English Chess Forum

I wonder if the solution to this problem - or some of these problems - could be found in modifying the rules in a rather radical manner. What the claimant wants is not to lose hopelessly drawn positions by being unable to play an infinite number of moves in thirty seconds. What the other party wants...

Lovely article by Geoff C, agreed.

I wonder if Ligterink saw all this and had intended to trap the queen with 4 Rd3, only to discover 4...Qc4 when it came to it.

Actually, the ten-win factor would have favoured Fischer a lot. Karpov's strength failed him both in Baguio and in Moscow 1984-5. I think Fischer would have suffered less from this factor. Sometimes though in WC matches the most important thing is a feeling of destiny - both for the challenger and s...

Nigel's a one, isn't he? Wouldn't have been easy to predict this position. I'm sure Nick P was too canny to spend much prep time on the Chigorin, but still.

Someone asked what happened to Peter J Lee. Assuming this was the chap who was British Champion in 1965(?), then he gave up the game for bridge and a few years ago won the Gold Cup. He lives in Surrey and can be found spectating at the London Classic.

Rock ON! HIgh time someone did this and shocked the London League into, say, about 1990 or so on the question of adjournments.

In any case grades are measures of relative, not absolute, strength. It's a vulgar error to think that 2800 in 1972 was necessarily stronger than 2700 in 1975 in absolute terms. Retrospective ratings give people like Lasker 2800 ratings; now clearly they were great players, but they just didn't play...

Suppose it's not zugzwang; he can go ...Ke7 at the end. That was lucky......

Blimey; why did Stephen let this happen? Isn't he in trouble now? 69 Bc5 Bc7 70 Bb4 Bb6 71 Bd2 Ba7 72 Ba5 zugzwang, or something like that?

Well, that was clever by SA. Why didn't I see that, I wonder? SG completing the double by cunningly defending e5 as well, I see. I should give this game up. Still, I'm confident that I'd have been able to locate the 'resign' button by now were I in Jovanka's position. She must be using an interface ...

Paul Cooksey wrote:is b3 + fork working for Simon now?
EDIT: was probably pointless. Looks really good now.

Does it?? I'm not sure he's even better any more.

Oh, OK, Gordon can do that, can he? I thought this was just winning - king goes to e5 and thus gets to d5 and wins the b-pawn. Must be more to it than that somehow.

That's the end in Houska-Pert, presumably. 5 and 6 are still interesting, though. Not sure where my money would be in either. I thought 5 was drawish now. Running out of pawns. Well, Black seems to be running out just a little faster than White. Isn't 51 Rd1 going to win the d-pawn shortly and give...

Kramnik gave an opinion in a piece on the web somewhere; IIRC he says he thinks Karpov would have had at least equal chances. TBH though I think it's a more than usually silly question, since motivation and preparation count for so much in matches, and you need a more detailed counterfactual than 'i...

That's the end in Houska-Pert, presumably. 5 and 6 are still interesting, though. Not sure where my money would be in either.