English Chess Forum

Yes - there was no doubt that John was eligible. I hope he plays again before 2062! I only intended to drop the trophy off and run away, but I wanted to talk to John S, so that was fortunate. Unless there were any punch-ups (and that seems very unlikely) when I wasn't looking, the match was played i...

"Perhaps the surprise is that Surrey don't have a rule against it."

The rules are frequently ambiguous. Anyway, the "Inter-Club Tournaments Director" plays for Kingston! David Scott would be ineligible under Surrey rules to play on that board, but is regarded as "e188".

"As I've had to report more than one post to moderators on account of defamation"

That's not true. You chose to report the posts! Give Carl a break.

"The Treasurer's main argument seems to be that there was no time to worry about being compliant with any regulations," Regulators don't like that attitude. I once told somebody that they were breaking chemical safety regulations and the response was, "We would be stupid to obey the regulations, as ...

"I was surprised that average grades were rejected. It would have made a big difference to potential participation from the smaller counties." Smaller counties might actually get a team out, assuming captains are available. I assume that getting more teams and players out is the desired result. As f...

It must be a while since Vishy Anand was the theoretical "bunny"...

"Poor old WECU bringing up the rear again..."

I would imagine WECU has the lowest population of the Unions?

"It was way further than Trowbridge, Taunton way. Convenient for M5."

Ah, was it Highbridge then? That makes more sense as Trowbridge is bigger but in the middle of nowhere, motorway-wise.

"Good point, which renders Blackburne's claim - that he'd never met the ending in 70,000-80,000 games - pretty valueless because, unable to win it, he'd have been easily good enough to avoid the ending, even against an exceptional opponent" Yes - he was a strong player and the general standard was l...

Trowbridge seems an odd choice, surely something just off the M4 (even M5) would be better? There was a match in Mark (a couple of miles off M5) last year, which seemed to work, although Saturday is "change over day" and there can be huge numbers of caravans!

"If you're a tilted player you should learn it to avoid the embarrassment factor associated with failing to win it! "

Hope you're back upright!

I had the ending in a QP finish and managed to amaze my team-mates by winning it in 3 minutes, partly as my opponent fouled it up.

"How far did the Surrey players travel?" I didn't play but it would have been 110 miles, just over 2 hours (in theory) for me, but I am next to a junction on M25, it would have been worse for others, but our Cornish friends would probably have had a tougher time. One of the reasons I gave up county ...

"I'm surprised no-one has worked out a mechanism for playing telephone matches using current technology."

Telephone matches were played many years ago, using an arbiter at each venue, so it should be possible. Whether it's desirable is another matter.

The Surrey Individual used to be (maybe still is) scheduled at a game a week during summer, but with the odd week left free for adjournments(!) or rest days. Players do go on holiday or have other commitments. Half-point byes are more use when you have several games in a short time.

I agree with Roger.