English Chess Forum

I have now got to the end. I recommend anyone with a serious interest to do the same, rather than relying on Loffler's summary which, while not bad, doesn't give the full flavour. Two hours to watch all of it? Can you give pointers as to which bits are worth watching? (Please don't say all of it.)

Living in Lancashire near Blackpool, we are on the brink of going onto Tier 3. 3 of Lancashire areas are in the top 10 in the country for infection rates. Greater Manchester is also on the brink. Lancs have got £42m for going into Tier 3 tomorrow G Man still negotiating What? Regions negotiate thei...

Is there any appetite here (on the forum) for a 'Not Chess' discussion of the pandemic and various non-chess issues? Thought I'd ask here first, as this seems to be where most of such discussion is occuring.

For the majority of players in the UK, this is the ONLY opportunity to play Fide rated games at a serious time limit. Taking that opportunity away is a very bad idea, and for many will diminish the appeal of team competition. If fixed matches are the problem, then just dont rate them instead of imp...

I was thinking that the lament over the past 20 years of a (relative) lack of honours for chess players and organisers seems to pass over the fact that the longest period of no honours was in fact between 1985 and 1999 (Keene and Short). Was there a reason for no honours in those 14 years? Or is the...

Wow, and Duda was the tail-ender as well. Was there some question over some claim to a longer streak that Carlsen was trying to overhaul, or is 125 now the undisputed longest ever?

John Clarke did mention in his original post that he had "written about him before in various other threads on this site, but in this latest piece I’ll stick to his chess-related activities". It is probably inappropriate to copy out from before what was said, but maybe it is OK to link to them (in c...

Really glad to see Roger Penrose get this honour. I did wonder if Hawking was still alive, would he have been honoured as well? Apparently it was quite difficult to get in touch with Penrose (who is 89 after all), see account here (including hair cut while on the phone!): https://www.nobelprize.org/...

I recently found some references in a biography of Samuel Beckett on how he was a very keen chess player, with some interesting snippets here and there, including encounters with some well-known chess players. While looking for more on this, I found this excellent article on Duchamp and Beckett and ...

Came across some references to chess in the works of science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, including the following two examples from 'Pebble in the Sky' (1950): https://www.chessvariants.com/fiction.dir/quot/asimov.html Chess, somehow, hadn't changed, except for the names of the pieces. It was as he ...

The old grading database is still available here:

http://www.ecfgrading.org.uk/new/menu.php

(I prefer the layout and look of the older system!)

Final post on this for now.

This is worth a read:

http://www.freemanart.ca/moss-bennett.htm

It goes into issues of imitations and authenticity and forgeries (and innocent copies as well).

Heh, yes indeed. I notice that Harry's image isn't quite identical to the part of our painting it resembles, which is more intriguing still. There is no dog. I wonder which one came first? The clothing colours are different. Sadly, the painting Justin has seems to be inferior to the Bennett one on ...

Wow, that is a great find by Harry Duff. Was that from previous knowledge of his style, or using something like the "find similar images" function in Google Images search (or something like that)? I don't want to get anyone (or Justin) too excited, but some of Bennett's works have been auctioned for...

Any updates on this?

Justin, is the location the painting was unearthed in Spain?

Any indication what period and culture the artist was depicting? Would it be 19th century and is the clothing English in style?