English Chess Forum

That would depend on the odds available, would it not?

JustinHorton wrote:That would depend on the odds available, would it not?

Well, I suppose I meant that Woods is the favourite going into the 2010 Open, just as he would be at any tournament he enters. If you look at the winners of recent Opens at The Old Course, the winners are: 1970 Jack Nicklaus, 1978 Jack Nicklaus, 1984 Seve Ballesteros, 1990 Nick Faldo, 1995 John Daly, 2000 Tiger Woods, 2005 Tiger Woods. You tend not to get Todd Hamilton or Ben Curtis winners when it's played at St. Andrews. Woods is the strong favourite.

It would be worth checking out what the weather may be like.
He plays like a dope when it's wet and windy.
You will get good odds on him not making the cut.

Anyway this is a chess forum. Why are we talking about stupid golf?

Arkell-Storey 0-1 in today's Sunday Telegraph...

oh, and in Adams' column on the British a couple of weeks back, we saw the finish to Hawkins v Arkell!

Who writes in the Sunday Telegraph now?

Keith Arkell wrote:Here is Arkell's challenge: Can anyone find any game,published in the Times or the Telegraph this Century,in which I scored more than 0

In today's Telegraph there are extracts from two of Keith's wins. Presumably they will appear on Michael Adams's Internet site.

This is becoming London busesville! Malc put the same game(v Julian Hodgson) in his column today.Funny really - I played it 15 years ago at the surrey Easter tournament,and within the space of a few days it has appeared in 3 different places(beginning with the excellent Streatham @ Brixton interview with Simon Williams).I know for certin that Mickey and Simon didn't know of each other's intentions!

This is becoming London busesville! Malc put the same game(v Julian Hodgson) in his column today.Funny really - I played it 15 years ago at the surrey Easter tournament,and within the space of a few days it has appeared in 3 different places(beginning with the excellent Streatham @ Brixton interview with Simon Williams).I know for certain that Mickey and Simon didn't know of each other's intentions!

So excited, it's posted twice....

I was told a story recently about the time Rugby won the National Club Championship, in the days when it was England's nomination for the European Club Championship. The story went that Rugby, who had a 15-year-old Keith Arkell in their team amongst others, drew Moscow away in the first round. They arrived at the venue, to discover they played in front of an audience. Everybody lost ... except for Keith, who won cheers from the crowd as the underdog for winning against some GM. So while not in print, at least the story involved Keith being the unlikely hero, rather than losing!

Of course this might be exaggerated, I don't know...

History did not record whether they had to return to Moscow within 21 days for the adjourned session.

Alex.
I played board 2 in the team which played Moscow away in a double round match all those years ago. Keith was not 15 more like about 22ish. He did win against the immensly talented Lev Psahkis but I don't remember any audience (cheering or silent). More interesting was the quick draw by Andrew Talbot against the potentially equally (to Psahkis) talented Salov on board 6. the story goes that Salov offered a draw as black in a fairly equal position because he thought Andrew Talbot was in fact Sean Talbot and therefore worthy of his strategy of getting a draw with black and trying for a win with white. Actually Andrew was at the time a young lad (about 13 or 14) who was graded about 130 - 140ish I think!! Keith will probably remember the details better than me...

Nick Thomas wrote: was in fact Sean Talbot

It is Shaun M. Taulbut

Gosh how important to the story. Apologies to Shaun M. Talbot and for all other errors in my rushed post...

I can believe that story - not only because there are a number of such stories of Russians taking their satisfaction with draws with black to laughable extremes, but rather because I can imagine that Salov would have heard of Taulbot, who wrote a book in the early 80s (I think) on the Bogo-Indian, which Salov used to play in his later years and presumably had played in his earlier years too.

I was thinking about Salov the other day, in fact. Whatever happened to him? I cannot think of a game by him in the last twelve or so years.

Jonathan Rogers wrote: I was thinking about Salov the other day, in fact. Whatever happened to him? I cannot think of a game by him in the last twelve or so years.

His most recent games in MegaBase 10 are from March, 1999 : who knows his reason(s) for quitting?