Posted in Life beyond the chess board on February 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Take the white pieces! Place your bishops on e2 and d2?? Go chasing after the a-pawn (still on a7) with your queen?!? And you pay the price because checkmate ends the game!
Not a particularly satisfying victory, I shall have to change engines soon. I’m thinking of Monarch 1.7 (ELO2100). Definitely still beatable. Coming soon methinks.
MJM
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on January 14, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I’m not having the best of winters, I’m really not. But what else can I say except do take care if you go climbing ladders, some are much easier to fall off than others!
I had a three week holiday where I did indeed want to visit the chess club but due to unforseen circumstances, this was not possible.
Finally, I have to concede it’s no longer worth going as it’s too difficult to work out how I can get there, courtesy of my limited mobility. Walking is still a problem, and I don’t want to be getting up out of and sitting down on different chairs all night long. It’s a bit ambitious to think that’s achievable to say the least.
So no chess club again it is, and that’s that.
MJM
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged ali-hazelwood, book-review, chess, games, news on December 23, 2024| Leave a Comment »
With a 3-week christmas break from work, I flew into Bangkok as might be expected. I had hoped to visit the chess club the week I arrived and made it a priority but silly me fell asleep in the day it is open (Friday) and missed it, that being last week. I won’t let that happen this week and will bring my daughter and her mother with me. I also hope to meet up with my old friend Aek, who is much better than me and an old friend I haven’t seen in a while.
It may well be the case that the numbers will be low that evening, as a very great many leave Bangkok for the new year, and most likely I will either play little or no chess but this is immaterial. It remains the case that the sense of occasion is most important of all from visits to the chess club. By this I mean meeting up iwth old friends, enjoying the atmosphere, making new friends and so on as this helps me feel less guilty about being rubbish at chess. Since my daughter and her mother have both started helping out at chess tournaments regularly this year, I have noticed it just feels right to see them connected to our beautiful game. And sometimes we need to be reminded of what’s important, particularly if your lifestyle is as transient as mine unfortunately is. It is my hope that chess remains a part of my daughters life always, and so it makes me satisified to be in a chess environment with her whether she plays or not. Same also holds for myself even though I do seem to have chess on the brain these days. This, however, has come about because I enjoy writing about chess more than playing it and not because I am rubbish and ashamed of myself. To add further you could say I’m not as young as I was and the passion to play isn’t quite there…well that’s me being courteous. They only play blitz at Bangkok chess club, which is not so appealing shall we say.
So my hope is that I will visit Bangkok chess club which will be my only opportunity before I return to work and being there will help bring home what things are important. Simple pleasures serving as simple reminders. Hopefully Grace will enjoy it and be more open to going there in the future as well as scontinuing to help out at chess events with her mum. This is a definitive improvement on me turning up, going there on my tod, getting drunk and making silly videos, which I am happy to tell you are not going to continue, courtesy of the opportunities to go to the club becoming less and myself less inclined to act like a tit when there.
You may be curious as to what this all means? Yes it is true that despite my efforts when my daughter was younger, she has never taken to chess as I hoped she would. This can only be interpreted as a failure on my part. My efforts were unsustained and proved that not only am I a lazy sod but also a lazy git. and loving parents do not force their children to do things. Overall, she’s kept a only a slight interest in chess and rarely plays. So to see her showing more interest and being acquainted with the very thing that brought about her very own existence about does, to some degree, help appease my own failings…ah well, no one is perfect, at least I tried.
So as 2024 comes to a close I am happy to say that I am able to go to the chess club and do what feels right. That is a noteable improvement on the months preceeding where togetherness was absent and ill health accompanying my visitations. Just so I could go somewhere and converse with members I don’t really know just because they like the same thing I do, Self-assured I state, instead I am able to arrive at the club and benefit from an identity conferring experience. For I know what feels right and hope springs eternal. Maybe one day it will become the norm.
I hope that in reading this post it encourages or inspires you to question why you go to your chess club. By this I mean asking yourself what you get out of it and how you can get more out of your investested time and intentionality. You may find it develops more meaning and importance should you do so, especially if times have been hard most recently. You may, if you are fortunate find that contentment is more important than improvment and gain more from your time at your club as a result, Just a thought from someone left with an eternally enquiring mind, having studied Philosophy for 4 years after reading it solidly for 3 years.
Mark.J.McCready
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on December 13, 2024| Leave a Comment »
If there is one thing chess teaches us that is of greater value than all else, surely, it must be the importance of learning from your mistakes.
If we apply to life what we take from chess, imho in the paragraph above therein lies the answer.
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
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on November 28, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Former county team mate Kevin Williamson handed this to me, a draw from the clutches of those scowling winds of Winter, way back in 1992. I can see why I gave up chess 5 years later. Puny little attack that was going nowhere in an opening I was uncritical of. Thankfully I have no recollection of this particular game, but can account for why I played that way at that particular stage of my life… .
