Britbase Updates

[Gerard Killoran]

Two more Comins Mansfield games.

[Event "Bristol Club Championship"] [Site "Bristol"] [Date "1920"] [Round "?"] [White "Viveash, Samuel Waterman"] [Black "Mansfield, Comins"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C48"] [Opening "Four knights: Spanish, classical defence"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bb5 Bc5 5. O-O d6 6. d3 O-O 7. Bxc6 bxc6 8. d4 exd4 9. Nxd4 Qe8 10. Qd3 Ba6 11. Qxa6 Bxd4 12. Bd2 Bxc3 13. Bxc3 Nxe4 14. Rae1 Nc5 15. Qc4 Qd7 16. Re3 Rae8 17. Rfe1 Rxe3 18. Rxe3 Re8 19. Qg4 Ne6 20. Bf6 c5 21. f4 g6 22. Kf2 h5 23. Rh3 Qa4 24. Rxh5 Qxc2+ 25. Kg3 Ng7 26. Rh3 Nf5+ 27. Qxf5 Re3+ 28. Kh4 Qxf5 29. Rxe3 Qxf4+ {Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 07 August 1920 p.4 via 'The Chess Amateur'.} 0-1


[Event "Braine-Hartnell Cup"] [Site "College for the Blind, Worcester"] [Date "1932.04.09"] [Round "?"] [White "Chamberlain, Arthur Richard"] [Black "Mansfield, Comins"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C84"] [WhiteTitle "Warwickshire"] [Opening "Ruy Lopez: closed defence"] [BlackTeam "Gloucestershire"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. c3 b5 7. Bc2 d5 8. exd5 Nxd5 9. a4 b4 10. a5 Bd6 11. d4 exd4 12. Re1+ Nce7 13. Qxd4 O-O 14. Bg5 Kh8 15. Qh4 f5 16. Nbd2 bxc3 17. bxc3 Nf6 18. Nc4 Ng6 19. Qd4 Rb8 20. Rad1 Rb5 21. Nfe5 Nxe5 22. Nxe5 Bb7 23. Bxf5 Qa8 24. Qh4 h6 25. Ng6+ Kg8 26. Be6+ Rf7 27. Bxf6 Bxg2 28. Ne5 Bxe5 29. Rd8+ {Cheltenham Chronicle - Saturday 23 April 1932 p.4} 1-0

[John Saunders]

Thanks, Gerard. I've added those two games to the Comins Mansfield games collection at BritBase.info.

[Gerard Killoran]

Erm, can't Black just play 25...Qf5 at the end of that last one?? I think something might have been misrecorded somewhere.

He could, but it's White's move.

[Gerard Killoran]

A. J. Griffiths, or was it R. J. Griffths?

hampshire Chess Notes Merged.png (509.68 KiB) Viewed 1541 times

[Event "GBR-ch63 U18"] [Site "Portsmouth"] [Date "1976.08.??"] [Round "?"] [White "Griffiths, A. J."] [Black "Townsend, M. P."] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "A56"] [Opening "Czech Benoni ...Be7"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e5 4. Nc3 d6 5. e4 Be7 6. Be2 O-O 7. Be3 a6 8. f3 Nh5 9. Qd2 g6 10. g4 Bh4+ 11. Kd1 Nf4 12. Bxf4 exf4 13. Qxf4 f5 14. gxf5 gxf5 15. Bd3 fxe4 16. Qxe4 Bf5 17. Qe2 Bxd3 18. Qxd3 Nd7 19. Kc2 Ne5 20. Qe4 Qf6 21. Rf1 Rae8 22. f4 Ng4 23. Qg2 Qf5+ 24. Kb3 Kh8 25. Nf3 Bf6 26. Qh3 b5 27. Nd2 bxc4+ 28. Nxc4 Rb8+ 29. Ka3 Ne5 30. fxe5 Qxh3 31. exf6 Qd3 32. Rf4 Rxb2 33. Nxb2 Qxc3+ 34. Ka4 Rb8 {https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/wp- ... ressed.pdf} 0-1

