Agreeing a time control not permitted by the rules?

[Geoff Chandler]

Great Thread.

I love reading/hearing about these wee tit-bits of chess lore.

To give another regions view on the main subject.

Edinburgh have different time controls for different clubs depending on
their venue as some have very strict 'kicking out' times.
I've played to some odd times: 1 hour 17 minutes for 36 moves for example.

Opinion:
If the two players concerned wanted to play say a 30 minute allegro
and both team captains agreed. Why not?

As for the two players arranging their own time control without
telling/asking their captains...hmmmm....If done on the fly how would
anyone know?

Situation:
When I was captain of Edinburgh 1 I once agreed a 3-3 draw without
a pawn being pushed. But all 12 players agreed (live football on the telly).
These draws hit the grading list.

Event:
An Edinburgh 5 captain once with 5 players playing v a team who also
could only field 5 players got a non-chess playing friend to sit on board 6
to claim the point by default.

He came into my flat (I lived in the Edinburgh club for 5 years) to use
my phone to get his mate turn up.

That lad is on some DB somewhere wating for more games to get a grade.

Question:
Is there not a tale about a dog once getting a grade?

Demo Boards:
Forgive my Guiness destroyed memory (again) but is there not a
b/w mid 60's picture of Russian GM's. Tal was one, pretending to be
operating the demo boards?
I recall a caption about the vacant demo board was meant to be Botvinnik's
but he did not want to take part in the gag.

[Stewart Reuben]

Having such disparate time controls shows a lack of understanding how people play. The first time control, if any, should always be 40 moves, irrespective of the time available. I have been recommending that for many years. FIDE have finally made it mandatory for title tournaments.

If two players or two teams agree to play at a different rate and it is against the rules, does that not conclude the matter?

In Geoff's team match, agreed a 3-3 with no moves being made, the 'games' should not have been graded. Nor should my World Record of zero moves against Tony Miles have been graded. Neither of us cared either way.

I do hope it is true that a dog once got a grade. It is better than player's grades going up following death. Moreover that is perfectly feasible if the graders do not know the players has died.

Stewart Reuben

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi

I've been emailed(?) Why they did not post on here - I don't know.

Apparently a dog was not allowed into a club rooms so the owner
made the dog a member and paid the sub.

Another club member saw the name on the members list and
entered the dog into a club tournament.

Also (apparently) I have mentioned this on my website(oops!).
I cannot be expected to recall everything I've written as 90% of it
is total fabricated rubbish. (I don't know who writes the other 10%).

Grades:

I well recall the nil move game.
What a lot of fuss over no moves.

None of use were bothered about the grades either.
I've often seen no move draws in the league.

There was another 3-3 no move game I was invlved in that the
league insisted we play - the result mattered in promotion/relegation.

The Scots seem to have a more layback attitude re grades.
They are more interested in what a player CAN DO over the board rather
than what a four digit number says they can do.

Or perhaps it's because they know their system is accurate so
there is no use complaing about it.

[Leonard Barden]

[quote="Stewart Reuben"] I know Leonard put together the LJC, but who was the arbiter? It certainly wasn't me.

The arbiter was David Levy.

The previous year, realising that there were some Fide qualifiers in the 1976 British championship at Portsmouth, I volunteered to become BCF international grader, established friendly relations with Professor Elo who at the time personally administered the annual Fide list, sent him my calculations for the Portsmouth results and persuaded him at short notice to include them in time for January 1977 Fide publication.

The Lord John Cup came about because Ralph Shovel, father of a talented junior Kenny Shovel (who later became an FM and drew with Anand at Lloyds Bank 1985) was a golf partner of the Lord John chairman. Ralph persuaded his friend to put up £20,000 for a grandmaster tournament. On his return home, the chairman had misgivings and consulted his PR firm who were horrified and wanted him to pull the plug. With Ralph urging him to honour his word, he compromised on £10,000 and a demand for a very detailed budget which I provided.

I wanted to give Stean (who already had two GM norms), Nunn and Mestel a realistic opportunity, but that really needed a plus two (5.5/9) qualifying score for which we required a 2476 average. Below 2476 the GM score would be 6/9 and it was unlikely that all three would reach this norm.

We had Hort, at that time a world top 10-20 player, Quinteros and Torre (who were on a package where they also played Lloyds Bank) available as a core of established GMs. A fourth GM was needed, and that was Alexander Kotov, then a frequent visitor to England where he sought funds to pay for drugs to treat the heart condition from which he and his wife both suffered. Kotov was far from his peak years of the 1950s but was still rated 2500.

After many hours studying the Fide list (then consisting of only around 1000 names) I concluded that 2476 was only realistically possible by including Kotov, Andrew Law, Les Blackstock (who besides his blitz-earned 2400+ also had a Scottish affiliation due I think to playing in a Scottish championship and so qualified the fifth Fide-stipulated non-English player) and Glenn Lambert (who had his career-best result at Portsmouth 1976) as overrated players to offset Stean, Mestel and Nunn who were all then significantly underrated around 2400-2450.

