English Chess Forum

When I was getting into chess in the first half of the last decade, I can remember reading John Saunders' posts on page 568 of Ceefax.

I can vividly remember seeing "British Chess Federation", and wondering why it was "British", when the other countries in the British Isles were there. I even remember being happy when it was replaced with English Chess Federation, because it didn't look so out of place.

I seem to remember there was a puzzle - which may have been on Channel 4's chess page? - which was irritating, because my remote control never had a REVEAL button to tell me the answer when I couldn't get it.

I can also remember frantically trying to read the reports before the next page came on; I didn't like pressing HOLD because it meant I would miss the next page, where the report continued/finished. I didn't really want to wait for the next 14 pages to cycle through to get back to it!

Did 568 continue to carry chess until Ceefax died yesterday? Back in the pre-Internet days, did tournament organisers get any extra entries or enquiries because their event was listed on Ceefax? Did it help get any new players involved in the game?

I haven't looked at CEEFAX in years, but I do remember watching the moves of Game 24 of the 1987 World Championship Match coming in more or less live on that page. In these always-on Internet days it's hard to appreciate just how exciting that was.

Alex H >Did 568 continue... until Ceefax died yesterday?<
No it didn't.
(Analogue TV was switched off yesterday in Northen Ireland - the last remaining area of the UK it was still being used in.)
Regarding the demise of page 568 Digital Spy Forum (23/3/2011) has the following - Chess p.568 has gone and is no longer on the A-Z index... adieu.
Personally, I recall that it was updated less and less frequently towards the end.

In 1998 my chess club moved, so I informed Ceefax (John Saunders I think) and to my surprise the news about Sutton Coldfield Chess Club was the lead item for a while even though the British Championships were on at the time.

If you're still nostalgic, you can view http://www.ceefax.tv/txtmaster.php?page=568

I find it interesting looking at some of those congress entries that the phone number was quoted. (What else would they quote, I guess?) Locally, there's some trepidation about putting phone numbers on the Internet, but phone numbers of congress organisers were all over CEEFAX. Not sure I get the difference, personally.

Alex Holowczak wrote: Locally, there's some trepidation about putting phone numbers on the Internet, but phone numbers of congress organisers were all over CEEFAX. Not sure I get the difference, personally.

It would be a lot easier to harvest phone numbers from webpages than from Ceefax or Oracle, so maybe that's the difference.

In pre-Internet days, Teletext was the way to follow important chess matches. I'm not sure when it first became available but the Karpov v Korchnoi match in Baguio would have been one of the first. Annoyingly, because Thames TV had the rights, the moves of the Kasparov v Karpov match in London in 1986 weren't up on Teletext until after the late night "today at match" program with John Nunn and others. You could at least video record the program and watch it the next morning.

I remember the moves coming through in chunks during the Short v Timman match. During one game it got so exciting that I had to go out of the house and take a walk. (Funny thing is, though I can't remember exactly which game...)

Roger de Coverly wrote:Annoyingly, because Thames TV had the rights, the moves of the Kasparov v Karpov match in London in 1986 weren't up on Teletext until after the late night "today at match" program with John Nunn and others. You could at least video record the program and watch it the next morning.

What about games at the weekend in that match? Thames presumably couldn't broadcast their late night stuff on Friday, Saturday or Sunday...

It was compelling viewing in 1993 once the Channel Four coverage of Kasparov / Short went off air.

JustinHorton wrote:I remember the moves coming through in chunks during the Short v Timman match. During one game it got so exciting that I had to go out of the house and take a walk. (Funny thing is, though I can't remember exactly which game...)

That (anything *but* boring) Ruy Lopez Exchange one, possibly??

That was my first thought, but there's something in my head telling me that the game gave Short a two-point lead. Maybe the twelfth, but I'll never know for sure.

JustinHorton wrote:That was my first thought, but there's something in my head telling me that the game gave Short a two-point lead. Maybe the twelfth, but I'll never know for sure.

Almost certainly the twelfth, because I was in much the same position, "watching" the game from my TV set at University! Moreover, it did look like Short might have messed things up (in which case Timman would level the match) and for a while, during/just after the time scramble, Short just looked as though he would be mated. But then I saw that he had a discovered check (e5-e6+) which also allowed his queen to defend along the h2-b8 diagonal. Then all of sudden I understood that the time scramble had actually gone very well; half an hour later he won and with a two point lead the match was virtually over (14 games in that one)

Alex Holowczak asks why people are reluctant to provide phone numbers these days. I would guess it's because it is much more efficient to provide an email address and post uptodate messages on a website.
One year there were power cuts and the night before the Islington Congress I received about 50 calls asking whether the event was going ahead. My mother got exasperated that I was failing to finish my evening meal, so she took the calls.
'He's not God you know!' she exclaimed when one person asked whether there was going to be light. She was proven wrong. There were no power cuts that weekend at the venue.

Is memory playing me false? GLC World Championship match 1986 at the Park Lane Hotel there was live coverage on either Ceefax or Teletext, presumably the commercial TV one. I remember they had awful diagrams. I think Peter Richmond was hired to enter the moves should the electronic board break down, but it never did. The equipment was Intelligent Chess Software, not DGT.
The games were played Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Thus Thames the first two and London Weekend Television the third. Adjourned games were played the following day.

Roger. Did you keep the videos of the 1986 match? I have some of them, but not the first two weeks.

Stewart Reuben wrote:Alex Holowczak asks why people are reluctant to provide phone numbers these days. I would guess it's because it is much more efficient to provide an email address and post uptodate messages on a website.

If the people I know who are reluctant to do this actually replied to e-mails, I might agree with this point of view.

Stewart Reuben wrote:'He's not God you know!'

One of FIDE's lesser-known titles?

Stewart Reuben wrote: Is memory playing me false? GLC World Championship match 1986 at the Park Lane Hotel there was live coverage on either Ceefax or Teletext, presumably the commercial TV one.

It might be my memory. Did they cover the second half of the match when it was in Moscow? If so, that's probably when the coverage went back in time. So whilst Thames/LWT would have had the moves, they didn't go up on Oracle until after the program was broadcast.

I would only have recorded the material to time shift it, so I don't have any copies.