English Chess Forum

Thanks to everyone for their help. Leonard Barden suggested I try the EC Forum as he wasn't completely sure about Mackay's first name. (He was sure about the nickname, given to him by Persitz at the Cheltenham 53 tournament.) However Alan McGowan, the Scottish chess historian, has provided very conv...

I am wondering if someone can help, please with the first name of DG Mackay, who came =5th in the first CHESS Festival in Cheltenham 1953, a tournament won by Donner? His nickname was apparently Sly Mackay due to his tactical tricks.

To correct Stewart, chess was not an exhibition, or demonstration, sport at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. There was only one exhibition sport at Sydney 2000, wheelchair racing. There was also a chess exhibition organised by FIDE at Athletes Village, but it had no connection to the Sydney Olympics. The c...

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 02, 2020 8:11 pm

I did wonder (not too seriously) whether it was found among his effects after his death, though of course if it wasn't there could be many reasons why


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Surely Petra would have all Korchnoi's possessions?

I'm explicitly saying that a claim without evidence is of no value.

There is evidence; it is just you who won't accept it unless it is in written form. Do you have a problem with oral history generally?

He said it was in the file, yes? Did he show you this, or show anybody else? Did he quote from it? Friends you meet and spend time with at tournaments don't normally carry around paper files, nor quote from files left at home. They normally don't lie either. Right Ian but from the point of view of ...

Well it would count as firm evidence if he had actually produced anything from this file that he apparently bought. What exactly would you be looking for? He said it was in the file, yes? Did he show you this, or show anybody else? Did he quote from it? Friends you meet and spend time with at tourn...

Well as far as I'm aware there's an absolute absence of any evidence for any such thing involving Korchnoi, and that kind of dominates my thinking on the matter. I am not sure if this would count as firm evidence, but Korchnoi said to me that he had discovered in his KGB file (which he said bought ...

Ah, I'd forgotten that. I don't think the idea of Korchnoi being a target if he'd won is totally ridiculous. Those Kremlin boys don't mess about if they're unhappy. Well as far as I'm aware there's an absolute absence of any evidence for any such thing involving Korchnoi, and that kind of dominates...

The Prince is not taken very seriously in Australia - see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvQK-sPXO_o

Just to lend my own comment in rebuttal of Roger's nonsense... It remains my view that someone who makes such a fuss about trivia has no place in charge of a major event. He could point to FIDE's long standing practices of making it up as they go along and not taken a hard line on dress and for tha...

The player caught, Joris Boons, had won three (rating restricted) Dutch tournaments in the previous few months, in Hilversum, Haarlem and Amsterdam, with perfect or near-perfect scores. More details at http://paulkeres.nl/?p=14578

Michael Janata died in the late 1980s. He returned to Czechoslovakia with an unidentified illness and died three months later.
He was a polyglot, specialising in Arabic, who traveled widely.

It was a demonstration sport at the Sydney Olympics. It was quite a big show. Drug Testing in chess is already compulsory, albeit only at major events. FIDE wanted chess to be recognised by the IOC, as it and bridge are. This has proven beneficial to several federations. Chess was not a demonstrati...

As I write this, a thought occurs to me: maybe chess engines are teaching us that chess is evolving away from generalisations. Maybe there is no 'generic' right or wrong answer about when to swap light squared Bishops in the Carlsbad structures, but instead simply long lists of situations where the...