English Chess Forum

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 27, 2020 10:34 am

Geoff Chandler wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 27, 2020 9:16 am

I managed to get on for a day, now it's gone again.

A little tardy in initial response but it is working today.

Tried three different applications, plus other browsers and Iphones, no joy. It may be on the brink of tipping into oblivion.

John can you help? I need to find what I posted in the thread:

Garry Kasparov vs Stuart C Conquest (1983) (Stuart won - good game, uncharacteristic tactical blunder by Kasparov.)

Sleepless quest No.623 is me looking for the Neil Dickinson position. (read on)

It would have been something like;

BCM March 1984. Kasparov gave a 10 board simul on BBC computers running an Acorn program.

A report by Stuart Conquest states that Neil Dickinson played a bad move and tendered his resignation
writing 1-0 on the scoresheet. Gary saw it was a simple blunder and wanted him to take back his move
and play another but he did not know how to make the computer do this.

(Gary possibly knew by then that the horrid display, white and purple pieces on yellow and green squares was
giving him and the players eye strain and headaches, one of the players, Susan Walker, fainted and was replaced.)

Gary went off looking for help, meanwhile someone pointed out to Neil that yes he was losing a
piece but there was a wee trick (which he and it appears Kasparov missed) and he could win it back.

Gary returns with Eric Schiller, Neil waves him away, plays on...Kasparov wins.

I may have asked on chessgames if anyone know of the game or position - has anyone replied.

Does anyone out there have a contact for for Neil Dickinson?

Nope, still nothing for me today......

Hi Matt,

Me neither, only one thing for it, me and you will have to start up our own chessgames site, (gamesofchess.com)

All we need is a Database of about 1 million games and 200 people who cannot get on with each other.

Chessgames.com is functioning normally. I have no login problems with it.

The last Sally Simpson kibitz is 17 June on Hugh Flockhart's exact date of birth.

Evidently Chessgames.com works for some people but not others. Leonard is one of the lucky ones, I am not.

I used this site to check - https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/chessgames.com - and it confirms that the site is up, just not for me (and hasn't been for a long time now).

Can some helpful techie explain why a website should be accessible to some but not others?

While I'm here, a bit of info - BritBase has changed host and URL - it's now https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase - the difference is that it's 'org' and not 'co' as previously. Please change your bookmarks. And if you spot any glitches, please let me know.

John Saunders wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:53 am

I used this site to check - https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/chessgames.com

That is a brilliant resource!

John Saunders wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:53 am

the site is up, just not for me (and hasn't been for a long time now).

The last John Saunders kibitz is 5 May, but the profile says last seen 17 Jun 2020.

Geoff Chandler wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 27, 2020 11:20 am

John can you help? I need to find what I posted in the thread:

Garry Kasparov vs Stuart C Conquest (1983) (Stuart won - good game, uncharacteristic tactical blunder by Kasparov.)

Sleepless quest No.623 is me looking for the Neil Dickinson position. (read on)

It would have been something like;

BCM March 1984. Kasparov gave a 10 board simul on BBC computers running an Acorn program.

A report by Stuart Conquest states that Neil Dickinson played a bad move and tendered his resignation
writing 1-0 on the scoresheet. Gary saw it was a simple blunder and wanted him to take back his move
and play another but he did not know how to make the computer do this.

(Gary possibly knew by then that the horrid display, white and purple pieces on yellow and green squares was
giving him and the players eye strain and headaches, one of the players, Susan Walker, fainted and was replaced.)

Gary went off looking for help, meanwhile someone pointed out to Neil that yes he was losing a
piece but there was a wee trick (which he and it appears Kasparov missed) and he could win it back.

Gary returns with Eric Schiller, Neil waves him away, plays on...Kasparov wins.

I may have asked on chessgames if anyone know of the game or position - has anyone replied.

Does anyone out there have a contact for for Neil Dickinson?

