English Chess Forum

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...

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. :)

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...

Jeff Webb of Glasgow University - most likely now retired, and certainly no longer active at chess He is still playing.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...

Jeff Webb of Glasgow University - most likely now retired, and certainly no longer active at chess - played to a 190-plus standard.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.

John Saunders wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 09, 2019 7:07 pm

RCO Matthews also became a Cambridge prof)

An Oxford one too (1965-75).

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...