Media comments on chess

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Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sat Sep 26, 2020 12:36 pm

Tim Spanton > that India has 66 chess grandmasters?<

According to FIDE India has 65 GMs. But that is not a completely reliable source. It also says Anand was their first. That is nonsense. PRAVEEN THIPSAY was their first GM. I know because I nominated him. He only had 2 norms. The chairman of the WC asked me why and I responded that it would be good for Asian chess. There were very few GMs there at that time.
So Praveen became a GM and was awarded free travel on Indian railways for the rest of his life.

NickFaulks
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by NickFaulks » Sat Sep 26, 2020 12:51 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Sat Sep 26, 2020 12:36 pm
The chairman of the WC asked me why and I responded that it would be good for Asian chess.
So that's where such deals used to get done.
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a QR code stamped on a human face — forever.

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Sat Sep 26, 2020 1:42 pm

Nick .So that's where such deals used to get done.

I don't think I was even a member of the QC at the time. It took 25 years to amend the title regulations to be more user-friendly, thus removing the 'need' for deals. My interest in that case was that I was a member of the BCF Board, One of the objects of the BCF was to develop chess in the Commonwealth.

John McKenna

Re: Media comments on chess

Post by John McKenna » Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:17 am

When Shohreh Bayat, one of the world’s top chess referees, let her hijab slip during a match earlier this year she had no idea she may never return home to Iran again...
(Sunday Telegraph)

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/iranian-chess ... 36345.html

Edit - from Daily to Sunday Telegraph - on good authority.
Last edited by John McKenna on Mon Sep 28, 2020 10:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

David Sedgwick
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by David Sedgwick » Mon Sep 28, 2020 9:59 am

John McKenna wrote:
Mon Sep 28, 2020 8:17 am
When Shohreh Bayat, one of the world’s top chess referees, let her hijab slip during a match earlier this year she had no idea she may never return home to Iran again...
(Daily Telegraph)

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/iranian-chess ... 36345.html
Perhaps my post should be in the Pedants thread, but the article was actually in the Sunday Telegraph.

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Geoff Chandler » Mon Sep 28, 2020 12:07 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Sat Sep 26, 2020 12:36 pm
So Praveen became a GM and was awarded free travel on Indian railways for the rest of his life.
Hi Stewart,

On the prowl for an article idea I was intrigued by Praveen getting free rail travel.

Within seconds of reading of your post I had mind -penned something along the lines of...

A few days after being awarded the James G McDonald Memorial Award for 'Scottish Player of the Year.'
my free bus pass arrived. I thought the two were linked. When ever I saw a fellow free bus pass user
I would sit next to them and ask what sport they excelled in to be given free transport.

Their pleas of 'Go Away!' or 'What are you talking about.' I mistook for some form of senility and persisted in my line
of reasoning. This led to quite a few alarming situations culminating in a six month ban from travelling on a Lothian bus....

....leading onto other U.K. players who were given bonus awards for services to chess.
Nigel Short - - lifetime season ticket to watch Bolton Wanderers, Ray Keene - Freedom of Skegness
and Alex McFarlane - a years supply of steak mince pies from Big Bess the Bakers...

...end with obscure game by 19th century player awarded the Queen Vic badge which carried
with it free Dr. Palmer medical cough drops, busk the notes and cha-ching!

But WIKI has Praveen as India's 3rd GM (he was the first to get a GM norm) after Anand and Dibyendu Barua.

In 1983 Barua was the first male chess player to to get India's Arjuna award for sport though I've
not yet discovered if this also carries free rail travel or what other perks are attached.
The first chess recipient of this award was the female player Rohini Khadilkar (1981)

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:00 pm

"free Dr. Palmer medical cough drops"

Best not to take those...

Stewart Reuben
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Tue Sep 29, 2020 7:07 am

THE GREENBECKER GAMBIT
By Ben Graff
Published by Conrad Press in 2020

This is a fictional work chronically the life of a chess player, seen solely from his viewpoint, in London for a few days around the period of the Carlssen – Caruana match. Several real-life people are mentioned in his narrative.
Tennessee Greenbecker is paranoid; convinced he should be World Chess Champion; convinced he is a genius – not just concerning chess; an alcoholic; and a pyromaniac! I don’t think I have ever previously read a book where the narrator had so many personal hang-ups.

We are not given the moves of his gambit, nor of any other games. He is not based on any person I have ever met, not even as a composite. Nonetheless, it was an engrossing read.

Stewart Reuben

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Tue Sep 29, 2020 8:31 am

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Tue Sep 29, 2020 7:07 am

Published by Conrad Press
Ah yes
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com

Reg Clucas
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Reg Clucas » Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:16 pm

From cumbriandictionary.co.uk -

Chess
1.(noun. chess) A game enjoyed by Cumbrians from around early walking years through to mid-to-late teens. Forget your Kasparovs and your Deep Blues, the Cumbrian version of Chess is an outdoor sport (usually), involving being chased from either a park by the 'Parky' (Park keeper) or from a building site by the 'Watchy' (Watchman).

Simon Rogers
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Simon Rogers » Wed Sep 30, 2020 2:28 pm

More 4 tonight 9pm until 11.15pm
Film: The Imitation Game
Biopic of the mathematician Alan Turing, who broke vital Nazi codes during the Second World War.
Stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and Charles Dance.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:19 pm

"The Imitation Game"

A very entertaining film with a good cast. Loads of factual errors though!

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Geoff Chandler » Wed Sep 30, 2020 8:42 pm

Hi Kevin,

The chess mistake is the character playing Alexander saying he won the British Championship twice. (the second time was 1956) so it does
appear the researchers/script writer just saw twice on his WIKI page, (he was the Champ in 1938 maybe they counted boys champion in 1926).

**Spoiler ALert ***
Recall a reviewer saying it portrayed Turing as a spy being blackmailed for being gay. The film has him refusing to
'out' a Russian spy, then Russia were our allies, if they spy kept it a secret from the authorities about Turing being gay.
(they possibly knew, but at that time did not care.)
***End of Spoiler***

It was the end blurb about him being gay and eventually getting a pardon I found a little incomplete. yes that
happened but no mention at all of all the statues, the university rooms, halls and awards in his name.
(unless they have added it on now, I last saw the film in a cinema - a place we used to go to before Covid.)

Also no mention in the film at all of Tommy Flowers. Turing had in his mind what a computer could do, he called on Tommy Flowers to build it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

I like the bit where he applied for a loan to build another computer but was refused because the bank said what
he was talking about was impossible. Due to the Official Secret Act he could not say he already built a couple.

Nick Grey
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Nick Grey » Wed Sep 30, 2020 10:11 pm

Barclays APP ad - a bit of chess, a bit of mountaineering. My money will be elsewhere.

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Thu Oct 01, 2020 10:53 am

Letter in the London Review of Books:
Caroline Campbell’s piece about Sofonisba Anguissola is illustrated by her painting The Chess Game..... Properly set, the lower right-hand squares of a chessboard should be white. In the painting they are black. Perhaps the board was rotated by ninety degrees, which seems odd; or there wasn’t an actual game in play. Or could chessboards be configured as shown in the painting in the 16th century?
"Do you play chess?"
"Yes, but I prefer a game with a better chance of cheating."

lostontime.blogspot.com