Remembering FM John Littlewood (25-i-1931 16-ix-2009)

[John Upham]

A fairly lengthy tribute including previously unpublished photographs of FM John Littlewood (25-i-1931 16-ix-2009)

may be be found here :

https://britishchessnews.com/2020/09/16 ... 6-ix-2009/

Thanks to the Littlewood family for their kind assistance.

[Nick Ivell]

An excellent tribute. What a wonderful player John was.

[Jonathan Rogers]

FM hardly does him justice! (Needless to say). I remember him beating Sadler in 1990 (at the British) and Luke McShane in 4NCL in the late 1990s. They were already IMs by then. Goodness knows how old he was by then.

[Matt Mackenzie]

FM hardly does him justice! (Needless to say). I remember him beating Sadler in 1990 (at the British) and Luke McShane in 4NCL in the late 1990s. They were already IMs by then. Goodness knows how old he was by then.

Well, his being born in 1931 may just provide you with a clue there

[Jonathan Rogers]

oh, it's my habit to leave research to others on this forum. We have RdC, after all.

[Nick Ivell]

FM was a joke. I can't imagine there's much argument there.

He gave the great Botvinnik a scare, for starters.

If John had a weakness, it was a tendency to over-rate his position; but he was a very fine player indeed. I learnt a lot from him.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"If John had a weakness, it was a tendency to over-rate his position; but he was a very fine player indeed. I learnt a lot from him."

I only played him once, but I didn't have a clue what was going on, and I normally have some sort of idea, even when I lose horribly.

[Jonathan Rogers]

FM was a joke. I can't imagine there's much argument there.

He gave the great Botvinnik a scare, for starters.

...

Did he miss something though, or not? Whether it was a scare perhaps depends on how far in advance Botvinnik saw ...c2+. I imagine the English spectators at the time must have been going wild for a while, though

[Leonard Barden]

FM was a joke. I can't imagine there's much argument there.

He gave the great Botvinnik a scare, for starters.

...

Did he miss something though, or not? Whether it was a scare perhaps depends on how far in advance Botvinnik saw ...c2+. I imagine the English spectators at the time must have been going wild for a while, though

I was watching the game. Botvinnik saw everything. He played ...c2+ very calmly and quietly for dramatic effect.

[Ian Thompson]

Did he miss something though, or not? Whether it was a scare perhaps depends on how far in advance Botvinnik saw ...c2+. I imagine the English spectators at the time must have been going wild for a while, though

I was watching the game. Botvinnik saw everything. He played ...c2+ very calmly and quietly for dramatic effect.

In the post-mortem, perhaps? ...c2+ wasn't played in the game according to the two game scores I've seen.

[Leonard Barden]

Memory errs. It was 19...Nf6 that Botbinnik played very calmly. Litttlewood at first didn't understand, then when he saw the point went into a long think in search of a resource. Botvinnik didn't get up from his chair but sat there patiently waiting, and a couple of times adjusted his tie, which was well known as a sign that he liked his position.

[MJMcCready]

Has there ever been a stronger father-son combination in chess than theirs?

[Paul Cooksey]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... er_and_son

yes, but seems a bit disrespectful to discuss in this thread.

[MJMcCready]

That's a much longer list than I realized. But like you said, perhaps that's for a seperate thread.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Which does at least inform us that (rather surprisingly) Paul Littlewood still doesn't have his own Wikipedia article.