English Chess Forum

"Laurence Harvey was the principal guest actor"

Yes - he died shortly afterwards (stomach cancer) aged only in his mid-40s.

"On freeview channel 5USA tonight there is an old Columbo film "The Most Dangerous Match" - the synopsis is "An American chess champion fears he is about to be beaten by a superior player from Russia, and decides the only sure-fire way he can avoid defeat is by murdering his opponent."" It's quite e...

"It's rather like describing homosexuality and left-handedness as "health problems", isn't it? None of these things are illnesses which can be "cured", although all have been regarded as such within the last 100 years and some people so regard at least one of them. Indeed. They're certainly not imag...

I was intrigued by, "Chapter 6, Theories and Studies on Benefits of Chess’, moves into rather different territory. We learn about chess and education, and about chess and health problems, though I for one would raise a very strong objection to describing ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder as health p...

"15. I appreciate the motivation to award votes for rated online games. In principle I think the motion looks good. But, there’s an aspect I don’t like... the Governance Committee in its commentary provides figures for the number of online rated games played recently but what it doesn’t do is identi...

"The question is, if had got beyond 50 moves, what should happen? If it gets to 75 I step in and stop the game." Yes "Between 50 and 75 moves, could the player with a rook have claimed a draw based on me ticking the moves off?" - No "If so, are they entitled to ask me how many moves have been played...

"CCGM" or "GM", not "GMC" - see ICCF rules.

"Well done, this looks like a real success."

Indeed - it's a "well done" from me too.

I played Keith OTB in 2014 and when he got short of time, I was optimistic, but he played well and duly won. He was a really nice guy and we had a good chat afterwards. He had given up CC as he didn't want to play computers. I did reassure him that you could still find better moves than the computer...

"I think it's just some guy with a slightly addled personality, made worse by being locked down for a year, and he's taken to drink."

He should join an internet forum.

"I don't know why he spent over two minutes on move 3 in a five minute game, perhaps he had to answer the door, the internet went down or the dog started barking." I can confirm all of the above have made me spend weird time on a move, so you can't take that in isolation. I agree that the person in ...

"Being accused of something when one is innocent is likely to be upsetting, to a major or minor degree, even for adults who can be expected to have had some prior experience of how the world works." I agree entirely. Some obnoxious manager at work told lies about me behind my back just before I reti...

"That left me wondering why the arbiter didn't at least warn him about his behaviour during the game."

Afraid to criticize a GM?"

"Unless the child concludes, as some have, that chess appears to be a game concerned primarily with accusations of cheating and is better avoided altogether." I always thought that was one of the benefits of school sport - you soon discovered that some players and officials would cheat and you had t...

It's interesting too that if you query the efficacy or honesty of "anti-cheating" procedures you get a really aggressive response, which to me is a clear indication of guilt.