London Central YMCA (aka CentYMCA) Chess Club

[George Szaszvari]

Glad to see you post here, George. I certainly have fond memories of Bayswater. I am afraid, in addition to yourself, that I have better recollections of players such as Ernie Szuchs (I may have spelt his family name wrongly, my apologies, it's that distant in the past), Sandys, Jimmy Adams, Jacko and Terry Fox than Eric. You have the advantage that you were slightly older than me then. Now that I have remained at twenty-one and a bit for many years, I suppose the age difference has increased.

Uuhh, I remember you as a 9 or 10 year old, always with your admirably supportive dad, from then...

There was also the famous blindfold simultaneous display given by Marrioti. As I recall, I lost to the Fried Liver (at that time I had merely eaten fried liver, and had never been consumed by it, never mind known what it was) Attack. Marrioti, I believe, lost concentration. (Thank goodness Italy eventually scrapped its absurd conscription law, which, to evade, necessitated leaving the country for a few years.) Then there was the newspaper puzzle we all looked at just before the battle of Reykjavik between East and West.

Yep, in that amazing simul I at least gave Marriotti a bit of a headache, but Sergio's concentration was infinitely better
than mine and being one of the last to finish things got pretty noisy and hectic when I blundered horribly. Didn't Terry
Fox get a draw after Marriotti offered? ...Jimmy Adams produced a bulletin about Marriotti with all the games of that
event IIRC. Then there were London CentYMCA simuls against Karpov in '72 in which the future champ got badly
hammered (got his scalp with my Caro-Kann) and Korchnoi in '75 (I think) when I accepted my hero's offer of a draw
in a Benko Gambit... it was a line Dieks (B) had lost against Korchnoi just prior to then and Andy Martin was predicting
my quick demise based on that, but it was easy to improve on Dieks ...Bc8? by playing for the initiative. Speelman later
admonished me for letting Korchnoi off the hook in a much better ending! At the end of that long simul Korchnoi said
that he had taken the event much too seriously. Again, the industrious Jimmy Adams did bulletins on both those simuls.
Szabo visited YMCA soon after and his simul was characterized by some bizarre behavior. Szabo was losing to Sam and
picked up the board without warning and placed it in another part of the room. The game nevertheless continued
with Sam finishing the old GM off much to the latter's chagrin.

Wasn't there a semi-permanent conversation between the Serbian Orthodox priest "I hear that people have been sleeping
here all night?" and Jacko: "Sleeping here, of course not!" All night blitz was the way to play, with its "shakh, shakh, shakh" of Mitteleuropa, even if the kings were not technically in "check, check, check". So what if somebody nodded off. I regretted that I had to return home before ten, but I had a sense of what was coming.
Losing that crypt killed the club. The church had no money, so I couldn't say anyone was to blame. As I recall the building was demolished not long after the club left.

The Bayswater Club started at the Mihailovic Serbian emigre's social club near Notting Hill and that was my first
chess club when I left secondary school in the 60s. Gane Bozic (a Bosnian) had put up adverts in local libraries to
get members. So I went along around the age of 17 and found out about competitive chess, chess clocks, etc.
My first impressions were of Simonovic (the guy with the wild hair), Zarko Gakovic, Vernon Kirby (RIP), Cabrinovic
(the five minute addict.. we played thousands of games which must have paved much of my early chess learning),
Peter the sculptor, Otto the Austrian, Laszlo Kiss, Gareth Williams, Bob Feather, Vincent Stoll, Mike Robinson, and the
old man who used to go on about his games with Bogolyubov all the time, and a whole bunch of others... soon Ray
Cannon and Jimmy Adams turned up one day and became regular visitors. Ray Cannon, an active tournament player,
used to show and explain his his games to us on his visits and taught many of the less experienced players (like me)
a lot. Ray and Jimmy brought Alan McDonnell and Tony Cullen to the club too. Although the membership was still largely
Yugoslav, the club was getting too big and "too cosmopolitan" for the Serbian owners of the private little basement
meeting room, so the Yugoslav chessplayers scouted around and with the priest's permission moved into the disused
crypt of the Serbian Orthodox Church. We cleaned up and redecorated the crypt to make a terrific chess mecca open
day and night. In 1970 Jimmy Adams organized a swiss tournament there that included Leonard Barden. I remember
(Mike?) Stone, who eventually set up the very successful Harcourt Street "Chess Centre" for quality chess sets,
was trying to get his business started on a shoestring and had a one table stall there. Fischer's later success in '72
caused an explosion of interest which made Stone rich overnight. He drank himself to death within a few years.
Ray, Jimmy, Alan, and others also hung out at the YMCA and introduced me to the club. Many subsequent events
took place at that Serbian church crypt, and I especially liked the impromptu five minute tournaments, where people
like Vaugh Sigouin, Ron Harman, Eric Warren, Sergio Marriotti, Dave Macintyre, Sandys Dickinson, Pierre Lunais, hung
out and played. The Fischer phenomenon of '72 resulted in clubs with one or two teams having to organize seven or
eight teams to cope with the increased memberships, the number of tournaments nationwide quadrupled. Was it in '72
that the priest reclaimed the crypt for church use and we had to move to the school up the road? That survived for
a year or so when I fully migrated to the YMCA after the Bayswater Club could no longer get the caretaker to stay
after hours to keep it going. More later...

