English Chess Forum

I'm sad to hear that. I have fond memories of playing Mike in my first ever inter-club match (Maindehead B vs Reading C) in March 1971. I think his dad also played for Reading C that day.

Nitrous oxide is the second most commonly used recreational drug in England and Wales after cannabis, inhaling it from small cannisters. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-48308053. Every year a few people die from it in the UK.

Today's Times Arts Section has a great 2 page article on The Queen's Gambit, featuring David Howell and Jovanka Houska

We greatly enjoyed watching the film but for me it had the extra element of nostalga, taking me back to my first congress (Berks and Bucks congress, Marlow, 1971) and those I played in during the following few years (Islington, Ilford, Hammersmith, North Devon, Southend, Maidenhead) as well as Briti...

With no normal inter-school chess fixtures happening at present we have been running some lichess Battles for secondary schools. Details can be seen at https://lichess.org/team/secondary-school-chess/tournaments These have mainly been at 5 minute + 3 sec increment and have 200+ participants. If anyo...

John Sellen wrote: ↑

Fri May 15, 2020 12:09 pm

It appears quite possible that there will no OTB chess in the UK in second half of 2020.

It is also possible that some households with at least 2 graded players could play arrange to play some graded chess.

Don't they say it can spread via droplets in the air? 'How do you exercise? People in my city of Shiraz` stayed at home for less than 2 months and are still practicing hygiene, and then reopened with caution. Now the daily cases are still below 50, after it had got under 10. You also can do that......

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ is interesting. For example, Russia has reported nearly 11000 new cases today, but "only" 86 deaths. Are we expecting a surge? How are they counting deaths? Some countries, such as UK and others in Western Europe, initially only tested those with symptoms ...

In Iran, around 20 days to our Norouz, we started advertising "Stay home, stay alive". it is still advertised by the government, although many businesses opened up. Is that the case in the UK too? We have something very similar -"Stay home, save the NHS, save lives". Our lockdown is probably strong...

You can stop zoom bombing by setting up the meeting with a waiting room (you only let in those you want), having microphones off by default and limiting screen sharing to the host. I'm not sure if the last one is possible in the free version of zoom. Edit: and using a password for each meeting which...

Young Ukraine chess couple 'killed by laughing gas' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51767082

A sad loss for the chess world. Amongst his many activities, for many years David was a great arbiter for the National School Chess Championships Finals at Uppingham School.

In the end 350 pupils representing 53 teams from 39 schools took part. There is a report and photos at https://www.englishchess.org.uk/ecf-secondary-schools-rapidplay-2019/ Winners – RGS Guildford A 25/30 2nd – Hampton School A 24.5 3rd – Gonzaga College, Dublin A 23.5 Plate winners – St Paul’s Girl...

Alex, has it changed since Richard Haddrell was grading administrator? In 2013 I sent him 2 parallel grading files. That evening he processed both of them. Each player was duplicated with the same pin in both files. First one: Sheet 2 Cell A20: New Player - Pin 152: yyyy, xxx Sheet 2 Cell A20: Possi...

The problem is new players. Leyland will be using the grading list published on 22nd July, and so their "new" player may actually be an existing player who has already played in tournaments over the past 5 weeks. (Imagine a busier time of the year, say February or March, and this is more of an issu...