English Chess Forum

Joe Soesan was defnitely an Ilford player and a leading light of the club for several years and, I believe, secretary of the club at some point in the late forties and maybe afterwards, because I remember my dad, Don Twitchell, who played for the club at that time, referring to him on occasion as a ...

Faulty quiz question on ITV's The Chase this evening? 'The Swiss Gambit is an opening move in which board game?' I have heard of it only in the context of losing in the first round of a Swiss System tournament with the hope of meeting easier opponents. Is there even a chess opening variation called...

Have just been listening to Malcolm Pein on Bob Mills show on Talk Radio discussing "The Queen's Gambit" and the authenticity of its portrayal of the chess scene, as well as chess matters in general. Quite interesting.

Herewith a link to the programme on BBC Sounds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000q3nq

Forumites might be interested to learn that Demis Hassabis was the subject of "Profile" on Radio 4 yesterday evening, and was interviewed recently on the Today programme.

"I think you check back against the user names of your opponents." Tournaments running on chess-results have the lichess user names removed after completion of the tournament. Presumably the idea being to make a process of cross-checking lichess suspensions against real names more difficult." It was...

It didn't say who the supposed cheater was and It doesn't seem possible to discover that from anywhere on the website I think you check back against the user names of your opponents. This was just in ordinary blitz play, not in a tournament, but I went back through all the opponents from the last d...

Who initiated the poll? Does't say.

Just had my first experience of a cheating issue on the Lichess website. I got informed that "You lost to a cheater: Refunded 6 blitz rating points." It didn't say who the supposed cheater was and It doesn't seem possible to discover that from anywhere on the website, despite it's plethora of info. ...

Surely they are all full of hot air, so keep all of them.

Just been listening to Talk Radio and there was a brief spot on the Kevin O'Sullivan show in which he was interviewing Malcolm Pein That's shame, I was listening earlier but turned it off to concentrate on doing some work. "Talk Radio is a station that would be sympathetic towards us being allowed ...

Just been listening to Talk Radio and there was a brief spot on the Kevin O'Sullivan show in which he was interviewing Malcolm Pein chiefly about the Netflix Queen's Gambit series, but also about chess in general. Malcolm made several favourable observations about the series re its authenticity, bot...

Regarding the Lichess website, though it is not strictly relevant to the question of cheating, there are some slightly odd features. One is its extreme interpretation of what does or does not constitute a drawn position, so that one can lose on time even where the opponent does not have mating mater...

Perhaps this thread ought to be called Pedants Revolt rather than Pedants United. Or Pedants Revolting or even Revolting Pedants!
Which reminds me of the joke about the leader of the Pedants Revolt who should have been called Which Tyler not Wat Tyler.

A very interesting thread. May I list a few of my pet hates? In no particular order:- "...legalise gay marriage..." Misuse of the verb. One cannot legalise something that doesn't exist. Gay marriage can only exist if governments legislate to bring it into being in which case it has been introduced o...