Leyton Orient v Arsenal (+ Fischer's 60)

[Geoff Chandler]

My fault.

I never expected the O's to get this far in the cup.
I wrote them off at Norwich and then Swansea....

I cannot get Monday off as too many stupid people on holiday
so I cannot get down for this one.

Can some kind soul living near the O's or perhaps even going to
the match get me a programme.

I have a spare 1972 Fishcer's 60 - desciptive (slight mark on cover ).
The proper one before it got Nunn'd

Also have a nice wooden, felted and weighted chess set with box.

Will swap both for the O's v Arsenal programme.

Please answer here so people can see someone is doing it and I dont
end up with 5 or 6 programmes. Then PM me your address and I'll PM mine.

I want/need the programme ASAP.

If you can get it to me so I can have it when I watch the game in
the pub then super-duper...a friend for life.....I'm drooling already.

Thank You in advance.

Geoff

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

Hi Geoff. I should be able to get a programme for this match. I'll let you know for sure as soon as I can.

I once played a Leyton Orient player at chess.

I was playing blitz in a pub in Hackney with some friends and this tall, handsome black man came up to our table with half a dozen attractive young women in tow. He asked if he could join in and played loads of games over the next hour or so. He wasn't very good and fell for all the usual opening tricks and middlegame tactics, which he loved as they were all new to him. Between games the man explained to me that he was a professional footballer and had just joined Leyton Orient. I felt a bit sorry for him as even though I wasn't much of a football fan, I knew he was used to playing for bigger and more famous clubs.

The women just sat around sulking, not even talking among themselves. I realised after a while that they were all hoping to be his "date" for the evening and that us chess players had interrupted the more important game going on. As the group left the pub to go onto a nightclub, I wondered to myself which of the women would win the contest. However about a month later he made the front pages of the nationals and I realised that they probably all ended up disappointed.

[Geoff Chandler]

Cheers Jon.

Think I know who the player was, he played for Hearts at one time.

The club say the programmes don't go on sale till a few hours
before the game. They then tried to sell me an Orient/Arsenal mug!

BTW that Fischers 60 is in Croatian and there are a few pawns
missing from that chess set.....

Geoff

PS: I have an unengraved chess trophy if that lad - who fully deserves
a trophy - wants one. I have a house full of the things.

I still have the Scottish Player of Year Shield.
Names on it Rowson, Aagaard, Arakhamia-Grant, Shaw, Motwani.........Me.

Wonder if they would mind me swapping that for a programme
and an Orient/Arsenal mug.

Up the O's.

[Jon D'Souza-Eva]

PS: I have an unengraved chess trophy if that lad - who fully deserves
a trophy - wants one. I have a house full of the things.

It took me a minute or two to recollect which lad you were talking about. You're right, I really ought to get him a trophy. I'll buy one locally as they do the engraving for free that way. If you take in a blank trophy it costs almost as much to get it engraved!

[Geoff Chandler]

Good...I'll send him an Orient/Arsenal mug.

[Geoff Chandler]

Programme arrived today.

A real collectors item.

Set and Books posted off yesteday to my newest bested ever friend.

Thank You.

(Should make the replay but fear I may need a pocket calculator
to keep track of the score...still, you never know).

[Geoff Chandler]

Hi Warren.

The team you are saddled with appears to come from the first
game your father took you to see.
I was one weekend away from being a Gooner.

A friend of mine has a theory that your chess style
is based on the first 'real' chess book (not a primer) that you read.
Try as you might you cannot shake the first influence.

Not sure I go along with it but it is an interesting idea.

The first book I really tore into was Reverend Cunnington's
Chess Traps and Strategems. Hmmm......

[Matt Mackenzie]

My first book - might have said this before - was "Chess: A Beginner's Guide" by Stanley Morrison.......

Got it - together with a wooden chess set - as a ninth birthday present (back in 1975 )

Has it influenced my play - well I had a "nostalgic" look at it recently and yes, maybe it has. Like Reinfeld before him, SM went very big on "control of the centre" - and I have never really trusted hypermodern openings. Moreover in all but a literal handful of my serious games, I have played 1e4 as White and 1e4 e5 as Black!!

There may be something in this theory

(then again, you may say that the above was a "primer" - but the next two books I got were by the aforementioned Reinfeld. Hmmmmm, indeed........)

[Richard Bates]

I have a memory of a book called Gillam's "Simple Chess tactics"

"Chess for Tomorrow's Champions" was probably the first one i remember reading repeatedly, although i've lost it now. I guess at some point i realised tomorrow never comes, to cite the solution to Vercingetorix's problem in Asterix. Either that or it just fell apart.