English Chess Forum

Knew about Basman's win there, but not Whiteley beating Gulko

50+ after 3 rounds. Armenia and USA still on 100% and they play each other next with England 1 (v Iceland 1 in Rd 4) and England 2 (v Germany) among those in equal fifth.

Full Round 4 pairings

65+ after 3 rounds and its Finland and St Petersberg still on 100%, they play each other next) with Russia (who play Germany) and the magnificent England 1 team (who play Sweden 1 next) in shared third place with 5.

Round 4 pairings

50+
Iceland 1 v England 1
1 GM Olafsson, H. 2506 - GM Speelman, J. 2509
2 GM Hjartarson 2520 - GM Arkell, K. C. 2467
3 GM Arnason, J. 2423 - GM Emms, John M 2474
4 GM Thorhallsson 2425 - GM Plaskett, H. 2437

65+ Sweden 1 v England 1
1 IM Renman, N. 2358 - IM Bellin, R. 2315
2 Uddenfeldt 2339 - IM Povah, N. E. 2319
3 FM Hammar, Bengt 2206 - FM Stebbings, A. 2281
4 Hedin, Gunnar 2195 - Quinn, John M 2140

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:26 pm

Knew about Basman's win there, but not Whiteley beating Gulko

Indeed tracing the game on the internet has so far been beyond me. The Olimpbase page gives a link, but presently at least it leads nowhere. Chessgames does not appear to have it. Googling Whiteley Gulko 1967 gets this as the top hit, but despite promising WchT U26 14th 1967 chess tournament: games, results, players, statistics and PGN download there does not seem to be anything there, at least not to non-members. It is not among the short selection in Kingpin.

I did find Whiteley's Times obituary which apparently says "Sensationally, Whiteley crushed Boris Gulko, his Soviet opponent" but you will have to have a subscription (which i do not) to read it, and I doubt it has the game score.

As it goes, Chessgames, despite having a fair few games from that event, only seems to have Basman-Savon, with neither Harston's game against Tukmakov nor, perhaps surprisingly, Keene's against Kuzmin being available.

This is strange to me as you'd have thought it was a remarkable result at the time and the games would surely have been in contemporary British publications at least. Is anybody in a position to check?

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:33 am

I did find Whiteley's Times obituary which apparently says "Sensationally, Whiteley crushed Boris Gulko, his Soviet opponent" but you will have to have a subscription (which i do not) to read it, and I doubt it has the game score.

The relevant part of the Times obituary says:

"The high point of Whiteley’s chess career undoubtedly came at the world student team championship in Czechoslovakia in 1967. In those days chess was dominated by Eastern European nations and the British Chess Federation (BCF) team was regarded by the quasi professionals from Moscow and Belgrade as a harmless collection of amateurs. With five rounds to go, the BCF had to face the mighty Soviet Union. Sensationally, Whiteley crushed Boris Gulko, his Soviet opponent, the BCF triumphed in the match, and Whiteley was swept out of the playing hall on the shoulders of the members of other teams, delighted to witness the fall of the Soviet giant. The BCF took the bronze medals, up to then the best British result in the history of the competition."

There is no game score.

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:50 am

Whiteley was swept out of the playing hall on the shoulders of the members of other teams

Think I might want an independent witness on that one.

But I'd want a game score even more. I don't think I have any magazines from before 1970.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:55 am

But I'd want a game score even more.

BCM November 1967

All four games are there, with annotations by the two winners.

Gulko-Whiteley 0-1

1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 e6 5. Bg5 dxc4 6. e3 b5 7. a4 Bb4 8. Nd2 Bb7 9. axb5 Bxc3 10. bxc3 cxb5 11. Qb1 a6 12. e4 Qc7 13. Be2 0-0 14. 0-0 Nc6 15. Qc2 Kh8 16. Rad1 Rac8 17. e5 Nd5 18. Ne4 h6 19. Bc1 b4 20. Bxc4 Nc6e7 21. Bxd5 Nxd5 22. Nf6 Nxf6 23. exf6 Qxc3 24. Qe2 Qc2 25. fxg7 Kxg7 26. Bxh6 Kxh6 27. Qe3 Kg7 28. Rd3 Rg8 29. Re1 Kf8 30. d5 Rg6 31. Qh3 Kg8 32. Rg3 Bxd5

Thanks very much Rog. But how curious that they have been neglected.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:54 pm

But how curious that they have been neglected.

Back in the early days of databases, twenty five to thirty years ago, there was a considerable effort put in to input complete tournaments from original bulletins. I don't think anyone went systematically through older magazines, archiving the games published or annotated therein. In some cases the games or articles written around these games influenced the popularity of lines in amateur play.

Maybe a project should be undertaken to put these neglected games online. With those with access to BCM and CHESS going back a long time, working with those who do databases (such as Britbase and others - not sure what others I am thinking of right now!).

David Sedgwick wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:19 pm

Leonard Barden wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:25 pm

A half in that final ongoing game will guarantee praise in this week's Guardian column!

I look forward to the forthcoming praise in the Guardian, which will be richly deserved.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/serie ... rden-chess

Three hours on from the article going online, and so far not a single share or comment. My superiors may conclude that nobody cares about English chess achievements.
Any posts, opinions or queries from Forum members in the comments box below the article would be welcome, and I will respond there if needed.

I've shared it on Twitter and would invite other people to do likewise

Addressing the various points raised about databases in this thread: I guess this is my specialist subject so I might usefully comment.

Regarding the 1967 World Students Championship games: these were played abroad so doesn't fall within my self-imposed remit for BritBase, which is based on geography (games played in the British Isles, Ireland, Channel Islands) and also tournaments that are played under the auspices of the BCF/ECF (e.g. Gibraltar).

I note that the games referred to do appear on ChessBase's Mega/Big Databases but there is only a stub (game header minus moves) for the Gulko-Whiteley game. Another commercially-available database, StarBase 4.56, does have the Gulko-Whiteley moves but minus a couple at the end compared with the moves Roger has accurately input from BCM (one assumes that, since this was Whiteley's own annotation, the moves as published in BCM are correct).

This reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the two commercial databases quite well. ChessBase's offering tends to be based on the input of complete tournaments from old bulletins and is usually done with a reasonable degree of data accuracy. StarBase 4.56, on the other hand, tends to be a good deal worse as regards the accuracy and presentation of the data, and yet it has lots of significant games which Big/Mega doesn't have because there is evidence that it is based on people inputting games from old magazines. Hence important theoretical games played in competitions for which there is no printed bulletin but which have found their way into old magazines can sometimes be found on StarBase 4.56 whereas they might not appear on Big/Mega.

My guess is that the Gulko-Whiteley game didn't appear in the 1967 World Students bulletin, hence is missing from Big/Mega, but was input from BCM by someone whose (albeit flawed) input work founds its way onto StarBase 4.56.

One further point: people talking about (the input of) games being 'neglected' did make me guffaw. This could only come from those who have never themselves contributed towards the Sisyphean task of getting historical games input and maybe haven't stopped to think about how much work is involved for zero reward. Luckily there are many who do contribute and I take this opportunity to thank the many who have helped me (including members of this forum, e.g. Roger), and also all the game inputters who contribute towards other database projects such as Big/Mega, StarBase, Chess Scotland, chessgames.com, etc.

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:33 am

The Olimpbase page gives a link, but presently at least it leads nowhere.

It worked for me.

And it's OK on my phone now. But not on my laptop earlier, I wonder why.