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on September 30, 2024| Leave a Comment »
“The experience of art is exemplary in its provision of truths that are inaccessible by scientific methods, and this experience is projected to the whole domain of human sciences.” Gadamer
As an undergraduate in Philosophy, I once took part in the Erasmus programme, where students spent a semester at a designated university of their choosing somewhere in Western Europe -and got paid to do it also! I chose Turku University, Finland in the rainy Autumn of 96.
There, I took book exams (one of which was on Plato’s Republic), lectures and seminars too, mostly on the Philosophy of Science, principally focusing on the text below.
It was a very good read with an interesting title that helped no end that dull grey morning I had to give a presentation on logical posivitism to my class, as my friend Markko watched on with interest. Progress and its problems. Hmm…
It could be argued the modern chess world has much progress and it, too, is not without its problems. For computerization, and the reliance on it, has created a culture of suspicion which reaches beyond you not being allowed to use electronic devices during your game. In fact anything that allows you to store information is expressly forbidden nowadays. This includes objects that were never seen as a problem for decades.
You aren’t allowed to write your move down before you play it now as this can be interpreted as taking notes. Also, you are not allowed to use a scorebook anymore as they may contain notes from previous games which may assist you.
So no more scorebooks then. I had many from the early 1990s as I always used them and never dreamed of using them to look at pre-existing games during play. No one ever did but in the current climate, this is not acceptable. Scorebooks just aren’t allowed anymore. End of story. Don’t ever mention that hardly anyone cheats ever, or anything like that. It won’t do you any good. Supposedly borne in mind here is the greater good and it is that what counts…or so I’ve been told.
I used to enjoy studying the hermeneutics of suspicion immensely as I was something of a Nietzschean back in the day. But I must say it is somewhat saddening that so much suspicion exists in chess today. Quite unnecessary if you ask me. But given that chess doesn’t exactly pass as an academic discipline and languishes in and amongst the netherworlds of intellectual pursuits instead.
MJM
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on July 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Brief book recommendation here (allegedly). Only on chapter II but I am well-read enough to spot a read worth its price.
Yes it’s rather outdated. Yes descriptive notation is used. Yes the author ran a column in The New Statesmen for decades. And yes when I created a thread about him, noted authors were generally complimentary towards him.
But as you may know. Not all books on chess are written well and as is true in all fields some are better than others and some are much better than others. The authors style is indeed impressive. Here he makes a rather basic point but expresses it rather eloquently:
‘It is nice enough to enjoy other people’s brilliances, but nicer still to produce one’s own. To derive some aesthetic pleasure from the flights of fancy conjured up on the sixty-four squares is delightful enough when the conjurer is someone else, but the pleasure can be much enhanced by the thrill of creation and the pride of achievement.’
In the following passage the author Heinrich Fraenkel gives you an idea of his playing ability and character :
‘Regarding the topic of blunders the topic is handled quite delicately and written for a broad audience:
‘What about our own? Most of us, surely, have no shortage of them and some (some?) of us may have more than they care to remember. They are wrong for there is nothing like of the past to serve as a useful lesson for the future (ed: most, if not all SGMs will cite that as an integral part of the leasing process. A lesson to never blunder again. That could hardly be expected (please take note this was written before faster time controls were introduced). More likely, it will be a lesson to accept our every future blunder with ever more equanimity.
The only sad point I feel worth drawing attention to is on page 53 where he commits the cardinal sin in the chess literature genre, that being defining chess players as only that. He portrays Botvinnik as the world champion only, rather than a human being and a Soviet citizen. ‘Botvinnik has the rare distinction of having gained and lost and regained such paradise ‘the glory of supreme achievement’ as he put it. Although undeniably true, the tragedy is when you bypass the normative aspects of what something is, you invariably say very little about it. Botvinnik took time out to do a Ph.D, he became an engineer and was well promoted. He was a father too! It was a little saddening to find another characterisation where only their chess was of importance, but then it is replete within chess literature as a genre and has always been. It’s a little saddening when the author clearly has strong writing skills that they don’t write as broadly as they could…but the good news is a more wholesome account of Symslov appears in the following chapter, which we are entitled to dub a reprieve.
August 15th update
So I read the book. The latter sections contain content I found astonishing. I don’t ever recall seeing someone who is not a native speaker of English write so well with it, I really don’t. Great writer, of that there is no doubt. His stature in his day I am less sure of. His account of Soviet Chess I shall reproduce on this site at a later date.
Well worth a read if you can lay your hands on it.
Mark. J. McCready
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on March 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
To prepare for a visit to Bangkok Chess Club and a FIDE rated Rapid tournament next weekend, and then a 9-round classical chess tournament the week after in the countryside, I have begun to ready myself…to prepare.
I’ve tidied up my opening repertoire already and begun reading Rowson once more. I’ve also noted down what my weaknesses are and how to work on them. I’ve begun playing 10 minute games as well, to implement what I have learnt from Rowson and what I have taught myself. You can find selected games below, which I hope illustrate the size of the task ahead and help raise my awareness of what needs to be done.
Game 1
Game 2
MJM
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on March 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I decided to look at an early career victory by GM Plaskett over GM Speelman. And although the position below looks rather promising, I don’t see how Stockfish evaluates it so. I wouldn’t even call it winning…just promising.
All info required is in the image below.
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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