The question ‘Who is the most famous chess player in the world?’ isn’t as easily answered as you might think. The most obvious, or perhaps immediate, reply is to state the world champion as the answer. However, in the modern game this just is not true. We all know that the previous world champion Magnus Carlsen is more well known, well in the western world at least. But as has been stating during commentary in the GRENKE classic that times have changed.
The creator of Gotham Chess, Levy Rosman, has a following on youtube into the millions and of also a very popular streamer. Also the Botez Sisters are more widely known. Jan Gustafsson was quick to point out that Andrea has moved into boxing and has just DJ-ed an event in Berlin thus has branched out. In the modern game, the internet is the main medium for chess and also the greatest source of revenue. So there you have it, its no longer the case that becoming the world champion makes you the most famous chess player in town… .
I am a number -imagine how tough it is for an aficionado of the British TV Show The Prisoner to say something so outrageous? I can barely believe it. Confused?
Arguably the best British 60s TV Show.
Iron Maiden wrote a song about it too, it’s one of their better songs but by no means their best:
Not their only song on The Prisoner.
As you may, or may not, know FIDE went and readjusted the ratings for all those below ELO 2000 earlier this month. Somehow mine went up 87 points even though my last rated games were in April 2016. How did this happen and why? Put very simply: FIDE doesn’t like to play dominoes as much as it does watch chess. But do they like Domino’s Pizza?
I’m quite a bit better than my rating suggests. I very rarely play and am always rusty in tournaments, and that’s all I have.
First and foremost, if you’ve been playing chess for some time then you have may already conceded that, generally speaking, either there is much room for improvement with regards to FIDE, or perhaps they are not to be trusted as their history of getting things wrong is vast and stretches back in time way before we were born, given that context is always essential. This millennium alone, they have introduced new formulas and calculation methods, fought off inflation and deflation too, so one more adjustment is of no real significance if you are able to think outside of the box, as it were.
What do numbers tell you anyway? Why does it matter so much if they go up or down? As a Philosophy undergrad, I took great interest in being informed that mathematics is a meta-language since numbers don’t actually represent anything at all. What does the number 6 represent by itself? Six what? Does your rating represent your ability on any given day? Does it really? Doubtful, and highly so, since it changes all the time, sometimes without you even doing anything. There are so many external factors regarding performance over the board too, such as; currentform, on/off days, mood, sleep deprivation, enthusiasm, age, desire, familiarity of opponent, to name but a few, and like I said FIDE who gave you your rating, does have a propensity to make a mess of things. Don’t believe me? Need an example? You might find this as revealing as it is entertaining. The intro alone refers to a rather scandalous ‘rating grab’ as GM Seirawan put it. Go to 50m 26s if you want to see how ratings can be shaped by politics within chess.
Damning stuff.
So why did my rating suddenly jump without me doing anything then? Long ago, I wouldn’t have been entitled to a rating since I am below ELO 2200. Then, as part of a drive to get more people playing they lowered it to ELO 2000. The policy then became to keep on lowering the bar to the point where players with ratings of ELO 1000 appear. They gain a rating almost instantly, not like before where you had to reach a set number of games before you were given one, one draw alone being sufficient. This has backfired and triggered deflation. This year FIDE decided an ELO rating of 1000 is too low, let’s move it back to 1400. Because they had noticed deflation has set in and everyone is losing points, since now you get someone with a rating of 1100 miraculously appear but his playing strength is more like 1500, partly because they changed the calculation formula some years back also. All this has had a domino effect, and FIDE does not like dominoes it would seem. Now we get 1500 players who are in fact more like 1800 players, I can confirm I have personally experienced this also and wondered how on earth my opponent -rated 1424- could play so well. So ratings are being pulled downwards because when you lose to those with a low rating you lose a lot of points. It’s had a knock on effect and FIDE doesn’t like dominoes Domino’s pizza.
Not FIDE’s favourite game.
Which town in England was the first to have Domino’s Pizza in 1985?
