Henry Tribe (1927-2022)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I had initially been going to post this in the 'Chess History' section, then I realised it would in some ways fit better as an obituary, especially as there is a good chance some people reading this forum might remember him from his OTB days.

Henry Tribe (1927-2022) (obituary from the British Mycological Society)

The relevant bit is here:

Henry did enjoy his chess, developing a passion for the game in his youth. He joined the chess club at Chelsea Polytechnic and again at Imperial College. At Imperial he became the club captain and he reports his most memorable match while at Imperial was a 100 board match with a team from North of the Thames versus one from South of the Thames. On coming to Cambridge Henry did not join a chess club “deciding that I would not get stronger unless I put in a huge effort which I decided was not worth it for a game”. He did however continue to enjoy private games whenever he could get them, including with his granddaughters.

The time at Chelsea Polytechnic (where he gained his BSc in Botany) was from 1945 just after the war. He was at Imperial from 1947 to 1951, when he went to Cambridge (and retreated from the chess club scene). So it is only around 6 years, but I wonder if there is any other surviving documentation or memories of him?

I presume he appears in a listing of the 100-board match. No idea what strength he was as a player, as that is beside the point really (he is listed in a match report in a 1947 BCM). Some lovely anecdotes and life stories in the obituary.

[John Clarke]

I presume he appears in a listing of the 100-board match.

Finally found time to track this down! (Knew I had the information somewhere - it was in my bound copy of Chess for 1950-52.)

It was actually a 500-board match, held in Central Hall, Westminster on 16 June 1951. The North won by 257-243 (originally reported in error as 248-252). Players were divided into 19 sections of 24 plus two of 22 on each side; higher-graded ones were shared around the sections, so that none was very different in overall strength from any of the others. BHW in Chess remarked: "We take our hat off to the psychological genius .... [who thought of this]. Nobody enjoys being graded number 478 or 492!" The "genius" turned out to be H Meek, one of the six organisers singled out for special praise in the match report.

Henry Tribe, playing board 6 in Section L (one below P H Clarke, as it happened) beat one S C Jefferson.

Section D of the same event saw L Rosselson defeat A Everett in 16 moves, as already noted here, a feat for which he was awarded third prize for best-played game. (First and second went to N McKelvie and P Hamburger respectively.)

I counted 33 defaults out of the 500 boards, no fewer than seven of them (all by North) coming in Section W.

And lastly, on a more cheerful note, I'm happy report that at board 5 in Section N, the usually hapless A N Other improved his otherwise uniformly dreadful record with a victory over A H Knight!

[John Saunders]

N.B. I replied at some length here before it occurred to me that a detailed discussion of the 1951 North of Thames vs South of Thames match was a bit off-topic, so I moved it here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=14280