English Chess Forum

Though looking at it another way I regard "honorary" GM's as proper GMs anyway tbh, what else is such a status if not an admission by FIDE that the title should have been awarded earlier? I think there is possibly some slight confusion created by the fact that FIDE have at points awarded these "hon...

Mmmm but being of grandmaster strength and actually getting yourself those norms are not the same thing Except the criteria for gaining the Grandmaster title have not always been what they are now. And the system of "norms" in the modern context didn't exist when he was at his peak. My understandin...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 01, 2026 6:23 pm

True. I was thinking more that Gawain manged to win by finding ways to beat Merry, Roberson, Willow and Ghasi.

Just lucky with the pairings i guess

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 01, 2026 10:59 am

Personally I don't think it's accurate to describe Jonathan as a grandmaster, not without a qualifier

The “qualifier” being…?

A comment on Leonard’s column today… I have vivid memories of my dad Jonathan Penrose's experience at the 1977 BCC after that game. He said that that to stop brooding over the loss against Short he watched the nine o'clock news at the Brighton lodgings he was staying in, only to have the giantslayer...

Having 6 boards in the Open and squads of 8 players makes for some bizarre board medals permutations. https://s3.chess-results.com/tnr1475190.aspx?lan=1&art=81&turdet=YES&flag=30&SNode=S0 On board 4 you find the gold and silver medals went to two players from the same team: 1 GM Gledura, Benjamin 2...

Very close finish at the top: Rank after Round 7 Rk. SNo Team Games + = - TB1 TB2 TB3 TB4 TB5 1 4 Novy Bor CC 7 6 1 0 13 252 30 177,5 273 2 1 Bayegan Pendik CSC 7 6 1 0 13 251 31 179,5 276,5 3 9 Rishon LeZion A 7 6 0 1 12 232 30 168,5 251 Gold and silver positions decided by a single Olympiad-Sonne...

The entry form refers to the playing hall as the Queen Mary Suite of the Cunard International Hotel and says that it was air-conditioned. In my scorebook I wrote that the tournament was played in "very sticky, humid conditions" so maybe the aircon wasn't working. (Alternatively, I could have been m...

As Richard mentioned, Nf5 could have been played a move sooner at move 39. However, the Cheshire version of the score cannot be ignored. It ended in 40.Nf5, after 39.e5, so 39.e5 must have been a transcription error for 39.Qe5. (Of course, descriptive notation was in use, so, presumably, the releva...

99% (perhaps 100%!) of competent human players would play Qf7 rather than Qc8, barring any clear tactical difference between the two. Maybe, but I'd be loath to put my queen on f7 with a bishop coming to c4, especially if I'd spotted the theme of Nf5. This is not to say I don't consider Qf7 the mor...

As an amateur observer, i would say 1) 99% (perhaps 100%!) of competent human players would play Qf7 rather than Qc8, barring any clear tactical difference between the two. 2) Qe5 is also a rather "non-human" explanation to justify a claimed typo with e5. Not an obvious choice, particularly when 2.N...

And potentially looking at a GM norm - he'll need to play two GMs in the final two rounds, and in the final three rounds score 1.0/3 if his last two opponents average 2572.5+ or 1.5/3 if they average 2355.5+. He has two GM norms from the 4NCL so, whilst a third norm here would be a great performanc...

If the past is any guide, you never will.

Indeed, even that isn’t lol! For some reason i always thought the WGM level was higher than FM… Isn't the main difference that WGM (usually) requires norms, while FM doesn't? Yes. I personally consider WIM to be a higher title (FIDE disagrees) than FM. A rating requirement of 2250 and 3 norms as op...

On the contrary, I would say the only inaccurate (and hardly “shockingly” so) is the 2300 error, as opposed to 2350. I wouldn’t say that anything else is any more unlikely than an 11 year old girl being within touching distance of the IM title. That's an error? Indeed, even that isn’t lol! For some...