To counter this FIDE decided earlier this month that anyone rated under ELO 2000, such as myself, will get a boost…yes they like to play with figures. It could be said that people get worse at chess as they get older anyway, so most ratings will drop in time. Is this nothing more than some half-arsed PR stunt to make people feel better about their chess? Unlikely if viewed in context, its more likely efficacious than it is meretricious because the latest changes to ratings bear the hallmarks of an effort to cover up their mistakes standardize because they went and changed the formula back to how it was in the mid 2010s, to make them -the ratings- more fair and more representative of playing ability, which is FIDE’s way of admitting they made mistakes.
All this is important because chess players care about their ratings far too much. FIDE likes to objectify things and so we have ratings and titles. However, even titles are not as clear cut as people like to think and subject to all sorts of myth making. Since I am English, I grew up being told the first ever English Grandmaster was Tony Miles but this simply isn’t true. It was the problemist/composer Commins Mansfield who was first awarded the title in 721. So you are a Grand master are you? Okay, well perhaps you’d like to tell us what type of Grandmaster? Problemist? Correspondence? Classical chess? 80’s rap artist?
Grandmaster Flash and the furious five – pretty decent act.
Socrates was once told by the oracle of Delphi ‘know thyself’. Was he ever reliant on a number or title ever being given to him do you think? Unfortunately chess players do have a tendency to define themselves by their rating or title, hence the reason why they are significant even though they are epiphenomenal. If to be trusted, they can be seen as a good indicator of strength yes but quintessentially epiphenomenal to what lies within…well that’s my take on it anyway.
What am I now I wonder?
Here’s a puzzle I struggled with, what’s my level then? White to play and win in 4.
‘I’m not a number, I’m a man’. Or so says Homer Simpson in his parody of The Prisoner and its big balloons! The episode in the thumbnail is Many Happy Returns.
Patrick McGoohan, star of The Prisoner, was a chess lover and one of the episodes is about chess, it is called ‘Checkmate’.
This is a very average episode.
To conclude, I am a number (technically two numbers as I have an ECF and a FIDE rating and they are different) but not a free man as I am a father and my daughter comes first…ah well, could be worse. Not sure I’ll make a tv series out of it… .
Alas! Once again stumped I be by a puzzle exemplifying my very own lack of tactical ability -and now I’m apoplectic! What am I to do I ask myself? Just what am I to do? Are ye able to find thy answer? Me nearly, but when several good moves are there, I just cannae find that killer blow.
My biggest weakness as a chess player is a lack of tactical nous. Here’s an example. I couldn’t do this puzzle, there are many good moves for white but I couldn’t find the killer blow, can you?
Sven Magnus Øen Carlsen, more commonly known is Magnus Carlsen, and sometimes mistakenly thought of as the current world champion, plays with more daring in the opening than anyone else. In the past I have seen him win with Alekhine’s Defence and play 1.f4 against both GM Kramnik and GM Michael Adams -beating them both with it! Look at this from two days ago at the European Club Championships, Round 3.
His opponent is no pushover, so how can he justify this? I think his rationale is something like ‘I don’t need to gain an advantage in the opening, I can outplay you in the middle game or the endgame.’ Or perhaps it was ‘I am rated over 300 points above you, I can play whatever I like.’
Bedford’s Neil Hickmann -who when we last met over the board was quick to point out that he always lost when we played was quickly reminded that in the opening game of the 93/94 season he did actually defeat me with the From gambit -has brought out a publication entitled ‘Memorable games of British Chess’, reviewed here:
As I read, I stumbled across the following passage.
I am very happy to announce that someday very soon, I shall veer away from the content I have posted more recently -often to shock and challenge the conservatism rampant in chess – and focus more on research, which I like doing.
