English Chess Forum

"I remember reading that he was, indeed, not selected; and, outraged though he was, he drew the necessary conclusions and entered the USSR championship later that year, for the first time in a considerable while. To the annoyance of everyone else, he "achieved his aim" by beating Taimanov in a tense...

"Quick general Olympiad history question: how many times has a woman played for their country's Open team? I can only think of the Polgars. Are there other examples? There must be, surely, for the smaller countries?" Like the one I mentioned earlier in the thread, although she is having a rough time...

It is entirely normal for charities to pay people to work for the charity. It can be quite illuminating searching for the financial reports of your favourite charity. A few years ago, a chap set up a (non-chess) charity when he was made redundant, to give him something to do, and within a few years ...

I am indebted to yesterday's "i" newspaper (formerly the "Independent") for a report headed, "Chess Masters set for South Pole showdown". Some years ago, Nigel Short commented that he had won tournaments on six of the seven continents, the only one missing being Antarctica. Aung Kyaw Moe (an entrepr...

I see the Thai player who got the shock win vs Erigaisi beat another GM today, now 3/3 for a performance of 3200ish so far, so might be worth keeping an eye on him. I agree Rozentalis is a nice guy! One interesting match further down, Guernsey 2-2 Greenland, a battle of islands. Guernsey has a popul...

"What's not clear from the description in the document is whether White predicting a continuation precludes Black from predicting the same continuation, and vice versa. On Page 11, example 2, White gives a 6 moves conditional continuation. If Black doesn't know that until he plays 1... e5 and then s...

I assume there is an exception for checkmate and stalemate Well it can't be checkmate: that means it wouldn't be a draw I probably didn't explain the conditional move rule properly - the games will all be scored correctly, but the tie-break over all the games will settle final positions (in theory ...

"Every single game in the tournament was a draw, except for those played by GM Dronov, who died after he had drawn 6 of his games. The remaining 10 games were recorded as wins for his opponents, which meant they all became joint World Champions." That seems to be a change of policy, as they used to ...

And it is reported Erigaisi lost against Laohawirapap of Thailand - horrible blunder at the end. I was going to suggest that there will be dancing in the streets of Bangkok tonight, but then I guess there usually is..

ICCF allows the use of computers as they know they cannot stop it! It is still possible to win games if the opponent is careless, but it is rare... ICCF are proposing events where computers are not allowed, but that relies on trusting the players. Not that ICCF is all that good at enforcing the rule...

I recently received a list of proposed rules for ICCF competitions and had to read this one a few times https://www.iccf.com/Proposal.aspx?id=1541 The important bit is... "2026-056 Counting ETL Wins as Half-Points Specifically When It Comes to Earning Title Norms Proposed by Dennis M. Doren, Rules D...

Efimov has been known to lose concentration.

I forgot Turkiye vs Jordan. Guernsey - Jersey is a regular battle, (and when it happens, the most important match in the event), but despite the legendary rivalry, the players do get on pretty well.

I note that Guernsey is fielding Gerda Nevska on top board in the Open. It is unusual, but not of course unique to have a female top board. Table 98 features a fine attempt at the "most difficult names to fit on a score-sheet" prize. There must be occasions when teams look at the pairings and think,...

"I found this for 2024-25 https://www.englishchess.org.uk/dcms/"

Thanks!

"I don't think that this is what our gold reps are for at all. They are meant to consult members and represent their interests." I assume ECF has now insisted that players representing ECF are members of ECF, so why wouldn't the gold reps ask such questions? If a member feels badly treated in any wa...