English Chess Forum

I enclose a couple of games from the Major Open event at Richmond. [Event "BCF Congress, Richmond, Major Open"] [Site "?"] [Date "1912.08.14"] [Round "3"] [White "O'Hanlon, JJ."] [Black "Waterman, JC."] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A46"] [PlyCount "54"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bf4 Nbd7 4. e3 g6 5. Bd3 Bg7 6....

Standards have of course risen enormously in chess. Richard Edward Lean (1867-1937) was a very exciting player in that he liked gambits and attacking. Unfortunately his play was not always sound and his games were often short, whether he won or lost. For those who have read Bruce Hayden's 'Cabbage H...

Thanks for your help, Roger. I hope that people can make sense of this! [Event "British Championship, Chester"] [Site "?"] [Date "1914.08.12"] [Round "3"] [White "Louis, A."] [Black "Lean, RE."] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C44"] [PlyCount "61"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3 d5 4. Qa4 dxe4 5. Nxe5 Qd5 6. Nxc6 b...

Thanks for this, Roger, but I am afraid that I cannot still get this to work. The only text file that I have is Word, which probably would not work. Otherwise I could enter the eight games individually, but that also has not worked because after I saved a draft, I could not later find what I had sav...

Gerald, I have seven more games played by Lean and one game from the British Ladies' Championship. I am not sure, however, about transferring all these games into the Forum. Do you input them one by one, which seems arduous, or do you know of a way to list a group of games on to the website? Otherwi...

I have now checked through my notes from a few years ago and I see that 40 Rg2+ Kh8 was actually played in the Noel-Johnson v Winter game. I am sorry that I made a mistake when transcribing the game into ChessBase.

Regarding the Noel-Johnson v Winter game, I suspect that the extra moves of 40 Rg2+ Kh8 were actually played. Without these moves 43 Rxb7 would surely have been met with Qd1+ winning a rook. It is unlikely that Black would have missed this.

The following game was played in the British at Bournemouth in 1936: Noel-Johnson,RC - Winter,W [A45] British Championship at Bournemouth (4), 11.06.1936 1.d4 Nf6 2.e3 g6 3.Bd3 d6 4.Ne2 Bg7 5.0-0 0-0 6.c4 e5 7.Nbc3 Nc6 8.d5 Nb4 9.e4 Nxd3 10.Qxd3 Nd7 11.Be3 f5 12.f3 f4 13.Bf2 g5 14.b4 Nf6 15.Kh1 g4 1...

John Saunders does not appear to have the following game in his collection: Lean,RE - Palmer,Rev WC [B56] British Championship, Glasgow (11), 25.08.1911 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bb5 Bd7 7.0-0 g6 8.f4 Bg7 9.f5 Qb6 10.Be3 Ng4 11.Qxg4 Bxd4 12.Nd5 Bxe3+ 13.Kh1 Qd4 14.c3 gxf5 15....

John, we have a list of members of the Brighton Chess Club dated about 1859. This includes Lord Alfred Hervey, Sir George Brooke-Pechell and (William?) Coningham, all of whom were M.P.s for Brighton. You mention Captain Pechell as a member in 1845 and make the assumption that he was Captain William ...

The figure quoted of less than ten people visiting the library per year is misleading. For the last two to three years people wanting to view books had to give 24 hours notice during which time the staff would look for any material in the basement. One could not walk around and browse at the collect...

My source is the second edition of 'Waifs and Strays' published in 1876. It is a rare book and I was lucky enough to be able to first view it at the Hastings Chess Club in 1990. I do not know if it is still in the library of that club. On page 185 Kennedy states that he was resident in Brighton from...

In his book 'Waifs and Strays' Kennedy stated that he became resident in Brighton in 1840. In the BCM of November 1944 (page 251) R N Coles made the mistake of assuming that Kennedy formed the club in that year and this error was repeated in the 1975 book on Staunton written by Coles and Ray Keene. ...

The Brighton Chess Club was not formed until December 1842 more than a year after the political 'hurly-burly'. According to Kennedy he had moved to the town in 1840. We do not have any minutes for this early period and it is almost impossible to work out who Mr D was, though there is no evidence to ...

I do not agree that much of the information can be accessed online. If one tries to study chess history on the internet, one can usually only learn about the general outlines of events. Chess historians want to go further than this and read documents which recreate the atmosphere of the past. For ex...