You can find the winner of the ECF Chess website of the year here. http://www.chessdevon.co.uk/. It’s a nice site with a bit of everything, though I personally thought its presentation could be improved. Anyway, if you are involved in club or county chess and are a webmaster too, you might take something from the site.
Archive for the ‘Life beyond the chess board’ Category
Is this how it’s done?
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on October 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Afterthoughts…
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged Bangkok Open on October 25, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Those who played in the Bangkok Open this year can find the pdf for the tournament magazine here http://bangkokchess.com/downloads/BCCOpen2014-Journal-web.pdf. Peter has done a good job of putting it together. There are some nice interviews, and the pictures reveal just how international the tournament is. I am unable to photograph it anymore and won’t be able to participate for a few years at least, however, some photos are still in evidence, the cover was one of mine I believe. It is a tournament I will miss very much.
The Morals of Chess
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged benjamin franklin the morals of chess on October 20, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Whilst reading the truly wonderful ‘Chess: the history of a game’, by Richard Eales, I discovered that Benjamin Franklin once wrote an essay on ‘The Morals of Chess’. His comments show that he understood our beautiful game very well. The piece certainly reveals it age, his comments regarding ‘the rules of play’ made me chuckle. I would like to add that I am in concordance with the view that singing at the board whilst your opponent is thinking is rather ungentlemanly. After all, the last thing you want whilst deep in concentration is for renditions of the latest death metal number to waft across the board… .
You can find it in the Appendix on pg. 6.
http://www.benfranklin300.org/_etc_pdf/Chess_John_McCrary.pdf
Founding fathers of the USA or death metal?
A founding father of the USA or death metal?
Two wins & A draw
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on October 19, 2014| Leave a Comment »
The positions below are from Hodgson’s ‘The Chess Travellers Quiz book’
1) Wahls – Bjarnason Malo 1986, white to play and win.
2) Gogolov – Varshavsky, Luksena 1967, black to play and draw.
3) Pagilla – Carbone, Argentina 1976, white to play and win.
Answers to come soon.
Locating your nearest club.
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged nearest chess club england on October 9, 2014| Leave a Comment »
If you are in England and want to find the club nearest to you, click on the following link
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zWKYm66MxysA.kC97MoNcSLBk
Seen but not heard
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged kasparov karpov montage on October 6, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Just when you finally get a day off during the week, the latest international tournament to roll into town just had to have a free day too. So what better way could there be to spend a day than lounging around watching archive footage of ex-world champions whilst the little one runs amok with her new shopping trolley, the last of nanny’s birthday presents! Whilst flicking through a few playlists, I came across a montage showing the rivalry between Kasparov and Karpov. It’s well edited, there’s a lot of great footage, and the music is quite listenable too. A nice way to spend 15 minutes for sure.
Underwater Chess
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged underwater chess on October 5, 2014| Leave a Comment »
For the lads the tropics is a great place to laze around on the beach whilst trying to pull scantily-clad local girls but for us real men its an ideal place to turn our backs on society and play some underwater chess instead. In the linked video, two machismo IM’s turn up, swap their thick goggles for scuba masks and go to war in the aqua waters of Curacao, much to the delight of some bemused tourists.
The footage, however, contains scenes which will cause uproar amongst hardcore chess purists. There’s so many fish in the water that it’s hard to follow the action, and a stingray went unpunished by the arbiter for swimming over the board whilst the players were deep in concentration. Obviously, it should have received a verbal warning at least. It’s hardly surprising that no one has played underwater since the video was made in 2008 given the etiquette of the marine life in it and the double-standards employed by the officials. Yet again, its one rule for marooned International Masters and another for the occasional passing stingray….when is FIDE going to get its act together?
NB Chess fans suffering with high-blood pressure should seek medical advice from a doctor before clicking on the link below. Discretionary viewing advised.
May the force be with you.
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged lucas chess on September 29, 2014| 2 Comments »
If you were thinking of splashing out on some snazzy new software like Komodo 8 then think again. You can join the dark – or light- side with Lucas chess instead. It’s free, open source and has a great GUI. It’s user friendly and there’s lots of options. It’s the sort of thing that makes you wonder why people pay for software. I very much doubt whether I will purchase Fritz again.
http://www-lucaschess.rhcloud.com/index#
MemoryChess
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, tagged MemoryChess on June 13, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Just when you’re sure that facebook is nothing more than an insidious American invention not worth signing up for, along comes some guy and constructs the largest, most impressive image bank of chess on the planet with something for everyone and much, much more, and then places the whole lot on it -typical!
Anyway, its called MemoryChess and is easily found, now existing as a community of around 7000 to date. There exists thousands of images that you won’t find elsewhere, all neatly placed into albums of various themes. There is nothing on the net that can compare, I assure you.
From the album Love Chess@MemoryChess
I Love Chess!
Posted in Life beyond the chess board on June 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »
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A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
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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
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- I’m either 10 or 11 here
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- 1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
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- At the Thai Junior chess championships. My daughter of course.
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- Pattaya 2011
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- 2011
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- Thai Junior Championships
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- 2008
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- 2011
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- Around 2011
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- 2011
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- Pattaya 2009
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- 2011
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- Kuwait 2008
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- 2012
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- 2012
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- 2011 BKK Chess club
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- 2011
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- 2011 Thai Open
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- 2011 Thai Open
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- 2013 approx
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- Around 2014
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- 2010
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- 2012
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- Around 2011
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- 2011
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- 2011
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- 2013
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- Around 2011
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- Around 2011
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- 2020
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- 2011
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- 2008
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- 2011
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- 2013 or thereabouts
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- 2010
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- 2017
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- 2014?
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- 2010
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- 2024
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