Posted in My own endeavours on April 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
For a reason which eludes me somewhat, I made some audio files during the tournament I played in most recently. I strongly suspect I wanted to be sure I didn’t forget how hard I found the whole thing, and I’m fairly sure it’s because I don’t want a repeat of that ever again.
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, History of Bedfordshire Chess on April 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Luton A team has won Division 2 of the Bedfordshire League with only one loss all season.
So who makes up the Luton A team this season?
Congrats on a fine season, now its time for division 1!
Mark. J. McCready
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on April 26, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Back in the 2000/2001 season, Bedford proved they are the best in the land. They beat the more fancied Wood Green in the final of the National Club Championships, with the Ledger brothers in fine form. This is of course before the 4NCL took shape. Details can be found here: https://sccu-chess.com/archive/0001/nc.htm
In addition, I am once again indebted to Mr. Paul Habershon, long standing member of Bedford Chess Club for his first hand account of the match. The text below is his response to my query.
To the best of my knowledge, this is the only instance of a club from the Bedfordshire league becoming national champions.
Mark. J. McCready
Posted in Chess on April 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on April 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Once again, archivist, English chess supremo, and dedicated admirer of our online proletariat John Saunders has done a fine job by placing the 1979 Lloyds Bank Masters on line for all and sundry to wonder over.
https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/pgn/197908lloyds-viewer.html
My fellow Bedfordshire county team mates, for our purposes this tournament signifies our top end strength well. Participating for Bedfordshire we have:
50th James Plaskett of Bedford (2410) [still untitled, classified as a junior]
63rd Michael MacDonald-Ross of Milton Keynes (2265)
79th Colin. P. Garwood of Dunstabubble (No FIDE rating, est. 2200 classified as a junior)
Something of a discrepancy? (See below)
Did Colin. P. Garwood play in the main event and a junior tournament?
Quick trivia question: The venue was the hotel Ivanhoe. Ivanhoe is the name of a novel by which author?
Another quick trivia Q: James Plaskett achieved his first ever norm, what norm was it?
MJM
Posted in Chess on April 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Chess in Thailand on April 20, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I recently played in what is almost certainly my last ever tournament. So out of practice and rusty, I really should have known better. Common sense alone ought to have told me not to, alas love is blind. I enjoyed the event but not the chess, and regarding the latter, I just don’t want to write about it. I really don’t think I can make the same mistake again. Yes, okay, I won games, I won a prize and became tenacious but its hardly the point. Here, have some pictures instead! And yes you can see pictures of my daughter and her mum here too!
Want some videos too? Right!
Posted in Chess in Thailand on April 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Myself and old friend Poompong recently had a recorded chat about the state of chess in Thailand. I chose to ask him because he has become an FM, and an International Arbiter as well, and is involved with many things in Bangkok. I’ve always known him to be an intelligent and well-informed guy with excellent English skills too!
Myself ‘How would you describe the level of interest in chess in Thailand now?’
Poompong ‘If we look back about 10 years ago, chess was not as popular as it is right now. I remember that I played in my very first tournament, the national championships for adults back in 2004, and I remember that I was one of the only two juniors out of all the participants (ed. 24), so now 20 years has passed and you can see that kids are everywhere in the tournaments, and not only that but kids are starting to beat adults as well.’
Myself ‘Why does Bangkok have a lot more schools and tournaments than it used to?’
Poompong ‘It is because of two things adding up together. One is because there are more chess clubs/chess schools popping up. For example, nowadays we have Big Rook Chess Academy, Red Knight Chess Club, we have JCA, and a few more that I didn’t mention. Some of them also entered into international schools and made themselves the after school provider, and this is one of the big reasons why its all happening now. If you actually take a closer look at these kids, these juniors that are playing in the tournaments, most of them can speak English pretty well, they either study in a government school, international programme or study at an international school, and these clubs involved with international schools sometimes organize their championships, the most recent one was at Shrewsbury. They had their own tournament and also challenged other international schools. Regarding their own championships, they usually gather around 250 chess kids.’
Myself ‘Has the government done much to promote chess?’
Poompong ‘The government right, not the TCA (Thai Chess Association)? The government organization that is closest to the chess community is the Sports Authority of Thailand, the S.A.T. The TCA is one of their members and under their direct care. What they do is give a yearly funding to the association, in addition to specific tournaments here and there, so yes you could say the government is helping but our feeling is it is not enough and we are still pretty much on our own.
Myself ‘Are there any obstacles or difficulties facing young chess players today?
Poompong ‘The prime time for young players is usually going to be somewhere from grades 5,6, and 7 until a few years before they enter university because the last few years before they got to university they need to study a lot and read a lot of books to be qualified for university, and some players lose interest in chess along the way. If you are lucky you might see some of these players return once they get to university, some of them just stop some just become inactive. Generally, juniors have two main turning points in their life career, one is when they are about to enter university, and that can be one of the factors that makes these kids stop playing chess, and the second turning point is when they have graduated from the universities and are about to get a job, that can play a big part of things as well it can either make them stop playing chess too or make a come back if their job suits for a chess schedule.’
Myself ‘What does the future look like for chess in Thailand?’
Poompong ‘In order to answer that I need to look back to 10 years ago, and if I were asked back then how chess would look right now, honestly speaking I wouldn’t say I was expecting we would already have an IM, so looking back it seems that chess is doing better than it seemed to be back then, so that’s another clue that chess is growing quite fast and is gaining popularity quite fast as well, and it seem as though its going to keep that way for a while but that is also working world wide in the same way and same pattern but how far and how developed well we will get to that, I’m not quite so sure whether we are going to see a GM or not, I am actually looking forwards to it because right now because Prin (ed. Thai IM) is promising and his dad is very supportive, like he funded Prin to go and play abroad and from what I know he is also going to GM tournaments like those round robin things, so he is pretty close and he was very close to getting his first GM norm in a tournament last month but he was just only half a point away but I think the others will come soon, so I think I’m going to see a GM but that is only because of one particular individual that has a very supportive dad but again this is just one example. I think we are going to see more promising players and one thing I do see for sure is kids are getting better, faster, and younger. The top level of junior 10 years ago was a lot lower than the top juniors nowadays, and I think its going to keep on being like that in the next ten years.’
MJM
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess on April 19, 2024| Leave a Comment »
GM James Plaskett has a DVD out where he celebrates many of his greatest victories. As you may know, James is the only one who emerged from the Bedfordshire league and went on to become British champion, a feat unlikely to ever be equalled. So for those interested in Bedfordshire chess, its a worthwhile acquisition. You shouldn’t expect to find games from the Beds. league contained within, still it is something we should all be proud of. It can be found below, I have placed an order myself.
A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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