Geoffrey

You said

wrote: Hi Jim,
" I would guess this is a clock simul, where Kasparov played maybe six good English players with a classical time control."
It was 10 board simul but with a difference.
First the scores.
Kasparov beat: Peter Wells, Neil Dickinson, Stuart Rachels (USA) and Teresa Needham.
He drew with Susan Walker - replaced by Gavin Crawley (see below), Ian Thomas, David Norwood and Phillip Rossiter
He lost to Stuart Conquest and Neil Bradbury.
The novel idea was not to have a normal simul with boards and pieces but use Acorn computers.
Each player sat in front of a screen and typed in his or her move.
Gary had White on the boards but the display on all screens showed Black at the top so the juniors had to play 'upside down'.
The colours displayed were white for the white pieces, purple for the black pieces, pale yellow for light squares and light green for the dark squares.
This is relevant because according to the players this display produced headaches. 'stars before their eyes' and general dizziness.
One player, Susan Walker actually fainted and had to be replaced by Gavin Crawley.
As the games wore on Kasparov's time became an issue as he had to type in the moves which takes longer than moving and pressing a clock. If he made an error typing in the clocks did not stop.
Nobody complained when he was awarded an extra 30 minutes.
BCM March 1984, full report written by Stuart Conquest.

There don't appear to be any relevant follow-ups.

BTW It may be Dickenson

John Saunders wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 10:53 am

Evidently Chessgames.com works for some people but not others. Leonard is one of the lucky ones, I am not.

I used this site to check - https://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/chessgames.com - and it confirms that the site is up, just not for me (and hasn't been for a long time now).

Can some helpful techie explain why a website should be accessible to some but not others?

While I'm here, a bit of info - BritBase has changed host and URL - it's now https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase - the difference is that it's 'org' and not 'co' as previously. Please change your bookmarks. And if you spot any glitches, please let me know.

Yes, I would be very interested to know too. Especially since I can't recall this ever happening with any other site I visit regularly.

Hi Alistair.

Thanks you for your help and the details (I still cannot log on) but please do not call me 'Geoffrey'

It's always Geoff, ('Geoffrey' is what my mum shouted at me prior to a skelp around the lughole.)

I have had a PM from someone who knows Neil and is contacting him on my behalf.

I have also had confirmation the name is Dickenson. BCM has it as 'DIckinson.' they also have, page 120,
the hardback copy of the Kings Indian by Marovic priced at £00.00 and $00.00. (Limp is £7.75 and $12.20)

Thanks all - the power of the forum has come through. (see what we can achieve when we are not squabbling with each other. )

By way of an extra thank you. from Q & Q same BCM, March 1984. The record for the heaviest odds ever given successfully.

G. Koshnitsky N.N. (Austalasian Chess Review 1938) Enjoy.

[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/3QK1N1 w kq - 0 1"] 1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 Nf6 3. Qd3 d5 4. e5 Nb4 5. Qb5+ Bd7 6. Qxb4 Ne4 7. Qxb7 Qb8 8. Qxd5 Qb4+ 9. c3 Qxb2 10. Qxa8+ Bc8 11. Qxc8

I'm one of those that can't get on the www.chessgames.com site... but only having problem from my home broadband connection with British Telecom.
Connecting using my Vodafone mobile is ok. I suspect it might be an issue with the BT network.

Questions:
- is anyone on a BT Broadband service able to connect to chessgames.com ?
- is anyone NOT on BT Broadband having problem to reach chessgamesl.com ?

Now *that* makes sense - I am usually on a BT server at the weekend but not at other times.

Looks highly like this is the reason, in which case it becomes a question of sorting it out.

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 29, 2020 4:06 pm

Now *that* makes sense - I am usually on a BT server at the weekend but not at other times.

Looks highly like this is the reason, in which case it becomes a question of sorting it out.

If it's a problem of that type I'd have thought it more likely to be chessgames.com having incorrect security group or firewall rules which cause traffic from (some) IP addressees used by BT to be blocked at their end.

If it's that sort of thing you could just try turning your router off and on again so it gets a new IP address and see whether that works.

I am another who is on BT broadband (in its PlusNet manifestation) and cannot get to www.chessgames.com.

However, I can get to it from the same desktop when I use a VPN, which obviously uses different routers and gives you a different IP Address. Perhaps VPN is also an option for other people who are keen to get to that site? (It's also worth taking up with BT if it's a site you really want to get access to.)

Have any BT users had luck with getting back on the site yet?