Posted in My Own Games on March 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »
It is Lucas Chess that I use and in the previous post I showed how the engine rated 2200 was rather easily beaten, so I then decided to play one rated 2400 but will not be posting a video of that. It was well dodgy and left its queen en prise, so I won again. A pyrrhic victory.
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on March 18, 2026| Leave a Comment »
When we don’t expect the unexpected what then? I made a video of me beating Lucas Chess 2200 engine. I had been playing well earlier in the day and so upped the anti. I didn’t think I could be confident enough to do such a thing but it was well founded as I won convincingly, much to my disbelief. I didn’t have to think that hard either but I did stay very focused! The only conclusion I can draw from this is that I must be better than I thought! I suspect it will be some time before the disbelief passes. Comments on the game are very welcome.
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on March 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Posted in My Own Games on March 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
NB If you liked the game you are welcome to comment that I am a very good and handsome chess player, as that’s what I am most used to hearing and naturally warm towards. 🙂
Old-timer Marcus, considered one of the funniest woodpushers in chess, signing off here…
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on March 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
NB: Comments commending me for my play may leave me quite sure the poster was drunk when posting. And like I said, I am still sore from getting beaten up after I posted it. 🙂
Note to self: don’t run this game through the engines for fuck’s sake in case it’s shit.
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on March 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Posted in My Own Games on March 16, 2026| Leave a Comment »
‘Live by your passions’, Nietzsche said so many times throughout his life. But how do we do that when we play chess? When I read Kasparov’s ‘How Chess Imitates Life’, I took note of his assertation that ‘Evaluation triumps over calculation’ and believed in it. Over time my play became more impulsive and calculation began to play second-fiddle. Impulses and instincts took over eventually, which works well enough in blitz and quickplay but with regards to classical chess, I am less sure. Evaluation is based on a feel for a position rather than congnition. Consciousness, then, more or less gets the boot and feeling and passions, such as which looks good and doesn’t need much thinking about, or moves I just want to play because I like them, or somehow it feels right get the nod. I can only really say this because I don’t play classical chess anymore and I only play for pleasure and not improvement, the underlying motive being bad conscience.
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on March 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Posted in My Own Games, Personal Interest & Experience on August 20, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I hold it true, whate’er I befall;
I feel it when, I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Tennyson, In Memorium 27
Old Heraclitus once said ‘You can never step into the same river twice for it’s not the same river and it’s not the same man’. When I bought and read IM Littlewood’s publication ‘Chess Tactics’, I did so voraciously at school; therefore, I was a mere teen and not a man. That book was one of many my small school bag was stuffed with, often read in T. D. (Technical Drawing), on the bus too, and wherever else whilst uniformed. How would it read upon rediscovery some 37 years on?
The cover was green, now it’s orange. The song does not remain the same. It’s a book for beginners and I don’t recall any of the puzzles, just that I found it challenging… .
Why does the song not remain the same? The reasons are multifarious, primarily however, reading it is of no benefit anymore thus of no interest: it retains a certain sentimental value, perhaps, but no more really… except that it may be helpful if teaching chess… .
Type O’ Negative have a song called ‘Everything Dies’. In death I will now become known as one who once read Littlewood’s ‘Chess Tactics’…what else have I got to hope for?
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should’st fail from thy desire,
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
‘What is it makes me beat so low?’
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Tennyson, In Memorium 3
M J M
Posted in My Own Games on July 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
This is rather unimpressive and untypical too because of white’s early d5 push and several sub-optimal moves played by white. But I do like that I did play in the spirit of the Dutch and siught counterplay to grab the draw.
Mark. J. McCready
Chapinero, Bogota, Colombia
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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