Posted in Chess on August 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »
In England, the government has agreed to invest £500,000 in promoting chess for children. What this is likely to achieve I don’t know. Most likely not very much as throwing money at things doesn’t usually accomplish anything. Promoting chess-playing members of society who could work as a source of inspiration appears to be off the agenda.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/rishi-sunak-chess-revival_uk_64ca7387e4b044bf98f8f0c9
Mark. J. McCready, 11.52 am August 3rd,
Nonington, Kent, England.
Posted in Chess on June 29, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Chess on June 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Chess on June 28, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Hans Moke Niemann, and his $100,000,000 lawsuit against Magnus Carlsen and a fair few others, has been thrown out of court.
https://www.wsj.com/sports/chess-cheating-scandal-hans-niemann-magnus-carlsen-7fcbdb56
Posted in Chess on June 27, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Chess, On-line journal on June 26, 2023| Leave a Comment »
‘Those that can do, those that can’t teach.’ -Proverb
Those who are titled, and classified as professional, interact with chess across a variety of mediums, the most prominent being electronic in today’s world. They can pick and chose aware that the future is digital.
Income from what they do may come from entering tournaments, classes/teaching/coaching, writing, online chess courses, commentary, sponsorship, online streaming, I could go on. I would imagine its a good life if Nietzsche is correct insomuch as we should ‘live by our passions’.
You may not have a title, you may only be an amateur, nonetheless you are who you are. And don’t you love yourself? If not then you should because if you can’t then who can? Okay, so personal profit is not in play with regards to chess. So what is then? Personal pleasure or identity-conferring experience or social interlinkage or improvement or lack of a better idea?
Do you actually know why you play chess and what you get out of it? Is it important? Isn’t it important to know who we are and what we do? After all, that is how we define ourselves right? But where does all this lead? Put simply, knowledge is power as Francis Bacon once said. To get more out of what you do, you should know what you get out of it in the first place right?
Improvement or Contentment -the big question or is it?
The biggest of all questions should be what do you play chess for? Improvement, contentment or both (assuming that’s a false antithesis in play there). Improvement? Okay, let’s scrap that you can work it out yourself! May I suggest you seek out the right literature as a starting point then find your own way in? For the time being, let’s focus on contentment. Actually scrap that too -it’s too broad. Instead allow me to personalise matters then you decide to take whatever you want or so wish.
Consciousness -my only friend!
Loss of contentment = dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction = enquiry into what’s changed. I noticed that I was not playing to the best of my ability and that my play was too sloppy. I wasn’t thinking about my opponents moves enough or establishing threats in the position when it was my turn to move. Why? Online chess was why. I played too much and often at inopportune moments. This ushered in bad habits. Easily distracted, my thoughts wandered during my games all too easily. This ran through my mind last week during a game:
Conversation in a clinic
” ‘as ee got da krab?” (krab is a play on words with crabs. Crabs is English slang for pubic lice!?!)
” ee got da krab”
” ya see da smoke?” (da smoke means smoke produced when someone itches their pubes with such great intensity, smoke is produced)
“I saw da smoke”
It all got too casual. Things had to change. And change they would.
‘Of flesh and blood I’m made’
‘I’m only human, of flesh and blood I’m made. Human, born to make mistakes’. And so too my opponents from…well from now on from. Online chess was banished with thunder and lightening to keep it real, to make it fresh again. Online viewing banned too! OTB chess and OTB chess only now. Flesh and blood across the table was the order of the day. Once conscious of what was wrong, fix it so did I. Job done.
Mark. J. McCready, 9.40pm, Monday June 26th 2023.
My dark room, my home town.
Posted in Chess on June 18, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Oh so very me, oh so flawed, oh so relentless, oh so victorious.
https://lichess.org/BkoP4flQkdkS
MJM
Posted in Chess on May 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Thousands upon thousands of on line games blitzed out over the last few years really have taken their toll. And no this is not the first time I have posted this. Factor in no competitive chess for over six years too and what remains is a detritus. For he who cannot step up to the mark when required to has much to answer for.
Deviation from, or break with, tradition where a whopping 30 mins on the clock to think in has left me erm…well, rather red-faced. I’m operating at about 50%, the glass is half-empty you could say. You could also say it’s half-full. It matters not.
Nothing left to be said than the sober reflection ‘Why wouldn’t it be that way?’ Online blitz is rather unserious but as soon as you opt for more time up your game you cannot…well I couldn’t.
I did, however, find an effective way to distract opponents. In the chat I said to many ‘Hey! you see that hand you’re holding your mouse with, you want that hand broken!’ I got two instant resignations out of that.
Really, there is nothing left to be said except it wasn’t worth all the effort. All I learnt was my game is not tickety boo! I am, rather ungraciously, bowing out and will instead watch youtube videos of flying wheels, rabid cats, and drunken boxing…
Comment from opponent: Don’t believe him. I played him and got thrashed. He’s an amazing player. The best I’ve seen.
Comment from opponent: I got massacred by this bastard, he’s fucking well good. You’ve got no chance.