However when they heard about Kotov, both Stean (who stood to benefit most) and Levy were indignant and told me that I should not invite a player who was both too weak and allegedly a former KGB agent. But I had good relations with AK and also knew he was essential for 2476. I still kept quiet about the magic number but inserted a line about the Fide category into the tournament programme. Hort immediately spotted it and exclaimed to Stean "That means you've only got to score plus two".

Levy also forecast disaster when I told him that the four GMs would be asked to give clock simuls against juniors on the rest day, saying that they would all refuse or demand large extra fees. In the event all four did the job willingly. Hort had to play the top group including future GMs Hodgson and Watson. He concocted an ingenious physical arrangement, four chairs in his central area, the opposition in a tight circle, and playing fast. I think he scored 7.5-0.5.

The Lord John PR people continued to complain and said that a chess tournament could not possibly provide the publicity that an upmarket clothing firm needed. So I conceived the idea of awarding a special prize of a Lord John fashion suit for the most elegant player, to be judged by a trade magazine. When the judges arrived at the tournament, they took a brief glance round the room, immediately spotted the well-groomed Quinteros in the midst of a crowd of scruffs, awarded him the prize, and left. This was prominently reported in the fashion trade press.

There was also a problem with top national press publicity, because Lord John clashed with Paignton and Harry Golombek wouldn't forego his annual trip there. Kevin O'Connell was deputised to report Lord John, but for the first few days the Times subeditors gave top billing to Paignton and small type to Lord John even though Kevin started his reports with something like 'strongest tournament in London since 1932'. Eventually after a few days of references to three young English masters poised for a GM result they got the message, Lord John got the banner headlines, and Harry was relegated to the paragraph underneath.

I don't recall much of the Kotov-Lambert incident, I think I was preparing my Guardian report and just noticed a hubbub. David Levy would know more of the details. My impression is that Kotov actually thought he was winning and that the truth was discovered in the post-mortem. The final position has appeared in one or two books on tactics.

Not everybody was pleased at the English success. Around that time Miles's New Statesman column was quite influential, and he criticised both Lord John and Stewart's pairing system at Lloyds Bank. I think Tony saw both as potential dangers to his status, and he was right.

However in hindsight I think that these two Lord John and Lloyds Bank 1977 were significant and positive events because they countered a potential bottleneck in GM and IM titles and in Fide ratings as our players improved rapidly. Before Lord John we only had Miles and Keene as GMs, and they wanted mainly to play in Europe. After it we had Stean too, while Nunn's norm helped him get an invite to Budapest 1978 where he completed his title requirements.

Stewart's success with IM norms and Fide ratings at Lloyds Bank 1977 helped spark the Aaronson Masters 1978 and 1979 which gave fresh opportunities, and by the latter year the bottleneck was less serious to an extent which I only realised when Mike O'Hara rang me from Chester 1979 to say that Short had achieved an IM norm at the British championship. So overall I guess that what we did in 1977 hastened the English Chess Explosion by 1-2 years.

[Paul McKeown]

I've been emailed(?) Why they did not post on here - I don't know.

Apparently a dog was not allowed into a club rooms so the owner
made the dog a member and paid the sub.

Another club member saw the name on the members list and
entered the dog into a club tournament.

Seems like the story retold by Richard James and Mike Fox in their The Even More Complete Chess Addict:

Among the members of Brighton Chess Club in the 1930s was Mrs Sidney, an aristocratic old lady whose inseparable companion was her dog, Mick. At that time the club met in the splendid Royal Pavilion, built for George IV when he was Prince Regent. There was a strict rule: no Dogs Allowed, but the club secretary, no wishing to incur the fearsome old crone's wrath, pretended not to notice the canine companion. Then a new club secretary was appointed, who asked Mrs S. not to bring her dog in future. A tirade of angry words from Mrs S. and eventually a compromise was reached. Mick was to be elected a full member of the club, his owner paying the subscription. Some time later, the third team played a friendly match. The team captain, noticing a new name on the Members' List, decided that he should be given some match experience, so the name of Mr Mick went on the match sheet. The result? He lost on time. Persistent rumour has it that the opening was the Collie System. (Unless he was a paw to king four player.)

[Richard James]

You beat me to it, Paul.

I think, from reading more about her in Brian Denman's excellent history of chess in Brighton, we were rather unfair to Mrs Sidney in the book.

Should there ever be another edition of Addict I'll try to remedy this.

[Paul McKeown]

Richard,

I love your (and the late Mike Fox's) book; anytime I'm feeling down, I just pick it up and spend an hour or so rolling on the floor in gales of mirth!

What did Brian Denman have to say about Mrs S., then?

Regards,
Paul.

[Richard James]

Richard,

I love your (and the late Mike Fox's) book; anytime I'm feeling down, I just pick it up and spend an hour or so rolling on the floor in gales of mirth!

What did Brian Denman have to say about Mrs S., then?

Regards,
Paul.

