English Chess Forum

Yes, Purdy in his "Guide to Good Chess" (1st edition, 1950) gave a list of things you should consider before making a move. The last one was (paraphrased) "if you can't find anything better to do, improve the position of your worst placed piece" so the idea is at least as old as that.

I've got several hundred chess books and about 30% of those would come under the heading of general improvement guides. Generally I have found these books disappointing and very few have taught me a lesson which I recall. I just tried to write down a list of books which I found useful and out of 8 t...

In fact Surrey have nominated the Open and U140 teams for the next stage (whatever that is).

I've got a book by American Master Joel Johnson which promotes 1. ...b5 as black's main defence. I tried it out down the club without much success. Watson and Schiller in "The Big Book of Busts" describe 1. b4 as "a Mickey Mouse opening based on a few tricks".

Just saying Mate? rather than Mate! would seem to be the solution.

Even at the rate of one every 5 minutes there are going to be 100,000 lost kids wandering around out there every year which seems a bit on the high side...

It is only a problem in the sense that the database could contain dodgy data. This is hardly the end of the world ...

For several years when I looked up my FIDE rating on the FIDE site I would type in my FIDE ID and get back two names: one was my own and the other was a player from Vietnam who had a FIDE ID with several more digits than mine, but had my FIDE ID embedded within it. I took this as a sign that there i...

I'm not holding anything against Radjabov, but you can't unplay the games that have already been played. Are you suggesting that all of MVL's games be discounted and Radjabov plays the 7 others before the event is restarted? Danny G's solution is obviously the way to go.

Radjabov had his chance and decided not to play, I don't see why he should be given another chance this year. All credit to Grischuk for speaking his mind about the situation, it would have been good to see the other players doing likewise.

(for an initial period of 3 weeks)

There is an item on the ECF website (with today;s date) recommending that (evening) leagues suspend activities from now.

Surrey CCA has produced some advice, particularly in relation to County Chess, which can be seen on the Battersea club website.

I think what went wrong can be deduced from the following which I have extracted from the grading website help files: "How is "most recent 30" interpreted if a game has been reported late and graded in the "wrong" period? Answer: the game will be listed under the grading period in which it was repor...

The latest statement on the ECF library would appear to be the following item from the board's strategy statement presented to the AGM in October this year: "Work with De Montfort University Leicester to manage the transfer of the library from the Office to the DMU Special Collections facility."