[Roger de Coverly]

A. J. Griffiths, or was it R. J. Griffths?

from https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/1 ... iewer.html

1976 British U-16 Championship (11-rd Swiss)

(1) David H Cummings 9/11; (2) Nicholas W Ivell 8½; (3-7) John W Branford, M G Bucknell, A Lewis, Malcolm Pein, M P Townsend 7½; (8-10) R J Griffiths, Richard J McMichael, Peter J Sullivan 7; (11-15) Nevil Chan, Tom Farrand, S D Hannan, Bobo Lo, C A Plasa 6½; (16-23) Simon D Brown, M R Charter, R Henley, J S Hill, S Johnson, K Mahon, D Roberts, Ian Duncan Wells 6; (24-29) P Anderson, P B Conway, Francis Rayner, M Shaw, A G Simpson, Robert J Woodcraft 5½; (30-35) Robert D M Alster, M Buckmaster, David Carless, S J Don, N M Jones, Robert C Noyce 5; (36-44) C Barron, M Doran, Trevor G Dunmore, A Gardner, C J Gentile, G M Heap, K J Norbury, R Ormesher, K Rakshit 4½; (45-48) M S Kay, D G Marshall, I R Rudgley, C Suddick 4; (49) P Bill 3½; (50) M V House 3; (51) Marc Bryant 2; (52) Mark L Baxendall 1½.

C A Plasa I think was Carl

[GrahamStuart]

A. J. Griffiths, or was it R. J. Griffths?

I think in this case it was AJ Griffiths (the player was reported as A Griffiths in the WECU Westward Ho! magazine results for the 4 times he played for Hampshire between 1975 and 1977) e.g. https://hampshirechesshistory.co.uk/wp- ... Apr-77.pdf

from https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/1 ... iewer.html

1976 British U-16 Championship (11-rd Swiss)

(1) David H Cummings 9/11; (2) Nicholas W Ivell 8½; (3-7) John W Branford, M G Bucknell, A Lewis, Malcolm Pein, M P Townsend 7½; (8-10) R J Griffiths, Richard J McMichael, Peter J Sullivan 7; (11-15) Nevil Chan, Tom Farrand, S D Hannan, Bobo Lo, C A Plasa 6½; (16-23) Simon D Brown, M R Charter, R Henley, J S Hill, S Johnson, K Mahon, D Roberts, Ian Duncan Wells 6; (24-29) P Anderson, P B Conway, Francis Rayner, M Shaw, A G Simpson, Robert J Woodcraft 5½; (30-35) Robert D M Alster, M Buckmaster, David Carless, S J Don, N M Jones, Robert C Noyce 5; (36-44) C Barron, M Doran, Trevor G Dunmore, A Gardner, C J Gentile, G M Heap, K J Norbury, R Ormesher, K Rakshit 4½; (45-48) M S Kay, D G Marshall, I R Rudgley, C Suddick 4; (49) P Bill 3½; (50) M V House 3; (51) Marc Bryant 2; (52) Mark L Baxendall 1½.

C A Plasa I think was Carl

[John Saunders]

Yes, Graham has beaten me to it. Thanks, Gerard. Almost certainly A J Griffiths. The WECU Grading List for 1976/77 (published within Westward Ho, the WECU bulletin, for September 1976) has A J Griffiths (King Edward VI School, Southampton), graded 158J, so it must be him. There is no other Griffiths. Exceedingly useful having those documents available online, so many thanks to Graham, also to Roger.

I think my source for the 1976 British Championship results must have been the BCF Yearbook (I don't have it to hand at the moment) which is a tad more likely to have typos than locally-produced sources.

I'll add this game to the collection.

[Nick Ivell]

Yes that's him. I know he was from Southampton.

In that tournament I stayed in the same hotel, and could hear his dreadful coughing overnight - a sign of how ill he was, and how relatively unimportant the chess was.

