English Chess Forum

I found a BCM reference (page 553) Dec 1988, where the contestants were listed, and subsequently, working through the YouTube games available, I was able to deduce that in the quarter-finals, Nunn beat Mestel (there was no Hodgson v Flear - must have been another event). Accordingly, Short beat Nunn...

Bobotsov finished 4th at Hastings in 59/60. That may have been his only visit to these shores. As far as I can see, he mainly stuck to BUL, HUN and CSR, but also made a few trips to the Netherlands before winding down his chess activities around 1976.

Some interesting notes about this event: The official tournament title was the “International Tournament to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Great October Revolution”. The first in a succession of high profile events (some women’s, some junior) held in 1967. The tournament comprised entirely ...

Also, many of the tournaments were very long affairs, this one being 17 rounds, and the Soviet Championships typically 19 or 21 rounds. It must have sapped their stamina somewhat, so I can imagine a quick draw would have been a welcome way to ease the tension and preserve some brain power.

I don't see how Flohr could possibly have learnt the game at age 21. He was born in 1908 and played first board for the Czech team at the 1930 Olympiad. That would mean that he went from beginner to expert in a year or so. Seems very unlikely indeed.

I may have missed Bernard Cafferty? I think I saw him too.

Some names to put to faces. No doubt I've forgotten a few already, but here goes - Genna Sosonko, Tony Miles, Viktor Korchnoi, Max Euwe, Fridrik Olafsson, Vlastimil Hort, Svetozar Gligoric, Michael Stean, John Nunn, Vasily Smyslov, Nigel Short, Anatoly Karpov, Robert Huebner, Bill Hartston, Jan Timm...

Hi John, One small point about the Nice Junior game of ?.4.71 ... The PGN titles it as EU-Ch U20, which may be misleading. As far as I know, this was not an official championship event - the last Niemeyer event was 1971 and this tranformed into the official European U20 Championship event in 1972, t...

Thank you John. I agree. As you say, it was almost always the convention to describe married women using their partner's name with the Mrs prefix, particularly in any formal context. And it appears that Di Felice had no source that suggested otherwise.

Can someone confirm that it was definitely Ronald and not Rowena (they share the initials RM) Bruce that played the 1947 event.

I only ask because Di Felice gives 'Rowena' and references it to page 145 of the BCM of that year.

Congrats to Mickey Adams and Elmira Mirzoeva. The playoff games can be seen at the links posted by Lawrence Cooper above.

Ouch! Bodhana outplaying 3x Georgian champion Inga Khurtsilava in Round 6, but then walked into a stalemate trap. Very impressive up to that point!

Not sure how to remove a duplicate post, but this at least takes up less space!

One of my favourite shaggy dog stories. I think a version of it appeared in one of Chernev's books: Adolf Anderssen was returning from a tournament to his home town of Breslau, when his train broke down. Forced to spend the night in a far away foreign land, he cursed his luck and wondered if the sma...

In a park people come across a man playing chess against a dog. They are astonished and say: "What a clever dog!" But the man protests: "No, no, he isn't that clever. I'm leading by three games to one!" So I was telling my friend I hate backgammon. And draughts. He said "Hate chess too?". I said, "D...