English Chess Forum

C.N. 9476 quotes a claim by C.J. de Mooi on page 46 of CHESS, March 2010:

• "I think it was 1998 and 1999 I was the most active player in the country. I was playing 360-370 rated long-play games a year as well as about 250 rated Rapidplay games."

After I posted a tweet about this yesterday, Angus French pointed out some related information in an old ECF thread (http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4698).

What are the hard facts and statistics about C.J. de Mooi's specific claims?

Thank you very much.

Olimpiu G. Urcan

O.G. Urcan wrote: What are the hard facts and statistics about C.J. de Mooi's specific claims?

It used to be possible to check how many games were played in any season at the ECF grading site. That data is no longer displayed for the period in question, but I seem to recall the claim being challenged and found to be false.

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4698

(edit) Having seen the Winter question, it's certainly provable provided you only count graded games as the grading system has the details. There's almost certainly a record holder if anyone cared to do the research. According to the downloadable July 2015 grading list, the most active player totalled 246 games, being 135 standard and 111 rapid. There were 225 (out of 14054) with totals of 100 or above. The thread mentioned has the details for the de Mooi claim. That was a revelation of sorts. If he couldn't be honest about the number of games he played and his position in the Grand Prix table, where else was he prone to exaggeration? (/edit)

There are a lot of other claims in his recently released autobiography, including that he may have killed someone in Amsterdam in 1988, as reported in various media this week. No doubt the sensational nature of some of these claims will help to sell the book. See the thread:

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 25#p162897

Well I played him once. Back in October 1997 at Maidstone in what I remember as the Kent Minor - my first ever weekend congress. He had the white pieces, a grade of 121 & played the Kings Indian attack. We agreed a draw in a state in my case of first round nerves and perhaps his as well.

I would give you the game but the pedants would pick through it and embarass myself and CJ. He seemed a nice guy. At the time I think he was well known as a chess player and as "CJ the DJ" and clearly played a lot. I do think though that anyone would be hard pressed to play as many games a year as Alan Fraser has been these last few years.

Chris

I must stop linking to this miniature I played against him every time CJ is mentioned...

http://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php ... 366#p51366



(I should actually re-publish that game in this thread, using the pgn tags rather than the old system we were using back then)

I see that in an editorial on page 4 of CHESS, November 2009 Malcolm Pein wrote that C.J. de Mooi "was the UK's most active tournament player for a couple of years when he averaged over a game a day".

No particulars were given.

It is hard to imagine that CHESS would have made these claims without verifying them first.

O.G. Urcan wrote:Malcolm Pein wrote that C.J. de Mooi "was the UK's most active tournament player for a couple of years when he averaged over a game a day".

That doesn't seem borne out by the historic records from the grading system, although the headline count of games played didn't distinguish between league and tournament play. Rapid-play is mostly tournament though.

With regards to CJ I'd more worried about this little gem http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortc ... d-somebody I suspect when it all comes out, his version of events will be greatly exaggerated, but he may have dropped himself in it a bit.

At the very least I suspect he wasn’t aiming to have his and Jimmy Savile’s name mentioned in the same article!

JustinHorton wrote:It is hard to imagine that CHESS would have made these claims without verifying them first.

I assume this comment is made at least slightly ironically?

I also remember a game against CJ at the Richmond Rapidplay in the late 90s (again, we drew). He obviously thought he should have won, but was very pleasant about it.

CJ has his moments but is generally pleasant. Shortly after he was on Countdown, he wandered up to me at a tournament to smile and comment that he hadn't done as well as me. I recall in the 90s that it was said he played more games than anyone else, but there was no way of checking then. He certainly seemed to be at a lot of weekend tournaments.

Kevin Thurlow wrote:I recall in the 90s that it was said he played more games than anyone else, but there was no way of checking then.

The grading data would know, but the printed graded lists of the period didn't publish the game count. The on-line presentation of the grading history has changed a little over the past few years with server changes, so the material that it was possible to look up a couple of years ago is no longer made public.

If there was to be any revision to the presentation of grading history, restoring game count could be a priority. A season by season top ten would also establish who does have the bragging rights.

If the printed graded lists of the period didn't publish the game count, then how would CJ have known he was the most active player? Is it not obvious that he thought he was among the most active players, and that this translated into his (unsupported) claim to that effect (furthermore that he was the most active player)? Or might he have had access to the behind-the-scenes data? As to who should have bragging rights, that is going a bit far. Full statistics, yes. Highlighting it, no. Though I do remember a CHESS or BCM article some years ago that highlighted someone who deliberately set out to play a large number of games in a single year. I can't remember the name right now.

At the Streatham & Brixton Chess Blog on 9 September Justin Horton wrote that Amazon's "Look Inside" function showed only four references to chess in C.J. de Mooi's recent autobiography.

A colleague who has the book tells me that those four mentions are indeed the only ones. The book has nothing about C.J. de Mooi's level of chess activity. The English Chess Federation is not mentioned at all; nor are any chess individuals.