Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess on December 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows;
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.A. E. Housman, A Shropshire lad
80’s Luton board 1 player Peter Gayson talks bout pitting his wits against the toughest.
MJM
Posted in Personal Interest & Experience on December 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
In chess you get letters before your name if you do well. CM, FM, IM, GM for example. Even though they are worthless outside their field, they are nonetheless a source of great pride for a great many and rightly so.
If you enter into academia instead, you also get letters but they usually come after your name -or at least they used to-, with certain exceptions such as Dr. Given that they are academic in nature, and embolden numerous transferable skills, which sounds weightier in terms of value? Should we frown upon titled players given that we have more letters than they do or should they frown upon us for having letters after our name and not before? Does anyone really care?
Which seem more cherished and why? What does that tell you? It seems to me that academics care much less about letters after their name as they tend not to be boastful about this whereas titled chess players are rightly proud of their title (even though its worthless outside of chess). Within chess, though, it is clearly advantageous on a number of levels, and generally speaking, holds greater importance than current rating, well for weaker Grandmasters most certianly, less so for the so-called SuperGMs. Whatever the answers may be amongst the very great many who do or do not play our beloved game the answer may be found in Nietzsche’s maxim ‘live by your passions’, which according to him, we all should be doing (note: not ought to be doing as that implies moral obligation which is not the point here).
Advice: should you encounter a titlted player and they point this out with statements such as I am a GM, you can always counter by saying something like, ‘no you are not, you are you, and whenever you bypass the normative aspects of what something is you invaribaly end up saying very little about it’.
As I am sure you know, there is snobbery in chess, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Ultimately though, everyone gets on just gets on fine and many refrain from defining themselves in terms of their titles, which to be fair, are identity-conferring.
All that aside, enjoy your chess. (ah, yeah and this just be me wanting to write again even though I don’t have much to say)
MJM
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on December 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
…eventually I will return home, its only a matter of time…
…when I read Homer’s Odyssey in Summer 1993 I distinctly remember when Odysseus returned home there were many unwelcome suitors at his home, gaff much to his dismay…
…I wonder not if I will feel the same but I am unsure what will come of it all…
…technically speaking I am almost inactive and have been so for some time…
…I have become quite unused to competitive chess, whether I will resume playing is something I am yet to ponder…
…it is undeniably true in all eventuality I will resume some responsibility although the extent of that is likely to remain undetermined until my presence is felt…
…no doubt I will get shanghaied into something or other…
…1997 seems like a long time ago now…
…what’s most important of all is that it is inevitable, its just a matter of time…
…I had thought I would not return to classical chess but more recently realized, it is infrequent tournament chess pushing that agenda and not contempt for classical chess, more so being out of form through lack of practice…
….once a dream that I would return home to run my old club and county is, given the distinct lack of competition, not just a dream and more so a probability than a possibility…
…I cannot say when this will occur as it is contingent on other factors more pressing…
…as Arnie once said ‘I’ll be back’…just not quite sure how I feel about it yet.
…ah well
…time will tell…
…above all else it must remain the case that those of us within Bedfordshire should continue to enjoy league, country, and national chess…given that theres always someone better than yourself, lets see how it pans out…perhaps it’s just a dream…
Mark. J. McCready, Mandalay, Myanmar
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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