Mark. J. McCready, 03:01 am, Friday September 22nd 2023
Al-Fursan (Fursan means knight in English), Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
…on what this site initially became…on what this site is now becoming…on what this site cannot become…
On what this site initially became…
…once upon a time, the chess-related musings of an adrift academic were bound playfully and electronically in this online journal of sorts. They grew and grew as the decade did too. I kept on because I love to write whether I had much to say or not; therefore, being read by others was usually of little or no importance, comparatively speaking. Content was based on personal thoughts and experience on various topics with no intended audience borne in mind. With topics broadening, my own take on things always shaped the narrative I constructed: I often thought I was insightful but never that I was right. Sometimes imagination gave rise to originality: and of that I have always remained proud. I often introduced humour, believing that I am funnier than I really am. Sometimes, I found my own style antithetical to the conservatism I believe chess is plagued by -oftentimes that has put a gracious smile on my face… .
On what this site is now becoming…
…this site is now becoming a collaboration of chess in Bedfordshire: much more so of the past than the present -that has become the dominant trend. I document the history of chess in Bedfordshire as much as I can, and as time has passed I have become more thorough and resourceful. However, I am not a trained historian as my background lies principally in philosophy but yes it is true I did study some modules on history as both an undergraduate and a post-graduate too; furthermore, I have trained myself up, particularly in terms of postmodern history. Since 2015, I have only read history and historiography as well as those philosophers who have been so influential on postmodern history, such as Nietzsche (whom I once wrote a 19,000 word dissertation on, entitled: Can the Will to Power be Found in The Birth of Tragedy?), also Richard Rorty and Foucault and I suppose certain structualists such as Claude Levi-Strauss too. Regarding postmodernism, mostly I keep to Hayden White, Keith Jenkins and Alan Muslow.
Some friends and former playing partners back home describe me as the ‘go to guy’ for the history of chess in Bedfordshire. This compliment says more about the lack of interest in the subject than my own endeavour. As mentioned, I am too adrift from academia to feel chuffed by it. Rather, I tend to lament that my historical research, like my chess, just isn’t what it should be. Even though I may well have a broad understanding of Bedfordshire chess history courtesy of the volume of research put into it, all of which began in 2014, this is not something I am particularly proud of. Nonetheless, out of courtesy compliments are graciously received. If the truth be told, I just see it as my job and only that – after all someone’s got to do it and no one else is that interested!
Amongst the many others, I have created three categories: ‘Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘History of Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘Luton Chess Club’. This website is slowly moving towards a consolidation of those (all of which can be found in one of the toolbars to the right).
On what this site cannot become…
…I like to be both creative and amusing when I can be, factor in that playfulness has been an ever-present factor, the content of this site should be thought of as multifarious. It could be said I continue to enjoy undermining the conservatism I believe chess is underpinned by even after all these years, and often try to use humour to do it still, believing I have got better at it. Consequently, despite the general direction its going in, this site cannot only be about Chess in Bedfordshire and nor will it be. It may become noted for that yes -in fact that’s been the case for years already even by established historians, archivists, and whoever else. External factors aside, this site is titled McCreadyandChess. I cannot, nor will I not, remove my own personal thoughts and experiences of chess from the posts of this site -especially if I think they are funny or original for they constitute my writing at its very, very best. In addition, the number of categories alone tells you that breadth of content is important to me. I am proud of my site, it is identity conferring and that is how it shall stay -end of story. All you really have are: ‘Some thoughts on the beautiful game’, which, incidentally, just happen to be my very own; nothing more, nothing less, take of it whatever you please… .
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.
Gallery
I’m either 10 or 11 here
1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
At the Thai Junior chess championships. My daughter of course.
Pattaya 2011
2011
Thai Junior Championships
2008
2011
Around 2011
2011
Pattaya 2009
2011
Kuwait 2008
2012
2012
2011 BKK Chess club
2011
2011 Thai Open
2011 Thai Open
2013 approx
Around 2014
2010
2012
Around 2011
2011
2011
2013
Around 2011
Around 2011
2020
2011
2008
2011
2013 or thereabouts
2010
2017
2014?
2010
2024
2024
2024
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