English Chess Forum

Anyone want to speculate on future IRL (Ireland), WLS (Wales) and SCO (Scotland) IMs and GMs? My guesses for Scotland's next GM and IM would be Andrew Greet and Clement Sreeves. Next GM will be Andrew Greet, or the next foreign GM who settles in Scotland. I'm not sure the next Scots-born GM has act...

What law does the downloading of a PDF-file of a copyrighted book, break? It probably infringes copyright in a similar way that receiving stolen goods breaks the law. What if you have the printed book and just download the PDF? The PDF is much easier to translate. The slightly flippant answer to th...

Some random thoughts on this topic. I read somewhere that it was thought UKIP’s rise in 2015 basically came pretty equally from Con and Lab, and that by the start of the campaign the Con half had returned. Now it may be that much of the Labour proportion is also returning, so that could have a relat...

There was some chat on this a few years ago here

Are there other leagues that use the same or similar model to Stockport? As far as I know, the situation in Edinburgh & Lothians is as follows: The composition of the divisions is decided somehow. I assume this is a decision made by the council, based on previous league positions, promotions and re...

When I saw Geoff had posted I assumed he was going to mention Phil Condie. I forget the exact details, but I think it involved one of the Edinburgh Congresses in the early 80s - presumably due to numbers, the Major and Challengers tournaments were split in 2 (a recipe for confusion); also, I think ...

Where do people here think this might end President Pence. Maybe the puppet-master already thought of that. To be honest, I know less about this stuff than I know about the Caro-Kann, but that's not going to stop me playing... I guess from Putin's point of view, the concern over Trump was that he w...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:Where do people here think this might end

President Pence.

Thanks for your responses. It would appear that the captain, had he not been involved in his own time-scramble, could not have legitimately intervened on this, and presumably would have had to bite his tongue. Joey – I’m not sure if you are describing blundering on move 41 (say) as you have squeezed...

On digital clocks with an intermediate time control, players can be confused by whether or not the extra time has been added. The move number on their scoresheet won't tell them. In a way it's taking notes, but legally. You record the clock times both at the time control and when the flag fall disp...

Playing a lot of non-elo rated opposition had a big impact on my elo rating This is interesting. Presumably, rather than basing a grade on (say) 90 results, were one to base the grade on a random sample of (say) 30 games, the results should not differ too much. Of course, in this case they do (but ...

Bad news for some players though - a quick perusal of ENG titled players shows a few very large drops... I note IM Mark Condie languishing in 181,103rd place with a rating of 1532. I'm intrigued at the thought process behind this calculation. I don't think Mark has played competitively for 12 years...

The Legislative in the UK and EU are both elected that is true; but the executive in the EU is unelected whereas the executive in the UK is made up of elected members within the legislative unit The executive in the UK is appointed by someone who is invited to do so by a (non-elected) sovereign. I ...

Does anyone have any idea how the by-election might have gone if the Conservatives had put forward an official candidate? Would that have increased the Lib Dem eventual majority, or might it have confused things still further? I imagine that this would have split Zac's vote, but could also have spl...

Since the referendum, the LDs have gained 41 council seats, held 15 and lost only one. In the same time, the Tories and Labour are on a net loss well into double figures, all other parties have a net loss apart from Plaid Cymru, up 1. I think you've excluded Scotland, Paul. From memory there would ...