Pagden-v-Nunn

[James Pratt]

I am looking for the score of a Pirc/Modern played in the Basingstoke Open in (I think) 1978, won by Michael Pagden against John Nunn. My database is silent but it was published in CHESS in an article, possibly sometime after, by the learned Doc who, surprisingly, lost.
Please, who can help?
James

[Gerard Killoran]

This one?

Pagden - Nunn.jpg (40.56 KiB) Viewed 2481 times

[James Pratt]

Thanks

[James Pratt]

I have all the old CHESS Volumes but can't find it. They are indexed too and I know my way around them, or thought I did! Gerard, can you direct me again?

[Matt Mackenzie]

I think that snippet cited above may be the only reference?

[James Pratt]

Indeed but I could not find it. I tried every possibility and drew several blanks.
James

[John Saunders]

I didn't have any difficulty in following Gerard's lead which indicates page 178 of CHESS, Volume 44, which happens to be in the March 1979 issue of the magazine. If you navigate to that page you will find John Nunn's annotation of the game Britton-Nunn, Islington 1978 which includes a brief reference to Pagden-Nunn, Basingstoke 1977, in the notes, though not the full score. I retrieved the score of Britton-Nunn from the StarBase 4.56 database some years ago and added the opening references found in CHESS, thus...

[Event "Islington Open 14th"] [Site "London"] [Date "1978.12.16"] [Round "2"] [White "Britton, Richard L"] [Black "Nunn, John DM"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "B06"] [PlyCount "82"] [EventDate "1978.12.15"] [EventType "swiss"] [EventRounds "6"] [EventCountry "ENG"] [SourceTitle "StarBase 4.56"] [SourceDate "2004.11.04"] [SourceVersion "1"] [SourceVersionDate "2004.11.04"] [SourceQuality "2"] 1. e4 g6 2. d4 Bg7 3. Nc3 d6 4. Nf3 a6 5. Be2 (5. a4 Nf6 6. Be2 O-O 7. O-O b6 8. e5 (8. Bg5 h6 9. Bxf6 Bxf6 10. a5 b5 11. Nd5 Bg7 $15 {Smith-Nunn, Haifa 1976}) (8. Re1 Nc6 9. h3 (9. Bg5 h6 10. Bf4 Bb7 11. Bc4 Kh7 12. d5 Na5 13. Bd3 c5 14. dxc6 Nxc6 15. h3 e5 $15 {Sandiford-Nunn, Surrey op 1976}) 9... Bb7 10. d5 (10. Bg5 h6 11. Bh4 e5 12. dxe5 Nxe5 13. Nxe5 dxe5 $11 {Hosking-Nunn, Oxford 1976}) 10... Nb4 11. Bf1 c6 12. dxc6 {(Pagden-Nunn, Basingstoke 1977)} Nxc6 $14) 8... Nfd7 9. exd6 (9. Bf4 Nc6 10. Qc1 Bb7 11. Rd1 Nb4 12. Bh6 Qc8 $11 {Johansson-Nunn-telex match v Iceland 1977}) 9... cxd6 10. Bg5 h6 11. Be3 Nf6 12. d5 Nbd7 13. Qd2 Kh7 14. Ra3 Bb7 15. Rb3 Rc8 16. h3 Rxc3 $11 {Matanovic-Nunn, telex match 1976}) 5... b5 6. O-O Nd7 7. Re1 (7. Bg5 Bb7 8. Re1 c5 9. Bf1 cxd4 10. Nxd4 Ngf6 11. Qd2 h6 12. Bh4 O-O $14 {G.H.Bennett-Nunn, Islington 1975}) 7... c5 8. d5 Ngf6 9. Bf1 O-O 10. h3 Qc7 11. a3 Bb7 12. Bf4 Rad8 13. Qd2 Ne5 14. Qe3 e6 15. Bxe5 dxe5 16. dxe6 fxe6 17. Nd2 Rd4 18. f3 Nh5 19. Ne2 Nf4 20. Nxd4 exd4 21. Qf2 Be5 22. a4 Nh5 23. g4 Bg3 24. Qe2 Nf4 25. Qd1 c4 26. axb5 axb5 27. Bg2 Bxe1 28. Qxe1 e5 29. Nf1 Qc5 30. Kh2 d3 31. cxd3 Nxd3 32. Qd2 Qd4 33. Rb1 Bxe4 34. fxe4 Rf2 35. Qg5 Rxg2+ 36. Kxg2 Nf4+ 37. Kf3 Qd3+ 38. Kf2 Qe2+ 39. Kg3 Qg2+ 40. Kh4 Qf2+ 41. Ng3 Ng2# {Source: CHESS, March 1979, Vol.44/813-4, p178 (annotated by John Nunn)} 0-1

That gives you the first 12 moves of the Pagden-Nunn game but no more and I've not been able to find the rest of the score anywhere. John Nunn annotates the Britton game in his book Secrets of Grandmaster Chess (Batsford 1997) at great length (ppn 121-130) but without mentioning Pagden-Nunn.

The same book, on page 118, has a reference to Nunn recording an outright win with 6/7 in the 1977 Basingstoke Open (which took place over the weekend of 3-5 June). He gives the part-game D.Bell - Nunn but there is no mention of a game with Pagden. The tournament result seems to have gone unreported in CHESS and BCM and I couldn't find a result for it in newspapers. Perhaps we can speculate that the point dropped by Nunn in the tournament was a loss to Pagden but who knows. Basingstoke also hosted quickplay events in that era (I played in one myself on 6 November 1977) so it could also have been played in one of those.

[James Pratt]

The DW Bell is Dave, father of SD Bell, then both of Southampton. Bell played his usual French against Nunn. Some confusion arises that Pagden is labelled as Mark which is incorrect, no such player exists. He was called Mickey by his brother pre-Adams.
James

[Roger de Coverly]

Some confusion arises that Pagden is labelled as Mark which is incorrect, no such player exists. He was called Mickey by his brother pre-Adams.
James

On britbase in the archive of varsity match results, John Saunders has him as Michael Ashley Pagden (Pembroke)

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/1 ... iewer.html

[John Upham]

Michael Pagden, who emanated from Aldershot, is here second from right at the rear sandwiched by David Cummings and Clive Hill.

The next time Aldershot had a connection with a strong player was with Michael Rahal

img_0279_smaller.jpg (336.1 KiB) Viewed 2176 times

[Nick Ivell]

Hebden's hat brings back many memories of a bygone era I was part of (though not present in the photo).