As we know, competitive chess involves travel. From the images below can you guess which publication has been plundered?
Not know the answer then scroll down.
Archive for the ‘Personal Interest & Experience’ Category
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Posted in Personal Interest & Experience on December 19, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Bedfordshire’s Number 1, so why try harder?
Posted in On-line journal, Personal Interest & Experience on December 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
The more you live the more you…?
Posted in Chess, My own endeavours, On-line journal, Personal Interest & Experience, Selected on-line games, Tournament Chess on November 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »
For the first time last night I represented England. A match against Finland was held. Of the 81 participants, around 30 were titled, of course there were Grandmasters playing. The time frame was 1h 20m, games were set at 3m, 2s increment. I won almost every game I played, held firm in joint 11th for the most part then slipped up in my final game to someone rated 2227. I finished 16th out of 81 even though those finishing both above and below me were on average 300-500 points above me. I punched well above my weight and feel proud of myself for stepping up to the mark against very strong opposition. England gave Finland a sound beating and I did my country proud by sticking in earbuds and bopping away with my favourite 80’s band (A Flock of Seagulls) as I blitzed my way up the leaderboard. All music video images in the screenshots below are of A Flock of Seagulls, the first one being from the song ‘The More you Live The More you Love’. I don’t know about you but the more I live the more I love playing chess.
The match was commentated upon. Rather amusingly it begins with comments of mine where I boast about drinking beer when I studied The Philosophy of Science in Finland as an undergrad back in Autumn 96; when I once beat a Finnish FM with 1.f4 down the pub named The Three Beers in Turun Yliopisto.
There’s two videos from me and now two videos I will bop away to quite happily if given the chance.
Olcmarcus
38351 + 1
Posted in My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on May 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Phew! so that’s the most engaging writing project of my entire life done, all that remains is what to do with all 38351 words of it. It’s most likely publishable but that’s not something I consider to be an achievement, so I will have to ponder further over that. Alternatively I may just include excerpts from that 1 weight lifted off my shoulders.
I’m sad to say my focus therefore ability went through the roof, which makes it much harder to read and watch anything as I can dismantle it in an instance, and usually offer improvements without much, if any, thought. Even the book that inspired me to undertake it, which is exceptionally high-brow for chess, almost certainly as high-brow as it gets. I can see where the narrative needs improvement and how continuity could be improved in places.
I was thinking about writing posts about the joys of writing about chess but perhaps I’ll change to the woes of focusing on something your good at instead. Beginning with ‘The woe of increasing your wordpower and the amount of investment in time and resources that will remain in play for good.’
Nothing chess-related to be added other than a rumination. If the author’s insertion of a quote does indeed apply to chess at its highest level as the author suggests, there is either a very strong argument to give it all up or as I narrative in my own piece, find something far better to do than play chess (which by the way is unsurprisingly easy) ‘The will to win is not as important as the will to prepare to win’.
Mark
I wonder if this was the one.
Posted in Personal Interest & Experience on April 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »
All my life I have wondered what the title of the first book I ever read on chess was. So little is remembered that I can’t even be sure how old I was when I read it. I thought I was only 7 but perhaps not. It may just be possible that the book below, printed in 1982, making me 9 or 10 years old at the time, was that first book. It’s a possibility.
34621
Posted in My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I could say I can’t keep my hands out of the cookie jar or I could say tidying up the writing project with pics, a video or two and a realization that a well-chosen quote at the end each part helps strengthen it further.
Is there really nothing left now,
Left to sit so I can forget about it temporarily,
So that I no longer sigh when I look through it,
I won’t do that more than the once,
For if you do not stop something, something will stop you,
I do not see a stop sign nor beyond the stop sign lies a sign saying ‘an on-line community is coupled to the general public’
That’s a sign I may initially turn away from when I see it…
33545
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Word count is 33545.
How quaint self-imposed exile is.
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 11, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I -and no I’m not telling you where- came here to write and to read. I am engaged in a major project that will have to be sent out for publication, what comes of that you shall stay informed of. There is a second project too a second too perhaps but for that I am still reading more postmodern history than doing the research, which per se only started a few weeks back…
I’m very happy to say that I have just finished the second draft/editorial procedure of my main meaning only one more is left. My writing style has tightened so much there may be much to do but I doubt it. Should I stay focused it should be finished. Then I have to let it slip in case something I have forgotten emerges. The publishing company will have decide the genre themselves. Of course I know exactly what it is but I am as unpretentious as I was 1000 years before I was born, so it is up to them. Six-eight hours of writing and 2 hours of reading a day undisturbed. Bliss.
And so an afternoon of rest beckons then the final draft begins. It’s probably the only thing I will ever write where I do want people to read. When I said I come from a hardened working-class background, believe me I was not joking. How many of you reading this have seen with your own eyes your board knocked over because your opponent his ripped of table legs and -Bruce-Lee like- went smacking pupils in the head, bollocks, shins, back, legs, arms…ok so he was going to be expelled shortly anyway for throwing a typewriter at another students head but yes, there is plenty of contact which will raise however many eyebrows you have. Oh btw I never lowered myself to such behaviour, whilst all that went on I only booted in study cubicles, booted chairs about, and hilariously threw hundreds of books out of the windows along with several classmates…there is content far more graphic than that believe me. I’ve had a colourful life, let’s just leave it at that, word count is at present 32793. That will jump at least 5000 words as sections and quotations are missing.
I will keep you posted.
Who’s zoomin’ who?
Posted in Academia, Life beyond the chess board, Personal Interest & Experience on March 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Oh boy it gets so hard. The Westminster Gazette publishes something in full. The next day about six other newspapers follow suit. Do I assume they just copied? I’m an academic! I can’t just do that! It is as reprehensible as it is irresponsible. Ohhh, headache time… .
Big job ahead… .
MJM
Reportage and primary source material…
Posted in Academia, My own endeavours, Personal Interest & Experience on March 7, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I have begun collating material for what is a second project but it may take some years but then of course it may only take months. Rather expensive it is and I’m sorry but reading through Victorian Newspapers isn’t as easy as you might think. Journalism back then was so very different to how it is today. I can assure you that in locating primary source material, what is read in today’s pamphlets and what is read on-line differs greatly to what was written then -lest must we not forget that history written by those with no real interest in it is going to be rather messy, to put it nicely… .
If the past is a foreign county (to refer to an article you might see sooner rather than later I sincerely hope) chess players with no background in history are its immigrants.
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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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