[Paul Buswell]

and that if anyone knows the e-mail address for Steve Cunliffe, who apparently used to play for YMCA, could they please let him know about it.

Do you mean the Steve Cunliffe who was in Hastings for several years, then moved to Wales?

Had a grade of 150-170 (old money) and was (I believe) British Correspondence Champion once?

PM if you want e-mail

PB

[Simon Spivack]

My first impressions were of Simonovic (the guy with the wild hair), Zarko Gakovic, ...

I remember that you and Zarko published Patzer magazine in the mid-seventies. You as the journalist, Zarko the photographer. There were lots of reports on UK tournaments. All in black and white, on double-sided A4 paper.

I remember (Mike?) Stone, who eventually set up the very successful Harcourt Street "Chess Centre" for quality chess sets, was trying to get his business started on a shoestring and had a one table stall there. Fischer's later success in '72 caused an explosion of interest which made Stone rich overnight. He drank himself to death within a few years.

The Centre was near the Swedish Church, not far from the District, Circle and Metropolitan Lines of the Edgware Road Tube Station. I can recall buying a set in there. I have a recollection of the owner being female. Perhaps I am confused, as it was a long time ago, or she took over later.

Was it in '72 that the priest reclaimed the crypt for church use and we had to move to the school up the road?

That school was the death of the club: no atmosphere. I think it was after 1972, or towards the end of that year, because we definitely met in the crypt during the Spassky-Fischer match.

[George Szaszvari]

My first impressions were of Simonovic (the guy with the wild hair),
Zarko Gakovic, ...

I remember that you and Zarko published Patzer magazine in the mid-seventies. You as
the journalist, Zarko the photographer. There were lots of reports on UK tournaments. All in black and white, on
double-sided A4 paper.

Yeah, that home made mag was a bit of experimental fun. Zarko also supplied all the equipment as well as mostly
printing the thing. Zarko managed to get his offset litho printing machine parked in a school office and we only
had the key to the building, not the front gate of the walled property, so we were regularly climbing over an eight
foot wall to gain access and leave, which must have looked pretty darned suspicious to anyone watching ;0)

Vernon Kirby (who subsequently died of lung cancer aged 59) contributed with Fleet Street quality cartoons and
humorous articles, club members Dave Macintyre and John Bell were involved initially with editing and typing chores
but eventually dropped out, Bob Wade always allowed his resources to be at our disposal, John Roycroft supplied
some endgame studies, Jimmy Adams and Jon Speelman helped with some games and annotations, and Trevor
(IIRC, not Mike) Stone gave us a small deal to advertise his Chess Centre: the whole thing was an amateur effort
with nobody getting paid anything. We all just had fun.

I remember (Mike?) Stone, who eventually set up the very successful Harcourt Street "Chess
Centre" for quality chess sets, was trying to get his business started on a shoestring and had a one table stall there.
Fischer's later success in '72 caused an explosion of interest which made Stone rich overnight. He drank himself to death within a few years.

The Centre was near the Swedish Church, not far from the District, Circle and Metropolitan Lines of the Edgware Road Tube Station. I can recall buying a set in there. I have a recollection of the owner being female. Perhaps I am confused, as it was a long time ago, or she took over later.

