English Chess Forum

Anyone remember that play Trafford Tanzi from the early 80s? Good fun.

Andy K was in the Broadway production (as the Referee) which folded after only one performance.

Does anyone else remember the red plastic soldiers that came in packets of Cornflakes? You bet! But despite having cornflakes every morning and persuading other family members to do the same as often as possible, I only ever got nine of 'em, and never the drum major .... It was a huge campaign, wit...

I find the Reti one is too well known. This is a good low level study. Like the Reti Few pieces, like the Reti. First glance 'no way' like the Reti. Here's another fitting that general description. Made a big impression on me when I first saw it, age 12. Composed by L Prokes, 1947. White to draw. [...

Please forgive what may turn out to be a silly question (despite being reasonably experienced, I haven't played competitive chess since the mid-80s, and things appear to have changed a lot with all these new clocks, time controls, etc). If your opponent doesn't notate, or stops notating too early, t...

Carl - happy to take 'em down if they're going to cause bother. Just say the word. I did think twice about the cartoon one, owing to potential copyright issues.

And here's another photo with an appropriate theme:

"Hmmmm ..... should I take the queen?"

Peter D Williams wrote:This is the best cat of all time!

TC is in the top three, I'll grant you, but this is my pick for numero uno:



Leaves Garfield in the dust, anyway!

Yes, always sad to see an unusual talent wrecked by the flawed personality it's attached to. Although Ms Houston never particularly appealed to me, I still regret both her passing and the tragically unnecessary manner in which it seems to have occurred. But I have to say it was another recent (and b...

By the way, Dan Harrington made money on roulette due to the wheels being biased at various casinos. Apparently the bias could start being detected after only 90 minutes play. The casinos had no idea what was going on. Unfortunately MIT hit on the same idea. They were unable to make it profitable, ...

I don't understand this. The UK can split up and Elizabeth II can remain the Queen of her realms. The two are different. Indeed, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland could, if they so wished, become similar to places like Canada and Australia, where the Queen remains their Head of State, but they d...

Jonathan Rogers wrote:Ah, I didn't know of his Yorkshire connections.

More than just "connections" - he was born in Bradford and educated at Bradford Grammar!

The following position (quoted by Golombek in The Game of Chess ) occurred in the game E Spencer vs W A Fairhurst in the British championship at Tenby in 1928: r2qkb1r/pppn1ppp/5n2/3p2B1/3PN2N/8/PP2PPPP/R2QKB1R Here Fairhurst played 8. ... Nxe4!, winning a piece and the game after 9.Bxd8 Bb4+; 10.Qd...

Just grab your nearest scientific calculator, input -9 press the square root key, then the equals key, ergo you have crashed your calculator. You mean to say it won't find the modulus of the negative number and display it, followed by an "i" to represent the square root of minus 1?? Would have thou...

Mathematics is one tool and language is another. There are those, including me, who regard mathematics as a language - a highly compressed and symbolic one that describes complex relationships between numerical quantities. Having said which, I can still enjoy Nigel Molesworth's remarks on the subje...

633 Squadron and Great Escape are good. From TV, I suppose my favourites are Twin Peaks, Virginian and Rawhide. Yeah, I'd forgotten 633 Squadron - possibly because I think of it as a theme tune rather than a film score as such. But one of the greats, all right - thank you Ron Goodwin. The Dam Buste...