English Chess Forum

Qualifiers! Gibraltar Masters, Route F David Spence (2321 TPR after four games) Tim Wall (2303 TPR after four games) Tim Wall is a good player and will not dishonour the British Championship - I'm not sure why he can't have an automatic right to play in it. Nonetheless, this route is absurd. A star...

Jonathan Rogers wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 22, 2020 8:55 pm

Linares 94 ?

Yep that’s the one

It might be worth pointing out that in this tournament Caruana is potentially benefitting from the “Linares ‘93” effect - ie. meeting all but one of his opponents directly after they have faced the World Champion.

Pete Heaven wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 21, 2020 9:02 am

A draw. It would be great to hear about an in-depth and evenly-matched post-mortem, something that has been missing to date.

A “commendable draw” no less, although for Mr Lovelock not his opponent, surprisingly

I think there's almost no legal (non outright blunder) move that hasn't been played against the Najdorf now. Many of them are only specifically useful depending on whether black players prefer classical (e5) or Scheveningen (e6) setups. And how comfortable they are with Dragon (g6) set ups. If a bla...

I don't feel inclined to continue this conversation with Natasha as it seems pointless. Haha, do - it seems a reasonable supposition that you are having a “conversation”, directly or indirectly, with the man himself! In fact, we’re there any truth in “natasha’s“ postings (and I am restricting the c...

the time limit was too fast for him. That seems very plausible. What's odd is that the effect of lack of time apparently resulted in playing games of "near-beginner standard" (Peter Heaven) when a more common consequence for a player strong at slower time limits would be a generally high standard o...

I perused a few from the late 80s/early 90s and I’ve already stumbled across references to Ray Keene and the mysterious English Chess Association, the setting up of the BCF direct membership scheme and slimming back of the BCF board (apparently partly at the insistence of a potential sponsor!), flag...

Not sure if it's been mentioned on here (or exactly how long it's been there), but if not and for anyone interested I've just noticed that the SCCU bulletins dating back to 1958 have been digitised and are accessible on the SCCU website, as a result of Richard Haddrell bequest.

1958-78

1978-99

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2020 7:38 am

Out of interest, why (according to Chessbomb) is kick-off half an hour later for round five?

Different venue

If we are to be barred from wearing watches, I trust this will only happen in venues with visible and accurate clocks. Hardly a challenging threshold I am far from sure why you think so. Because any organiser making any sort of effort should not find it difficult to provide? That they might not do ...

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 07, 2020 9:21 pm

If we are to be barred from wearing watches, I trust this will only happen in venues with visible and accurate clocks.

Hardly a challenging threshold, but... why, out of interest?

I imagined it can run chess programs. I expect so although some need an active mobile phone. If internet enabled, it could also look up the assessment on chessbomb or similar. What was being suggested is that all watches were banned, which I would regard as over the top paranoia. Paranoia would be ...

I obviously don’t know what a smart watch is. I imagined it can run chess programs. Anyway at the end of the day organisers will do what’s right for them. I guess if necessary most would just go for the “in a bag” approach. Hardly a great imposition.

Unfortunately, that's not really the case. Please explain why it's not obvious what a watch cannot do. Pens as well. Put it this way, if an organiser tried running an event where participation was optional, a typical weekend tournament perhaps and tried banning watches and pens, attendance would be...