they were non-FIDE matches.
Just in case. You do realise I was making a joke?

Roger >It's not exactly a "development" though, having been the case more or less since Kirsan became President.< Kirsan became President in 1995. But he never ran FIDE. That was left to Makro. A few times Kirsan interfered of course. e.g, zero tolerance; the Knockout World Championship. Both of whi...

Roger .>Nick Pert isn't and I don't think Stuart Conquest and Danny Gormally were either when selected in the past.< Go back far enough and of course you will find we had no GMs in the English team. I'm just guessing, but perhaps Mathew Sadler and Jonathan Hawkins were not available for selection. A...

Roger > That's only male GM standard, so perhaps achievable.< Sigh. There is no male GM title. To make the English team would currently require a player to be well above 2550. Were Matthew Sadler playing in Georgia, all 5 of our players would have been 2600+. There is no 'reserve' slot these days. T...

Perhaps Lawrence Cooper has a problem? There are a few role models among our female chess players. It was a crushing blow when Harriet Hunt's ill-health precluded her becoming a GM. Ruth Sheldon dropping out was also a blow. Susan Lalic is not currently active as a player. ...

Roger >Was it not also because the stronger female players of the time wanted to be able to compete for norms as well as the title? < I tried making the British Ladies' open and importing foreign women title holders so that a norm was possible. This was not all that successful. It has been very diff...

>If the ECF were to reintroduce a separate Ladies championship as part of the British championship (similar to the seniors and obviously female players who qualified for the championship or wished to play in another event so could do so) would it attract many more unique entrants?< The reason the se...

Mick Norris>Really? I've never heard anyone expressing that opinion about the Olympiad; I doubt I can remember a dozen people expressing any opinion though, so I doubt there's a popular view< There was a period when the attitude was 'the more the merrier'. FIDE wanted to boast of the Olympiad being ...

When was the last time an incumbent President of FIDE did NOT offer himself as a candidate for re-election? Possibly Max Euwe. There may be a mess, starting with who will chair the meeting. Some federations won't have made up their minds yet. GMs could have a valuable role there, but many of the mor...

ACP Board has thoroughly discussed the forthcoming FIDE Presidential elections and unanimously voted to support the candidacy of Arkady Dvorkovich. It is the first time ever ACP takes a stand and supports any candidate in any elections. This does not come lightheartedly: to the contrary, it is a con...