English Chess Forum

Bernard's collection of Spassky's games was one of the first books I studied.

Interesting that he did not consider himself to have a great talent for chess (unlike Spassky, of course). He certainly had a capacity for hard work, which is a talent in itself.

A very fine servant of the game. I think he may have played for Lancs, but the one time I played him I think he was playing for Sussex. I was lucky to draw against his trusty Alekhine.

Sad loss. Probably like most people, I know nothing about his chess apart from his loss to the great man - at least that game will be known for as long as chess is played.

I have no recollection of the Hammersmith venue. All I remember is staying with the Hodgson family who lived nearby, and some sort of bust up between Keene and Speelman at the end.

Karpov did not normally win brilliantly with Black; the game against Timman was an exception.

De mortuis nil nisi bunkum.

Jeremy James. Not a clue what was going on.

I am all for variety but somehow I cannot see this new site catching on, although I have to accept that this place lacks the vivacity of old.

Adams is still there on Saturdays.

Always go for the simple. Karpov probably didn't even consider Qe2. He had missed the long rook swings, showing that the patzer (which we all were once) does not lurk far beneath the surface, even for world champions.

I was thinking Qxd5 with Nd4 to follow.

I could not make the spectacular work, so I angled for the prosaic.

Probably it's very simple. Winter was happy with a draw against a better player and did not have the endgame technique to play for a win without risk.

I know nothing about Winter's politics but all in all, accepting a draw seems fair enough to me. He could easily have lost that, had Botvinnik drummed up play on the kingside.

Kudos to the Patriarch for all that. His immense stature probably meant he could make a stand without being sent to Vladivostok.

I never met him, sadly, having missed out on the simuls he gave. I did play simuls against Smyslov, Petrosian, Karpov and Korchnoi.