Media comments on chess

[Chris Rice]

Must admit I had never heard of Jonah previously but this is a sensational result. Anyone seen or got the actual game?

Chess whizz aged 12 who stumped a Russian grandmaster: Home-schooled prodigy takes experienced player to the wire
Jonah Willow played Russian Alexander Cherniaev at a chess congress
Home-schooled 12-year-old drew the grandmaster in their two-hour game
Youngster began playing chess aged five and has represented England


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ament.html

[Adam Raoof]

Any chance of a crosstable?

[Ian Kingston]

Video of Jonah talking about the game: https://uk.screen.yahoo.com/swns/school ... 00035.html

[Brian Towers]

Any chance of a crosstable?

Bit of a shocker, that. A big tournament with at least one grandmaster playing, bound to have been FIDE rated I foolishly thought. I nip along to the FIDE website, look for tournaments played in England reporting results in April (http://ratings.fide.com/tournament_list ... 2015-04-01) intending to post a link to the results for Adam and, of course, it was nowhere to be found!

Are digital clocks really such a novelty in Nottingham that they can't organize a FIDE event even when they have at least one GM playing? Or are FIDE arbiters an endangered species there?

[Adam Raoof]

Are digital clocks really such a novelty in Nottingham that they can't organize a FIDE event even when they have at least one GM playing? Or are FIDE arbiters an endangered species there?

They are an endangered species in the UK! The number of active qualified FAs and IAs is also declining.

The choice as to whether to FIDE rate an event is a tricky one. I would not organise something played at standard controls that was not FIDE rated at above 130 ECF nowadays - some organisers (including me) have discovered by trial and error that many players at club level don't want to join the ECF at Gold, don't care much whether the games are rated, don't really worry too much about prizes, but they do care about their ECF grade. This is not so true for players under (insert age group). Rapidplays are another matter because they have lower membership requirements.

[Roger de Coverly]

Are digital clocks really such a novelty in Nottingham that they can't organize a FIDE event even when they have at least one GM playing? Or are FIDE arbiters an endangered species there?

Checking the dates and times of the event would have been a good idea before leaping in. It was a two day event of five rounds. Given the number of hours in a day, it has become the custom to play three and half hour sessions in such circumstances. By virtue of the FIDE rating regulations it is only possible to have such an event FIDE rated by excluding all the GMs and indeed any players rated above 2200.

[Adam Raoof]

... intending to post a link to the results for Adam and, of course, it was nowhere to be found!

Very kind, Brian - in fact there does not seem to be an ECF crosstable on the web either.

[Ian Kingston]

Unless things have changed in the last couple of years, Nottingham is still run using pairing cards rather than computer pairing. Crosstables take a while to compile by hand.

In 2012, one round of the Open had to be re-paired because one of the cards had fallen off the table without anyone noticing.

(Drifting off-topic...)

[Neil Graham]

I'll post the full results when I have them in the appropriate section:-

40th Nottingham Congress = Total entry 152

Open (20 players) 1st Alexander Cherniaev 4.5/5; 2nd Mark Hebden 4/5; 3rd Jonah Willow 3.5/5

If people had wanted to play at a FIDE rated event over the weekend they could have played at the 4NCL weekend at Wakefield (70 players or so). The top section was larger at Wakefield, the remaining sections were considerably larger at Nottingham.

[Steve Rooney]

Is bridge (and chess) a sport?
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/a ... -card-game

[LawrenceCooper]

Whilst flicking aimlessly between channels I stumbled on an old Dr. Who episode "The Curse of Fenric - Part Four" from 1989 where a chess position seems a key part of the plot (if any plot existed ) Sadly the board caught fire before I could check if there was a white square in the right hand corner or if the position was legal

[Jonathan Bryant]

Whilst flicking aimlessly between channels I stumbled on an old Dr. Who episode "The Curse of Fenric - Part Four" from 1989 where a chess position seems a key part of the plot (if any plot existed ) Sadly the board caught fire before I could check if there was a white square in the right hand corner or if the position was legal

Curse of Fenric. IIRC (possibly i don’t) it’s a six episode story. Chess a theme throughout the whole story but not in a coherent way. You used to be able to watch the whole thing on youtube but it’s since been taken down.

Of course it’s from Dr Who’s dark ages - aka The Sylvester McCoy years - so other than the chess element there’d be no reason to watch it at all.



Fun fact: Ace (the Doctor’s companion at the time) says that her mum lives in Streatham at some point in the story.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

More than you would ever want to know on Dr Who and chess here:

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Chess

[Chris Rice]

Just saw a tweet from Stuart Conquest "Oh dear. More publicity for our great game" referring to a Telegraph article on Kirsan suggesting that chess sets be made of ice so chess can qualify for the Winter Olympics...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/ches ... qus_thread

[Clive Blackburn]

A new series of Dominic Lawson's excellent Radio 4 programme "Across the Board" begins on Monday 4th May.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04njsk ... s/upcoming

On the Tuesday, Dominic will be playing against Gary Kasparov and interviewing him as they play.

I don't think the bookmakers will be taking bets on that one!