Media comments on chess

[Roger de Coverly]

‘Waiting for your opponent to fail does not amount to a strategy’ - @Kasparov63

Some of his predecessors and successors, thinking Lasker, Petrosian and Carlsen seem to play chess that way on occasion.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Alastair Campbell quoting Garry Kasparov in a tweet.

This is pathetic Barry. This is the most serious set of decisions in modern times and you suggest the official position is to sit it out rather than lead and show alternative. ‘Waiting for your opponent to fail does not amount to a strategy’ - @Kasparov63

Something that arguably doesn't reflect too well on either of them?

[Stewart Reuben]

Brooklyn Castle is unusual in that, at the start of the film, the junior high is already a leading chess school. The tension comes when they lose most of their funding due to government cut-backs.
I recognised a couple of the people in this feature film.

[Roger Lancaster]

Piece in today's Sunday Telegraph, which I didn't buy so I can't reproduce, but (as I interpreted it) somewhat critical of the ECF for opting for Makropoulos in view of his history - this despite noting that their contributor, Malcolm Pein, was part of the Makro team.

[Roger de Coverly]

Piece in today's Sunday Telegraph, which I didn't buy so I can't reproduce, but (as I interpreted it) somewhat critical of the ECF for opting for Makropoulos in view of his history -

It doesn't seem to be behind their paywall.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/0 ... te-russia/

Written in part by Leon Watson who often writes for the Telegraph about chess when it overflows from Malcolm's column.

[Roger Lancaster]

Thanks, should have thought to look myself!

[Mick Norris]

9 pm tonight according to the Freeview TV guide.

Thanks for the tip, but does anyone actually get Freeview 94? We're supposed to but we don't.

Yes, up here in Bolton no problem; I caught some of the film today, and found it quite interesting

Not sure if there are any learning points though; are any of the participants actually still playing?

It would appear the star player doesn't play many FIDE rated games

[Stewart Reuben]

Mick ,>It would appear the star player doesn't play many FIDE rated games
That wold be quite normal for the US. They are very insular.

Article in the Sunday Times magazine concerning agents in Hollywood. 'We represented so many people, we could see the entire chessboard.

That analogy is a new one for me.

Well, you have to do something when at an Olympiad. I have met many people I know, but none from England yet.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John

remember reading about a newspaper report from 1962 which described the Spurs-Rangers Cup-Winners' Cup tie as "a game of electric chess".

Looks like we have our source for possibly the first reporter who started using chess terms when writing about football.

CHESS 11th November 1961 (page 47)

"The first half was full of brilliance....a game of electric chess - Brian Glanville describing a Tottenham Hotspur win in the Sunday Times."

[JustinHorton]

I would be amazed if that were the first, although I would also be delighted if it really were Glanville.

[John Clarke]

Hi John

remember reading about a newspaper report from 1962 which described the Spurs-Rangers Cup-Winners' Cup tie as "a game of electric chess".

Looks like we have our source for possibly the first reporter who started using chess terms when writing about football.

CHESS 11th November 1961 (page 47)

"The first half was full of brilliance....a game of electric chess - Brian Glanville describing a Tottenham Hotspur win in the Sunday Times."

A quick check on-line suggests that if was a European tournament game, then it was probably Feyenoord-Tottenham (first leg), played in Amsterdam on 1 November 1961. Spurs won 3-1 on the night and 4-2 on aggregate. (Although Rangers were also in the competition, the two teams didn't play each other. That came the following year, in the Cup-Winners' Cup, as already stated.)

Geoff, I used to have that copy of Chess and it's obviously the source for my (clearly faulty) memory of the passage.

The first time I can remember chess being mentioned in an article about football was in the Boys' Book Of Soccer For 1959. Writing about the 1958 England-Scotland match, the anonymous author speculated about Bobby Charlton's spectacular volleyed goal and wondered whether he might have expected to succeed with that particular shot every time, saying something like "but you can't move footballers back into position like a game of chess, and try again".

[Irrelevant factoid: the first time I ever read the f-word in print was in Brian Glanville's The Rise Of Gerry Logan (1963). Reared on Roy Of The Rovers and other wholesome types, my reaction was "blimey, would a football trainer really talk to his players like that??" So young, so unaware!]

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

I'm sure there must be earlier references so we must keep digging backwards.

I often come across 1950's football annuals on my travels. I'll find a later source.
Be great if we could unearth one from the 1920's or even earlier.

(first sweary word in print was in Lennon's ' In his own Write' which we all bought because it was Lennon,
though none of us could understand most of it. When I swore Mum used to wash my mouth out with washing
up liquid. Remember thinking now I'll get washing up eye drops for reading dirty words.)

Very rarely see swearing in chess books. Though can see the day when this is in the index.

? = Bad Move
?? = Blunder
??? = Now Totally F***ed.

[John Saunders]

A Spanish correspondent, Enrique Carcellach, wrote (of the Uruguayan team at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games): "I have been watching football for 20 years and have never seen any team play with the mastery of this Uruguay team. I did not suspect football could be brought to this degree of virtuosity, this artistic limit. They were playing chess with the feet!"

(From an article in the Guardian four years ago)

But I very much doubt that this 1924 reference was the first IAGOCOT either. I've a feeling I've seen earlier instances whilst trawling through online newspaper archives.

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi John,

1924! A superb find. (I wonder if Edward Winter has this stuff...it's dynamite!).

"Playing Chess with their feet." I can do that.

Lob a pawn up into the centre, side foot my King to g1 and dribble...

[Stewart Reuben]

I doubt anybody will trace an analogy back to 600 AD. Chess is the oldest sport still extant.
Written in Batumi