"In 1938 chess in Brighton received a boost when it was declared that for the first time the British Chess Federation was to hold its annual congress in the town. Club member Mrs E.H. Sidney had offered a substatial donation of £150 to the Federation funds to encourage the transfer of the tournament to Brighton. She had first joined the Brighton Chess Club in the 1880s, and in the 1930s had a regular companion at the club. His name was given as Mr Cutts or Monsieur Le Chien (though in another version of the story he becomes 'Mr Mick'), and he was the first dog to become a member!"

From Brighton Chess (Brian Denman) p56

[Richard James]

More from Brighton Chess:

"In the same year (1922) Mrs E.H. Sidney of Hove announced her intention of presenting a trophy for annual competition among the schoolboys of Brighton and Hove." (pp46-7) The appendix suggests that this only ran between 1922 and 1925.

"The trophy for the Hove Chess Club Championship... is inscribed with the names of the club champions from 1899 to 1938... and was originally presented by Mrs Sidney." (p58) The appendix reveals that Mrs Sidney won her own trophy in 1922, 1926, 1928, 1929, 1930 and 1934.

"(Hove Chess) Club suffered a severe blow, however, when long-standing member and many times Sussex Ladies Champion Mrs E.H. Sidney passed away..." (p67) This would have been about 1939-1940 - I can look it up if anyone's interested.

In 1904 she played for Hove against Bexhill in a replay of the final of the MacArthur Cup, winning her game on Board 3 agaist H.R. Luntley, although her team lost 4-2.

So Mrs Sidney seems to have been a fairly decent player and a generous benefactor of chess in Brighton and Hove. I don't have any games, though. I'll look up her birth/marriage/death details at some point if I can be bothered.

[Anthony Higgs]

Kotov,A (2500) - Lambert,G (2420) [A48]
Lord John Cup London (4), 08.09.1977

1 d4 Nf6 2 Nf3 g6 3 Bf4 Bg7 4 e3 0-0 5 Nbd2 d6 6 h3 c5 7 c3 Nc6 8 Bc4 a6 9 a4 cxd4 10 exd4 e5 11 Be3 e4 12 Nh2 d5 13 Ba2 Be6 14 0-0 Ne7 15 Nb3 Nd7 16 Qd2 Nf5 17 Bf4 Qe7 18 f3 Nd6 19 Na5 Rfc8 20 Bxd6 Qxd6 21 fxe4 dxe4 22 Nxb7 Qb6 23 Bxe6 Qxe6 24 Qf2 Qd5 25 Nc5 Nxc5 26 dxc5 Qxc5 27 Qxc5 Rxc5 28 Rad1 f5 29 g4 Rb8 30 Rf2 Be5 31 Nf1 f4 32 Re2 f3 33 Red2 Bc7 34 Ne3 Bb6 35 Kf1 h5 36 Rd6 Rg5 37 h4 Bxe3 38 hxg5 hxg4 39 Rxg6+ Kf7 40 Rdd6 Re8 41 Rdf6+ Ke7 1-0

Lambert is certainly not losing at the end but it takes Fritz and co quite a while to figure out that he might indeed be winning.

This game appears in several chess books, in particular Van Perlo's superb Endgame Tactics. According to this source Kotov revealed to Lambert that he had sealed 42.Re6+ and showed him that after 42...Kd7 43.Rxe8 Kxe8 44.Re6+ and 45.Rxe4 Black is lost. Lambert took him at his word and resigned. Unfortunately after 43.Rxe8 Black has 43...g3!! and White will be the one resigning...

[Stewart Reuben]

Sadly it seems that, if the dog referred to above is the same one, it could not, while still alive, have had a grade, although it could have been a member of a club. There was no grading system before the 1950s. Of course, quite correctly, it could have had a grade after dying. But, the BCF System would not have been able to cope with such a long time scale.
Stewart Reuben

[Geoff Chandler]

Of course Addicts.
For a long while that was the only thing I really enjoyed in CHESS.
(I lifted a few things from there in my time - usually gave credit).

I'll have to go through my copy again - my off board reading is usually
one the Winter books, the Oxford or MAD.

My quest now is to get a dog on the Scottish grading list.

I'll enter a dog (my neighbour has a dog, I'll borrow that) in the Sandy Bells Club
Championship. Those that are up for a laugh will lose on time to the dog.
I'll take pictures to prove they actually 'played'.
The dog, I'll call him Sandy Collier, will be in the 2011 Scottish grading list

I'll even pay his memebrship to Chess Scotland.

I'll make up a few brilliant games played by the dog and publish them in the
Scottish Mag and on the Corner.

This way we also get the dog's games onto ChessBase.

The next challenge will be to get the dog an FM title.

[John Hickman]

My quest now is to get a dog on the Scottish grading list.

On hearing the news, cats across the world are now brushing up on their skills

[Kevin Thurlow]

Leonard's report on Lord John is absolutely fascinating, bringing the event alive. Most tournaments nowadays are just a pgn file, occasionally accompanied by some swimwear photos on the Chessbase website.

On the original subject, I am aware of a correspondence game, where two club colleagues were paired together so they played a blitz game, and sent the result off a few months later.

[Stewart Reuben]

Please note, the dog should not be a Labrador, otherwise there will be a lab report.
Similarly you mut be careful of a CAT scan, revealing the cat scam.
Stewart Reuben