English Chess Forum

An excelsior using minimal material (study by H F Blandford, 1949). White to win - by means of a strange device of course.

[FEN "8/k2K4/8/8/8/2B5/2P5/5n2 w - - 0 0"]

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.

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-...

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...

At first glance, this (from today's Dominion Post) looks like another chess cartoon drawn by someone ignorant of the rules ....

Hi John remember reading about a newspaper report from 1962 which described the Spurs-Rangers Cup-Winners' Cup tie as "a game of electric chess". Looks like we have our source for possibly the first reporter who started using chess terms when writing about football. CHESS 11th November 1961 (page 4...

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.