Gerald Bennett

[GFBennett]

I've gathered together 113 of his game scores which may be found here at BritBase: https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/players.html

John, may I assume you have harvested all of GHBs games from CHESS, British Chess Magazine and Chess Moves (to save me looking!)

Update: now 116 games. I've found two more of GHB's games (both losses) in BCM and one part-game from a letter he wrote to BCM in 1995. I think I can now claim that I've found all his games published in BCM except for any that were published after my editorial stint (i.e. after 2010). But that still leaves CHESS and Chess Moves for others to explore if they are so minded.

This is incredible! He would be very touched. Thank you

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

There are two games of Gerald's on the Hampshire Chess History site. I don't think they are included in John's collection:
https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/ham ... ship-1971/
The loss against Tony Stebbings is worth playing over!

[John Upham]

But that still leaves CHESS and Chess Moves for others to explore if they are so minded.

There are 58 games listed at

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=48350

Have you got all of these John?

[Russell Pegg]

I spent many hours with Gerald over the years. Last time I visited him at his home was at the end of October. Also we would message or phone one another so I do miss him a lot. We also gave one another chess related presents each time I visited Gerald. In the early years we were more chess aqaintances but in recent times became good friends. My first visits were to his home were in Montague Road in Highcliffe. Gerald had a room dedicated to chess books upstairs. Over the years his collection of magazines and books expanded as did mine. Last month I told Gerald his stable building, which he had converted to a chess memorabilia room, was to me like Aladins Cave.
RIP Gerald I miss you so much.

[Russell Pegg]

In the early 80's I worked in the RNLI head office in the corner of the top floor. One day I looked up from my work and surprised to see Gerald standing there talking to my boss, Commander Chapman DSO, DSC, RN, who apparently had become a client of Gerald's. Commander Chapman had had a very interesting career and had worked for Winston Churchill. He was involved with moving Great Britain's gold reserves to Canada by submarine at the Outbreak of WW2. Recently I found out that there was a book written about the submarine HMS Torbay which included a photo of Commander Chapman. I told Gerald about it and the next time I visited Gerald he had bought it and it was the only non chess book in his chess library.

[Reg Clucas]

RIP. I never met Gerald over the chessboard, he was far too good for us to be in the same section, but I remember the name from the 70s & 80s congress circuit, and when I saw John Upham's photo I remembered his face as well.

I have some random magazines from that period, so I thought I would have a browse to see if I could find any of his games, and lo and behold the first one I picked up contained the article below (Chess magazine, October 1970). If I find any more I will add them to this thread.

IMG_0486.JPEG (1.13 MiB) Viewed 4661 times

[Roger de Coverly]

I have some random magazines from that period, so I thought I would have a browse to see if I could find any of his games, and lo and behold the first one I picked up contained the article below (Chess magazine, October 1970).

It looks as if that game stub didn't make it to the britbase collection.

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/bennettgh.pgn

[John Saunders]

Yes, thank you: just the tiniest snippet, two game moves long (plus a lot of analysis mostly refuted by Stockfish) but every little helps as a well-known supermarket would say...

[Event "CHESS Festival 18th"] [Site "Southport"] [Date "1970.07.14"] [Round "2"] [White "Wicker, Kevin J"] [Black "Bennett, Gerald H"] [Result "0-1"] [Annotator "part-game"] [SetUp "1"] [FEN "r1q1r2k/pp1bnQbp/2pB2p1/4p3/2P1P3/1P4PP/P3N1B1/3R1RK1 w - - 0 25"] [PlyCount "2"] [EventDate "1970.07.13"] [EventType "swiss"] [EventRounds "11"] [EventCountry "ENG"] [SourceTitle "BritBase"] [Source "John Saunders"] [SourceDate "2025.11.22"] [SourceVersion "1"] [SourceVersionDate "2025.11.22"] [SourceQuality "1"] 25. Bxe7 $2 ({Wicker analysed} 25. Rf6 $5 {but engines conclude it loses:} Ng8 26. Bxe5 Re7 27. Nf4 (27. Qxg7+ Kxg7 $1 $19) 27... Qe8 28. Qxe8 {when Wicker gives 28...Raxe8? but instead Stockfish 17 finds} Bxe8 $19) 25... Be6 {... eventually 0-1. Source: CHESS, October 1970, Vol.36/613-4, p57} 0-1

As I mentioned previously, I've not conducted an exhaustive trawl through CHESS - others are welcome to do so. But I'm pretty sure I've got everything from BCM (for which I have indexes).

[John Saunders]

Graham Stuart has sent me some more games from his superb Hampshire Chess History website and the Gerald Bennett game collection on BritBase now numbers 122 games:

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

[Gerard Killoran]

[Event "18th Chess Festival"] [Site "Southport"] [Date "1970.07.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Bennett, Gerald H."] [Black "Bellin, Robert"] [Result "1/2-1/2"] [ECO "B31"] [Opening "Sicilian: Nimzovich-Rossolimo attack (with...g6, without...d6)"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 g6 4. O-O Bg7 5. c3 Nf6 6. Re1 O-O 7. d4 cxd4 8. cxd4 d5 9. e5 Ne8 10. Nc3 Nc7 11. Be2 b6 12. Be3 Bb7 13. Qd2 Na5 14. b3 Rc8 15. Rac1 Qd7 16. Rc2 Na6 17. Bh6 Rc7 18. Bxg7 Kxg7 19. e6 fxe6 20. Ng5 Rc6 21. Bb5 Nc7 22. Qe3 Nxb5 23. Nxb5 Rxc2 24. Nxe6+ Kg8 25. Qh6 Rf7 26. Ng5 Rg7 27. Ne6 Rf7 28. Ng5 {Illustrated London News - Saturday 15 August 1970 p.36} 1/2-1/2

Illustrated London News - Saturday 15 August 1970 p.36.png (1.81 MiB) Viewed 4405 times

[Mike Wiltshire]

Just seen the sad news abut Gerald Bennett.
He was a great collector of chess books and had many valuable and interesting titles.
In July 1974 I travelled to the Hasselt tournament in Belgium with Michael Yeo and met up with Gerald who needless to say had his camper van with him. Six of us travelled in it to Aachen on the rest day but Michael Yeo had left his passport in the hotel. We reached the German border but as the Baader Meinhof problem was at it's peak we had to show passports to obtain entry which meant Michael had to stay at the border with a pocket set until we returned some hours later.