Search found 332 matches
- Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:53 pm
- Forum: Chess Questions
- Topic: Information on David Foley-Comer
- Replies: 4
- Views: 424
Re: Information on David Foley-Comer
Here's some personal recollections of DF-C. I tried doing them as a PM but for some reason couldn't get it to send properly - just sat in the Out-Box. I'm not 100% clear on his birth and death dates, but these were approx 1935-1998 - a regrettably early demise. The family was Jewish; I don't know an...
- Sun Feb 17, 2019 9:40 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: New in Chess - Nigel Short
- Replies: 11
- Views: 1837
Re: New in Chess - Nigel Short
I’d rather that mix than the bland devoid nothingness that often passes for journalism in chess mags. Hear, hear! Opinions are always more entertaining than dry recitals of facts, even if you don't always agree with them (and as long as they don't get nasty or personal). That's my view, anyway. :)
- Sat Jan 19, 2019 10:14 pm
- Forum: Chess History
- Topic: Gordon Crown, England's lost talent, remembered
- Replies: 18
- Views: 1118
Re: Gordon Crown, England's lost talent, remembered
I think much of the credit for the work done to encourage chess was down to teachers in charge of chess at school That very much agrees with my own experience and observation. Our grammar school club in the early 60s had an excellent master in charge who built for the future as well as managing the...
- Sun Jan 13, 2019 12:41 am
- Forum: Chess History
- Topic: Past recollection a split topic
- Replies: 18
- Views: 572
Other B
Jeff Webb of Glasgow University - most likely now retired, and certainly no longer active at chess He is still playing. He plays for Bearsden in the Glasgow league. Is that right? He doesn't feature at all in the ECF Grading site (which has numerous long-retired and even deceased players). A very r...
- Sat Jan 12, 2019 10:05 pm
- Forum: Chess History
- Topic: Past recollection a split topic
- Replies: 18
- Views: 572
Re: Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer
Jeff Webb of Glasgow University - most likely now retired, and certainly no longer active at chess - played to a 190-plus standard. He was completing a PhD or holding a post-doc fellowship (not sure which) when we played together for Sussex U at the 1970 BUCA teams event.
- Wed Jan 09, 2019 8:56 pm
- Forum: Deaths & Obituaries
- Topic: Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer
- Replies: 15
- Views: 1655
Re: Sir Peter Swinnerton-Dyer
An Oxford one too (1965-75).
- Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:33 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Christmas Picture Puzzles
- Replies: 12
- Views: 709
Re: Christmas Picture Puzzles
Afraid at the schools I went too there was no dunces cap, they just thrashed the living daylight out of you. Tell the truth, I was pretty uneasy at using the d-word, with all its negative connotations. Just couldn't think of any other term that was concise enough not to disrupt the flow of the sent...
- Wed Dec 12, 2018 9:14 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Christmas Picture Puzzles
- Replies: 12
- Views: 709
Re: Christmas Picture Puzzles
I could not think of another player with B.W. initials. Not surprising. A quick trawl through some 220 players on Chessgames whose surnames begin with W reveals only eight having any forenames starting with B. Highest rated is Bruce Watson (2300) of NZ, followed by Bill Wall (USA, 2231), who is I g...
- Tue Dec 11, 2018 11:29 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Christmas Picture Puzzles
- Replies: 12
- Views: 709
Re: Christmas Picture Puzzles
Ha Ha...New Zealand. No wonder they were mumbling and grumbling. Suppose I'd better fix it. (nobody else has noticed - thank you Mr. Barden.) As soon as I saw that picture, I was thinking - the result of long and bitter experience - "has he got the flag right?" Thank you, Mr Barden, for the correct...
- Tue Dec 11, 2018 9:43 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Under promotion to a bishop.
- Replies: 19
- Views: 1356
Re: Under promotion to a bishop.
Underpromotion to B where White has minimum K+P (study by Harold Lommer, date unknown). 8/8/P7/8/1p3p2/5p1p/5K1p/6nk White to win. Lommer had a very amusing tale to tell about the difficulties he had composing this piece - see Assiac's The Delights Of Chess , where the study is reproduced on p22. OK...
- Fri Dec 07, 2018 8:38 pm
- Forum: Chess History
- Topic: London Central YMCA (aka CentYMCA) Chess Club
- Replies: 316
- Views: 61142
Re: London Central YMCA (aka CentYMCA) Chess Club
I can add some hard facts to the speculations about Bob Pentecost. They don't make for very happy reading. I saw a good deal of Bob in the mid-70s. We were fellow-employees at the Education Department (though I was actually based much of the time at the V & A Museum), and played together for its che...
- Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:44 pm
- Forum: Chess Questions
- Topic: Excelsior!?
- Replies: 26
- Views: 3307
Re: Excelsior!?
An excelsior using minimal material (study by H F Blandford, 1949). White to win - by means of a strange device of course.
- Tue Oct 23, 2018 10:35 am
- Forum: Chess History
- Topic: Karpov v Korchnoi 1978
- Replies: 6
- Views: 1492
Re: Karpov v Korchnoi 1978
Isn't that proposal of Euwe's identical in principle (though not detail) to what Fischer was insisting on as a condition for his never-held world title defence? FIDE voted the idea down in 1974; one wonders if they'd have really pulled a one-eighty and gone along with Euwe only four short years later.
- Thu Oct 18, 2018 11:35 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Irritating habits of juniors -a brief list
- Replies: 58
- Views: 4906
Re: Irritating habits of juniors -a brief list
I know they’re kids, so one has to cut them some slack, but why are so many junior players so downright bad mannered at the board? You left out j'adoubing the pieces when it's not their turn. And standing up and leaning over the board from their side was quite the vogue for a short time in the mid-...
- Tue Oct 09, 2018 9:27 pm
- Forum: General Chat
- Topic: Chess Names in Robert Ludlum Novels
- Replies: 15
- Views: 994
Re: Chess Names in Robert Ludlum Novels
White had two eyes on the performance, and only half an eye on the board. Meanwhile, Black (two aristocrats) sweated over their moves, their consultation disturbing both audience and singers. I read somewhere that the aristos placed the board so that Morphy had his back to the stage, which irritate...