Comment from opponent: He threatened to break my hand. I went and told my step-father and he smacked me in the mouth and kicked me in the bollocks for lying to him BUT I SWEAR he threatened to break my hand during the game, he put it in the chat.
Comment from opponent: He bastardo Inglazi. He speak ‘I-a-break-a-da-hand. He good play da chess. He son of da gun.
Comment from opponent: I got fuckin’ leathered by this cunt and he threatened to break my hand during the game. He’s a dangerous bastard, I’d steer clear of him if I were you.
Note to self: topic for next post –how to break both your opponents hands during a game of chess.
Mark. J. McCready, 03.50 Saturday, May 13th 2023
A dark room somewhere out there, anywhere. You don’t ask me where unless you want that hand broken! You got that?
Posted in Chess on May 4, 2023| Leave a Comment »
If it were the case that at your club you have FIDE rated tournaments how up to date with FIDE’s latest updates on their set of laws are they, and is this significant?
Here at Bangkok chess club, we don’t adhere to the latest rules & laws. Technically this invalidated the tournament and results but no one blinks an eye, and the organizer prefers the old rules, as they are ‘less annoying’as he put it. How untypical this is I cannot be sure, nor do I know whether anyone really pays attention or is that bothered. Bangkok chess club is by its very nature a friendly club, no one really takes their chess seriously.
Perhaps at clubs habited by professional players it has greater significance, although most likely the consensus amongst amateurs is that the latest rules are rather complicated. Some of the changes are significant, the most obvious being that you can now make two illegal moves instead of one. Why they implemented that change I do not know but it does require greater assistance from arbiters, and is less workable than it may appear.
Why do I draw attention to such matters? Well if the organizer at your club is going to bend the rules or disregard those most recent, you do need to know. It’s a critical error to assume that the laws of FIDE are applied by everyone, and its also a critical error to assume everyone is up to date.
I am but then I have to be. I am often described as the most handsome chess player in town and tend to receive more attention than most. I need to look good and so keeping up to date helps. There isn’t a chess player in my home town more handsome than me, and my county too. And as we all know, some of the greatest chat up lines are based of FIDE laws? I mean what could better than ‘Hey, what’s article 4.3 in FIDE’s handbook? when you are trying to woo the latest female at the club.
They work outside the chess club too! The next time you see a lady you like, casually walk up to her, say hi and ask something like ‘You don’t happen to know what article 7.2 in FIDE’s latest handbook is do you by chance?’ You’ll be dating in no time! Given how handsome I am, I don’t usually need to make the effort, whenever there’s a new woman, tranny, or gay bloke at the club, they usually come to me.
Well anyway it’s not so bad being a handsome chess player just makes you a bit lazy. For those less handsome, the need to impress isn’t so great, so if you aren’t up to date, it’s quite unlikely that anyone will care, and in case you’ve forgotten FIDE is far from the professional organization it presents itself as, and understanding the changes they make can be challenging.
One last thing, I may be wrong regarding chat up lines about FIDE laws working outside the chess club but they are damn site better than what they replaced which was usually cantered around whether the lady I was wooing had headlice, with requests for proof that she definitely doesn’t have them. For some reason, whenever I pulled out a piece of paper and a comb, it always sank like a lead balloon!
I’d best go, I must return to the bathroom as always want to be trim and lean, that’s all for now… .
Mark. J. McCready, 11.25pm Thursday 4th of May
A place where I lie wounded, Bangkok
Posted in Chess on May 1, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The world championship is over, Magnus has been dethroned. Liren has emerged victorious and here is the press conference after the match has ended. If you’ve been a FIDE member for some time, or an active chess player over the years, or perhaps are a journalist even, then you will know that FIDE is far from the professional organization it tries to present itself as. The number of reasons are so great, I simply cannot go into them here or I will be up all night long! Regarding the press conference linked below, you ought to know that FIDE no longer requests that the questions are vetted beforehand. Questions have been raised over this but they have been left unanswered. If you go to the 11.54 minute mark you will hear Ding Liren being asked a question by Maria from chess.com: it is the question he is currently being quoted on answering the most across the various social media platforms most commonly used. The question pertains to the meaning of life itself, making it philosophical in nature. Firstly, you could question that the point in asking a chess player what the meaning of life is per se extremely dubious, but secondly, Liren’s answer isn’t articulate; partly because English isn’t his first language and partly because Philosophy isn’t his background. However, it is mine and his answer constitutes an alignment with Nietzsche’s assertion that you should live by your passions. Liren makes it clear chess has always remained central in his life and when time goes by and he is not playing in tournaments, he doesn’t feel ‘so happy’, as he put it. I’ve linked the interview below, but as you might expect, it’s a bit of a strain because the questions haven’t been vetted there’s clearly much room for improvement with some questions being rather poor indeed and others so vague the players struggle to answer them. ‘How’s the organizing things here for you?‘ Would you like to answer that? Anyway, here it is:
| M | T | W | T | F | S | S |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ||||||
| 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | |
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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