Yes, that lady (her name escapes me) did most of the work running the business once Trevor Stone established the
Chess Centre and made his money. She inherited the Chess Centre after he passed on from overdoing the booze.
I was helping Mike Sheehan out at one of the many tournaments he used to attend with Caissa Books in the 80s
and had a chat with that Chess Centre lady who brought me up to date on what had transpired. Being a frequent
traveler I have always been in and out of the game, so periodically lost touch with chess people and what was
happening in the chess world. The last eleven or twelve years has typically been one of my "out of touch" phases.
Aside from a small amount of scholastic coaching there is virtually no chess culture here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm now
more interested in growing fruit trees (bearing fruit only obtainable in grocery stores in UK), riding horses and shooting
guns! Yippee kai yay! I'll probably drift back to chess in time and become like the funny old Yugoslav guy loudly raving
on about how Bogolyubov would have played it while a game is in progress ;O)

Was it in '72 that the priest reclaimed the crypt for church use and we had to move to the
school up the road?

That school was the death of the club: no atmosphere. I think it was after 1972, or towards the end of that year, because we definitely met in the crypt during the Spassky-Fischer match.

During the Fischer-Spassky '72 match I was spending a lot more time at CentYMCA, especially with a visiting player,
one Charles de Villliers, who played top board for South Africa in the Graz Student Olympiad. Playing zillions of five
minute games and analyzing a lot with Charles coincided with the time of my best competitive results. It was just all
chess in those days... As well as Charles (who was having time off before going to Grenoble University) I made other
interesting chess friends too. Remember Bill Holden who ran a market stall? We had many a beer together. Then there
was Dr Mohamed Mahdavi, an Iranian doing post graduate research at Southampton Universtity in satellite rocketry...
yes, a real rocket scientist! Dr Mahdavi could beat many strong titled players, but when it came to playing compatriot
Houshang Nasseri in a Mary Ward Centre tournament, Dr Mahdavi had a psychological block and lost horribly!! Tim Harding
was around the English tournament circuit a lot then, before moving permanently to Dublin. Johnny Ripley from Liverpool
was another one, but I had no direction or discipline and ended up going abroad to live and work in the mid 70s, to more
or less forget about chess until the early 80s. It was painfully slow coming back into the game but that's when people
like Mike Sheehan and Andrew Martin helped me out. I also spread my club allegiances to Streatham & Brixton, Hackney,
Metroplitan, and not least, Atheneaum, where I got re-acquainted with one Simon Spivack, by then all grown up and
fraternizing with fun characters like Clive Hill and Martin Barkwill...

BTW who remembers the Mike Cresswell v Pierre Lunais needle match at the new YMCA building before the chess club
died there? That was actually more dramatic than Fischer v Spassky '72!! Poor ol' Mike Cresswell used to complain the
whole club was against him as so many people helped Pierre to prepare his openings! Is Pierre still around?

[George Szaszvari]

and that if anyone knows the e-mail address for Steve Cunliffe, who apparently used to play for YMCA, could they please let him know about it.

Do you mean the Steve Cunliffe who was in Hastings for several years, then moved to Wales?

Had a grade of 150-170 (old money) and was (I believe) British Correspondence Champion once?

PM if you want e-mail

PB

That must be him, the bearded Canadian with girlfriend Sylvia at his side. Perhaps you could email him to
let him know he is a topic of conversation so he can post here a "hello" if so inclined.

[Simon Spivack]

Bob Wade always allowed his resources to be at our disposal

Bob would do that for just about anybody, even me, if it meant promoting chess.

Stone gave us a small deal to advertise his Chess Centre: the whole thing was an amateur effort with nobody getting paid anything. We all just had fun.

I had a suspicion it was something like that. Many chess related activities are not exactly remunerative.

Aside from a small amount of scholastic coaching there is virtually no chess culture here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm now more interested in growing fruit trees (bearing fruit only obtainable in grocery stores in UK), riding horses and shooting guns! Yippee kai yay! I'll probably drift back to chess in time

You'd better not use the pieces for target practice then.

[George Szaszvari]

Bob Wade always allowed his resources to be at our disposal

Bob would do that for just about anybody, even me, if it meant promoting chess.

Yes, Bob Wade was the best. He supported all kinds of chess people, of all strengths, homegrown and foreign, in every
way he could. RIP.

Stone gave us a small deal to advertise his Chess Centre: the whole thing was an amateur effort with nobody getting paid anything. We all just had fun.

