Posted in Chess, Humour, My own warped humour, Selected on-line games on July 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
DISCLAIMER: as insomniac author of this post, I take no responsibility for any electronic device, laptop or PC blown up by running the game linked below through an engine you have installed.
DATED:
July 2nd 2025
SIGNED:
Look at this position:
It comes from this game https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1064810&kpage=3
The question is not who stands better but what will happen if I run it through an engine -I’m not doing it, I wouldn’t dare.
Marcus -Colombia
Posted in Reviews on July 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Reading and writing go hand in hand, of this we know: both are art forms, that most don’t. An advantage of academia is that you encounter texts which require being read critically and many times over in parts, you therefore develop a natural inclination to return to texts repeatedly in order to increase your understanding of them. This may assist you in establishing the importance of a text or a passage whereas simply reading for pleasure is less, or much less, likely to do so.
Knowing what to read in chess is becoming increasingly more difficult for numerous reasons, one of which being an ever-increasing selection of texts to choose from, not to mention all that pulished online on various types of websites and social media platforms with or without the help of AI.
I don’t wish to cast judgement on such matters but would rather refer to that which I found highly engaging when it was published some sixteen years back. That was the 25th anniversary of New In Chess. We can, I think, argue that which is published in the press is more likely to be of higher quality than that which is posted on the internet, generally speaking. We may also argue that an anthology carries greater prestige than the latest publication, since the author is more selective over the material chosen, opting for that considered to be best by readers, writers, editors and reviewers. Quality, then, takes precedence over that which is current. Since it is possible to be both biased and right, or so I believe, my views on the publication this post is about, is that finding anything better is both a hard task ahead and a good path to go down. I cannot help but recommend it for it contains much first rate journalism -of that you can be sure.
So there you have it. Reticent I am not; so I recommend what I am presently re-reading I do, and believe myself justified in doing so thoroughly I do too…hardly synchronic, happily arranged, hurriedly off with a bang -a damn good read indeed it be!
Nietzsche -Human, all too human
Marcus, Colombia
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on July 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Courtesy of old friend Damon D’Cruz – a true chess addict in his younger years- in the spring of 95, I was encouraged to participate in the Nottingham Open with him. I have many memories of that tournament but one that stands out as being different was the journey up there.
When we reached Nottingham, there was a pop concert in town which we happened to drive past, and there I saw Tori Amos giving a fan an excited autograph. How often do you see famous pop stars en route to a tournament?
This was the song that propelled her into the big time.
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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McCreadyandChess 