English Chess Forum

Mr John Roycroft
Endgame Study Composer, author of "Test Tube Chess" and much more

Mr John Roycroft launches his new volume, entitled Stinking Bishops, at 1pm this Saturday (20th December) at Hampstead Chess Congress. You are invited to come and eat lunch and listen to 40 entertaining minutes of endgame study talk, and have the opportunity to purchase this 100 page work for £10.00 (list price £15.00) and moreover John will dedicate it as you desire.

The Stinking Bishops experiment probes the 'why' and the 'how' of a pair of related maximum length wins for the 7-man endgame rook, bishop and pawn vs rook and bishop.

Venue: Henderson Court Day Centre, 102 Fitzjohn's Ave, London, Greater London NW3 6NS (junction with Prince Arthur Road). To order by post costs £15.00 - send orders to John at to 17 New Way Road,London NW9 6PL.

Also by John Roycroft;

Test Tube Chess, 1972
revised as
The Chess Endgame Study, 1981
Queen and pawn a2 against queen, April 1986
Queen and pawn a6 against queen, May 1986
Queen and pawn b7 against queen, June 1986
Expert against oracle, paper no.16 in Machine Intelligence 11 (ed. D.Michie et al.), 1988
Deceptive Simplicity [Leopold Mitrofanov], 1992, 1998 (also: Vladimir Fyodorov, Friedrich Chlubna)
Hugh Blandford -- Published Works & Notebooks, 1993, 1998
The Win and Draw Chess Compositions of Thomas Rayner Dawson, 1997
The Complete Studies of Genrikh Kasparyan, 1997
A (First) Century of Studies [Ernest Pogosyants], 1999
EG - Vol.XI (EG159-162, 566 pages), 2006

Nice to hear that John is still going strong in his 80s

Another great chess legend, born just a few weeks before Leonard Barden. Was sending letters to the British Chess Magazine, as far back as 1955. Broadcast on the BBC Third Programme during the early 1960's.
His 1972 book entitled "Test Tube Chess", is one of the classics. John always preferred the raw aesthetics of chess, and is known worldwide, as an endgame expert.
If you live in London, do try and make to Hampstead.

TTC is a terrific book - very ahead of its time for the UK in being all algebraic, too.

John's book launch was well attended - by at least 10 people, and he sold a good number of copies! The book can also be purchased from John Roycroft at 17 New Way, Colindale, London NW9 6PL for £15.00 including postage.