[Ian Thompson]

Almost certainly A J Griffiths. The WECU Grading List for 1976/77 (published within Westward Ho, the WECU bulletin, for September 1976) has A J Griffiths (King Edward VI School, Southampton), graded 158J, so it must be him.

Allan J Griffiths - Hampshire U18 Championship 1975/76 - "There were four players a point behind the joint winners, with Allan J Griffiths ...".

[John Saunders]

Almost certainly A J Griffiths. The WECU Grading List for 1976/77 (published within Westward Ho, the WECU bulletin, for September 1976) has A J Griffiths (King Edward VI School, Southampton), graded 158J, so it must be him.

Allan J Griffiths - Hampshire U18 Championship 1975/76 - "There were four players a point behind the joint winners, with Allan J Griffiths ...".

Many thanks, Ian - I spotted this myself a few minutes ago and have already applied an amendment.

Many thanks also to Graham Stuart for posting those links to his brilliant Hampshire Chess History website. It's one of the very best British chess history sites around, right up there with the SCCU archive and Steve Mann's Yorkshire Chess History.

I note that Allan Griffiths also played in a number of other British Championships in the 1970s and I shall have to update the names of those too when I'm back home from holiday (I'm currently on a ship in the Med just off the Moroccan coast! And my usual method for updating BritBase won't work for some reason. I've found a work-round but it's cumbersome).

Incidentally, tournament programmes from British Championships are extremely useful for discovering players' forenames and places of residence. I've posted a few of these on BritBase as PDFs but I don't have many. Graham Stuart has posted the 1986 programme and that was very useful for completing the list of competitors on BritBase. It would be good to get some more scanned.

[John Saunders]

Anyone fancy figuring out a garbled score? It's not an important game but I thought a fellow game score masochist might enjoy trying to make sense of it. From the Bristol Evening Post, 23 July 1955. At first I thought it was just a question of the two columns being out of alignment but when it became obvious that there was more to it, I decided watching football was an easier option.

Screenshot 2024-06-17 211008.png (666.48 KiB) Viewed 1343 times

[Ian Thompson]

At first I thought it was just a question of the two columns being out of alignment but when it became obvious that there was more to it, I decided watching football was an easier option.

If you insert 11... Nce7 into the score then all other moves are legal and plausible.

1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. a3 Ba5 5. b4 Bb6 6. e5 Ne7 7. Nce2 Nbc6 8. c3 Nf5 9. Nf3 h5 10. h4 Bd7 11. Nf4 Nce7 12. Be2 a5 13. Bd2 axb4 14. axb4 Rxa1 15. Qxa1 c6 16. g3 Qb8 17. Nh2 g6 18. Bd3 Bd8 19. Ne2 b6 20. Bg5 Ng8 21. Bxd8 Qxd8 22. Bxf5 exf5 23. Nf4 Nh6 24. Nf3 Ng4 25. O-O O-O 26. Re1 Be6 27. Ng5 Qe8 28. Nfxe6 fxe6 29. Qa7 Rf7 30. Qxf7+ Qxf7 31. Nxf7 Kxf7 32. Ra1 *

[John Saunders]

At first I thought it was just a question of the two columns being out of alignment but when it became obvious that there was more to it, I decided watching football was an easier option.

If you insert 11... Nce7 into the score then all other moves are legal and plausible.

That's excellent. Thanks, Ian.

[James Pratt]

I remembered Adam Griffiths. Is Allan a correct spelling anyways? SD Bell and AGH Kluth went to the same College, Southampton men yes. Mark BaxandAll, Andrew P Lewis (aka Whale Piss don't ask), Martin Buckmaster, David R Carless became an fm in Hong Kong, Mark Shaw, M Paul Townsend.
James

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

I remembered Adam Griffiths. Is Allan a correct spelling anyways?

I noticed that AJ Griffiths played on top board for King Edward VI school in a match (Sunday Times third place playoff) in 1979, which makes him a bit younger than I thought he was (born around 1961?). On board 2 was Tim Joslin, who might remember him. Is anyone on here in contact with Tim?
https://x.com/timmjoslin?lang=en