I had a suspicion it was something like that. Many chess related activities are not exactly remunerative.

Right, especially in those days. Zarko Gakovic had a good job with Kodak then and took the brunt of the costs.
Nowadays people like to at least get their expenses paid! Kinda reminds me of Bob Wade over the years that
I knew him and how he spent enormous amounts of unpaid time and effort in promoting junior chess. He would
often be at some obscure scholastic age tournament, running the whole thing by himself, something I hope chess
people today appreciate.

Aside from a small amount of scholastic coaching there is virtually no chess culture here in Phoenix, Arizona. I'm now more interested in growing fruit trees (bearing fruit only obtainable in grocery stores in UK), riding horses and shooting guns! Yippee kai yay! I'll probably drift back to chess in time

You'd better not use the pieces for target practice then.

Any time ya wanna visit the SW USA lemme know and we can meet up and go blast off a few hundred rounds!
However, be warned about the weather here: it can be seriously hot. Winters here are like pleasant English summers,
but this week it is still getting to above 100°F in the afternoons, and it ain't even summertime any more! A couple
of weeks back it was reported that a tourist from Scotland went for a walk without sufficient precautions in 110°F
heat (must have a light colored reflective hat, preferably wide brimmed, and plenty of water), got heat stroke and
died in hospital. Heat related deaths are commonplace here, besides the usual kidnappings and shootings. As the
Mexican drug cartels have virtually taken over northern Mexico being well armed and knowing how to use your guns
has become, for many, an important part of living in southern Arizona. Funny thing is, tho', I still feel safer here than
in many parts of London I used to frequent!

[Simon Spivack]

Any time ya wanna visit the SW USA lemme know and we can meet up and go blast off a few hundred rounds!

I'm not convinced that my late maternal grandfather, who was a pacifist in the Great War, would have approved. Yes, I know you are partly kidding, however, after my most recent rounds with the barber surgeons, it would be purely random what target I'd hit in any instance.

However, be warned about the weather here: it can be seriously hot. Winters here are like pleasant English summers, but this week it is still getting to above 100°F in the afternoons, and it ain't even summertime any more! A couple of weeks back it was reported that a tourist from Scotland went for a walk without sufficient precautions in 110°F heat (must have a light colored reflective hat, preferably wide brimmed, and plenty of water), got heat stroke and died in hospital.

I've read about the population shifts towards the hotter states, with a consequent almost overwhelming increase in the demand for water.

Heat related deaths are commonplace here, besides the usual kidnappings and shootings. As the Mexican drug cartels have virtually taken over northern Mexico being well armed and knowing how to use your guns has become, for many, an important part of living in southern Arizona. Funny thing is, tho', I still feel safer here than in many parts of London I used to frequent!

I haven't read the statistics for years, but it was the case that the murder rate in the States was higher, but all the other crime rates were lower. Still, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

[George Szaszvari]

Any time ya wanna visit the SW USA lemme know and we can meet up and go blast off a few hundred rounds!

I'm not convinced that my late maternal grandfather, who was a pacifist in the Great War, would have approved. Yes, I know you are partly kidding, however, after my most recent rounds with the barber surgeons, it would be purely random what target I'd hit in any instance.

Actually, I'm not kidding, I've had several visits by old friends from Dulwich Prep where I used to coach (I handed the
job over to the capable hands of Allan Norris when I married and emigrated,) but you'll have to explain the "barber
surgeons".

However, be warned about the weather here: it can be seriously hot. Winters here are like pleasant English summers, but this week it is still getting to above 100°F in the afternoons, and it ain't even summertime any more! A couple of weeks back it was reported that a tourist from Scotland went for a walk without sufficient precautions in 110°F heat (must have a light colored reflective hat, preferably wide brimmed, and plenty of water), got heat stroke and died in hospital.

I've read about the population shifts towards the hotter states, with a consequent almost overwhelming increase in the demand for water.

Las Vegas, the fastest growing city in the US (at least, until the recent economic debacle), has serious potential
problems with water supplies. Tucson relies on a fast diminishing water table for their supplies. However, if the Mayan
calendar prediction for worldwide catastrophe in late 2012 is correct, then it doesn't really matter...

