English Chess Forum

You're not getting it Roger. Please reread my previous post and reflect on it. A 140 'class' player will come in WAY lower on average if he has extreme vulnerability after a defeat. And his results will show a high level of volatility.

and there will be a small minority who are unable to concentrate at all and will go into a 'downward spiral'. I would have though it pretty exceptional to enter tournament after tournament and score 0/5 against lower graded opposition. Even more exceptional to then bounce back and score 5/5 or 4.5/...

Roger de Coverly wrote:
I've played through those of his games published and he is either extremely unlucky or sandbagging. If you can score 5/5 in an under 120 tournament, how come you leave a mate in one almost out of the opening?

I'm quite sure it's possible to get a chimpanzee to 120 with good training.

On the matter of negative runs in chess, I will just point out that there has been a study on how World Champions have performed after a defeat. It turned out that only Lasker remained more or less unaffected, all the others underperformed. It should be clear to anyone not caught up in 'crowd mental...

Why does anyone listen to the "Bedlam Brigade"? Here you have a post that disguises a libellous attack on an individual, as somehow seeking the truth. A post that uses a nudge-nudge innuendo, of which Sid James would be proud, disguised as curiosity, to do a dirty deed that allows hands to be held ...

I didn't want this post to go down this route, it was intended as a discussion about rabble rousing blogs. But I might add that once the matter mentioned above develops into 'typical crowd behaviour', creativity and research with regard to 'alternative hypothesese' seem to go totally down the tubes.

You should be aware that 'The Chess Improver' has a deliberate policy not to name people in a way that will cause offence. Any accusations of the nature you are referring to would need to be properly researched and other explanations considered. This has never been done, in fact the only 'contributi...

I'm not going to say because that would make me no better than they are but I'm sure people can hazard a decent guess. The problem is that they publish very destructive stuff about anyone who attracts their ire and can get away with it because they're not worth suing.

Just wondering what people think, my take is that they're really destructive for UK chess.

There was a letter published in Chess magazine some decades ago which was a brilliant example of how to welcome new members. From what I can remember it involved inviting newcomers to have a game, not making unilateral captures, remembering the names of their kids (& dog) etc. The late Dave Dixon st...

A new article offered as food for thought:

http://chessimprover.com/defusing-the-d ... time-bomb/

I think my presence here is now well passed a point of diminishing returns.

There's a good way to find out. Check who has brought funding into chess and check their qualifications. Here's a list of people that immediately come to mind, not in any particular order: Raymond Keene Malcolm Pein Leonard Barden Stewart Reuben David Anderton David Norwood Note the distinct lack o...

I know there's sponsorship at local tournaments (credit to Heywood, they have 3 or 4) but they tend to be connections with local players (that's how we always did it at Bury) - Stockport Rapidplay (30th edition next Sunday) was sponsored by their local Vernon Building Society at one point, but like...

ND: Tradewise was not brought in by a current ECF person. Had you said that the current ECF board had not brought in sponsorship ok, though given they've only had a few months I'd think it was a tad harsh. But you didn;t, you said the ECF had never brought sponsorship. You know you're wrong. I know...