English Chess Forum

It's worth avoiding the Spanish (Ruy Lopez) too, at least in evening league chess. I do. Against any reasonable opponent, in many lines, you can reach the first time control (#30) still in book with barely a pawn exchanged. I exaggerate, but not by much. I've had a few of those (as Black, I don't p...

Some shocking news to report: Daniel Freeman, co-founder and webmaster of the ChessGames site, has just passed on at only 51 years of age. I know there was the odd complaint from time to time about the site's historical accuracy, but it's still an invaluable resource, and always with a strong sense ...

"Like it or not, those guys are star performers from a very early age." I more or less agree, but there are exceptions. It seems Lasker didn't even learn to play until he was 11 years old! Chigorin didn't learn until he was 18 or something similarly ridiculous? Blackburne was nineteen when he learn...

The usual error in setting up a chess board - and a less common one (look carefully). From an ad in NZ's Sunday Star-Times magazine.

I can only sympathise with Michael and Kevin on the evident decline in English chess standards. Put me down as one who helped accelerate the decline. As a schoolboy, I sometimes wrote moves like N-Kt5 just to be different. A fellow team-member used to employ his own set of initials for the pieces (...

Interesting In 1968 I played for the English students' team at Ybbs, Austria where I made a modest plus score England team Achieving 5.5/8 (a better percentage than anyone else in the team) is hardly "a modest plus score"! One might have expected Basman to be there, but IIRC this was when he'd deca...

Quite a few familiar names there, one or two of whom I played back in the day (some little time after 1954, though!), with fortunes that were mixed to say the least. Interesting to see a US Air Force sergeant among the 3b's. Would that be the Ken Smith who went on later to write a number of openings...

NickFaulks wrote: ↑

Sun Mar 25, 2018 9:02 am

Not so painful when you're a whole rook up!

Edited, to restore the missing a8 rook!! (Cheers, Nick.)

Another doomed rook (not my own) from Teesside, 1973. I'll spare readers the sometimes woeful play that led to it.
r1b5/2pprkpp/p4b2/1pR5/8/8/PPPP1PPP/RNB2K2
Black to play.

I can't remember anything as bad as this in March. The 1962-3 "Big Freeze" lasted well into March. Several boys in my year at school who were reasonably good chess players lost interest in the game around that time. One possible reason was that they'd played so much of it when penned up indoors whi...

My choice I think would be the usual black and "white" (i.e. natural wood or cream plastic), along with mid-green and light brown. Plus pale and mid-brown for the board. Easier on the eye than the more strident hues.

Falling participation? At the risk .... no, dammit, the necessity of repeating myself: it's the (gig) economy, stupid. If the grass-roots are dying off for lack of basic nourishment, no amount or type of top-dressing is capable of reviving them. You might successfully raise a few carefully-nurtured ...

Won't this approach result in even more use of the London System?

You shouldn’t stand on anything split, in case it gives way under you.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5179741/Ex-chess-player-fled-accused-rape-jailed.html I think he was about 190 from memory, so perhaps not what we normally think of as a professional. Back on the site after several weeks given over to the usual frantic Xmas/New Year/early summer holiday per...