Heat related deaths are commonplace here, besides the usual kidnappings and shootings. As the Mexican drug cartels have virtually taken over northern Mexico being well armed and knowing how to use your guns has become, for many, an important part of living in southern Arizona. Funny thing is, tho', I still feel safer here than in many parts of London I used to frequent!

I haven't read the statistics for years, but it was the case that the murder rate in the States was higher, but all the other crime rates were lower. Still, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

The crime comparison is about right, but tired of London? No, I seriously miss my favorite things like quality fish & chips
and Irish pubs, and, of course, the conviviality of chess people and the bohemian clubs that we have been reminiscing
about here. But I did get tired of the long, damp winters that afflict Britain generally. Southern Arizona is a major
destination for US retirees to live out their lives in a warm climate, similar to Florida, but without the humidity and
hurricanes. I got tired of the very painful experiences with corrupt and incompetent local government bureaucrats
(read Lambeth Council) who had a lot to do with my mother's debilitating stroke (she passed on a few years back.)
Kudos to my local MP Kate Hoey (she became Minister of Sport) who put the local government ombudsman on to my
mum's case. I got buried in dealing with that BS for several years. The ombudsman opened my eyes to the widespread
nature of incompetence and corruption everywhere. The investigation found Lambeth guilty of what amounted to
official terrorism. The malaise of public servants becoming self serving parasites might be even worse in the USA, but
I'm better informed now and my wife is politically astute. I got tired of the crime rate: when I was living around the
Camberwell/Brixton area every local I knew had been mugged (my own mother four times). Just about everyone
was afraid to go out after dark! The obnoxious yobbo dickhead factor is stronger in Britain than any other country
I've known. I got tired of the ridiculous laws that favour criminals. Some celebrated cases made it plain that career
criminals have more rights in Britain than decent people. In Arizona I am allowed to defend myself, and the shooting
figures here don't look so bad when you find out that a certain proportion are justifiable homicides in self defence.
My wife's first present to me was a Smith & Wesson revolver and it still shoots straight and true. I observed most
people in UK gasped with disbelief when I showed them my US photos with firearms. The freedom and personal
responsibility of having potential lethal force in the hands of individuals needs a quantum leap in handling emotional
conflicts and understanding if you've never been in that situation. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second Amendment
"...the right of THE PEOPLE to bear arms shall not be infringed" is part of the reason why I'm here. Israelis will be able
to explain it better.

[Daryl Taylor]

You know George, in London I always had you figured as a Guardian reader.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

[George Szaszvari]

You know George, in London I always had you figured as a Guardian reader.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be.

Hey, Daryl, don't feel so bad, I did used to be a Guardian reader! Until, that is, the Guardian started regularly
publishing just any piece of rubbish with blatantly incorrect data portrayed as "facts" to "prove" the validity
of their politically correct leftist viewpoints. I then switched to the Independent. I even voted Labour once!
But we all have to grow up some time or other. ;o) But why do you say such a thing anyway? Because
I believe in the right of self defence, and that is incompatible with left wing ideology, or what? You always
were a stirrer, you rogue ;0)

[Daryl Taylor]

Finland has a higher rate of private firearms ownership than the USA, but if you ever come to live here and apply for a firearms licence, George, then you'd better hope the local police don't connect you to your recent contributions to this discussion. You jumped from chess in London to "... shooting guns! Yippee kai yay!" and quite quickly warmed to the subject of the usual kidnappings and shootings and the idea of arranging to meet up and go blast off a few hundred rounds!. Add to this a certain view of incompetence and corruption everywhere, official terrorism and the malaise of public servants becoming self serving parasites, and I reckon you've ruined your chances of a successful firearms licence application and instead bought a ticket to regular searches of home and vehicle.

Shoot a burglar in Finland and you will rightly go to prison. If you interpret this to mean that criminals have more rights than you, then you need to attend a course in basic civics.

[Ian Kingston]

I've seen where these gun ownership arguments go, and it's never pretty. May I suggest that the thread should stay on topic and that we all leave this subject well alone?

[Daryl Taylor]

Sorry Ian,

Good natured bad blood was a frequent visitor at CentYMCA, especially at the bridge table. I'm just trying to come to terms with the new Gung-ho George.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

The signs were there even when George lived in London. I remember him turning down a draw offer (KBP each, with opposite coloured bishops if memory serves) with a snarl and the words "I'll give you a draw when you take it from my cold, dead hands".