English Chess Forum

Has anyone seen the photo in today’s paper of a player in a tournament taking a selfie of herself with Magnus Carlsen? Notice anything unusual about it?!

The 1990 British was held in Eastbourne shortly after the murder of the local MP, Ian Gow, by the Provisional IRA. Because of this and the number of Irish participants there was a Special Brach (or similar) presence at the event. Suba was participating in the Championship. I was one of the arbiters...

Neil, I am rather puzzled as I thought I had entered the English Chess Forum league but I appear to be in a league labelled 'English Chess Fans'. There only appear to be twelve members although I see that Azul Albatrosses - not surprisingly with his current score of 270 - is the leader in both leagu...

I have missed all this - I haven't read the Not Chess! thread before. Am I too late to join this league? I've been in the competition since the start for the past three seasons. If I joined, would my current score count or would have to start from scratch?!

I have a question for Kevin Thurlow or any other arbiters out there. Last night I played a club championship game and opened 1.e4 to which my opponent replied 1...d6. He then said 'Oh, can we re-start the game?' More than a little surprised, I declined. He then said, 'But the board's the wrong way r...

Ha ha! I must admit I was surprised to be confronted with analogue clocks when I played the Hampshire Congress last year. One wonders how many other congresses continue to use them, if any. As for Fischer time, we have used it for several years at the Thanet Congress as you know, Kevin, with few pro...

Keith B Richardson was Englands first Grandmaster. He got his title for ccorrespondance chess. He also played for England at Cricket playing in Englands under 19 team. I believe that he also played First team county cricket. I am not sure which county he played for but he was from Nottinghamshire. ...

Thank you, John. I'm glad you enjoyed the congress. There will be games from all the sections published on the Broadstairs site in due course. I have the Challengers and Minor already in hand. I emailed Kevin as he collates all the Open games and once I get those there should be a couple I can add. ...

The Open was won by IM Alan Merry. Full results: OPEN: http://results.utuswiss.co.uk/TournamentPage?Tournament=f10b717a-04c9-4e8d-a54f-14a4bd60b92d CHALLENGERS: http://results.utuswiss.co.uk/TournamentPage?Tournament=88b49f25-2554-4adc-9397-26cf5ed2324c MAJOR: http://results.utuswiss.co.uk/Tournamen...

The 50th Thanet Chess Congress is only three weeks away. Free entry for GMs and IMs and only £5 for U16s. There are unique prizes for the winners of each section unavailable at any other congress in addition to over £2300 in prize money. So far, five of the original 1970 entrants have signed up to p...

At a recent league match a player became ill and an ambulance was called. He clearly could not continue his game and offered his opponent a draw which was accepted. The game was even so the offer was quite fair anyway and it had no bearing on the match result. However, is there a ruling on this? It ...

The website for the 50th Thanet Chess Congress is now live. Go to www.thanetchesscongress.co.uk for further information including details of the special trophies to be won (and kept) by the winners of the five sections. The SCCU and Kent Championship titles are also available for those who qualify. ...

I think you’ll find the apparent rook reference in the Skipton Building Society logo is meant to be Skipton Castle. On a separate note, a recent episode of Pointess featured a set of pictures of board games. If you don’t know the format - although I suspect many chess players watch the programme - ‘...

I didn't remember the name of the building but a few things about the 1990 Championships spring to mind. I had no idea about the death of Ian Gow as it must have taken place in the morning as I was driving down and I had not had the radio on. The first I heard of it was at the opening ceremony when ...

It is used in some congresses as we have done at Thanet for past three or four years with few problems as far as I am aware although Kevin can confirm. If there were, I’m sure we’d scrap it. Of course, it may be different where you have three games in one day. I think we use 90 mins + 30 secs. I do ...