Posted in Quaint Chess History on July 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I personally met Glynne many times in Hitchin in the late 80’s and early 90’s and spoke with him on the phone on numerous occasions. He was always happy to hear there would be a team of players from Luton joining his tournaments when we spoke and found him to be affiable whilst running the show at Hitchin Boys Grammar School for his 5-round Swiss events which attracted many of the best players in the country. An account of his life can be found here.
M J M
Posted in Quaint Chess History on July 24, 2025| Leave a Comment »
I managed to find a picture of the St. Albans team that came runners up of British Schools Chess Championships of 1978.
I was only 6 then, and so I don’t know any of the team personally. The less than flattering team result can be found in the S.C.C.U Bulletin of that year too.
An account of the route to the final can be found in the school yearbook below.
MJM, Colombia
Posted in Quaint Chess History on July 21, 2025| Leave a Comment »
‘When we discipline our conscience, it kisses us while it bites’ Nietzsche, Epigrams and entr’actes 99, BGE
Did you know that the first person ever to receive a brilliancy prize was an Englishman or so it is argued? None other than H. E. Bird, he who is more commonly associated with openings and defences considered to be more so quaint than modern. I am not a trained historian and so cannot document the precise reasons why brilliancy prizes emerged when they did, however, I can show a position from the game in question and link it too, as it is rather impressive I must say.
The game itself can be found here, https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1027995&kpage=2. One would naturally assume that should you want to understand why H. E. Bird won the prize given, you should at least look at the game. Further understanding can be found in Hooper & Whylde’s Oxford Companion to Chess, pg. 49
I do believe this has been documented further in: CN 1062 Edward Winter, “Chess Explorations”, Cadogan 1996. The chat below the game linked also cites the following:
Obviously I am not the first to post about this and nor will I be the last, a more comprehensive, if less motivated by patriotism, post can be found here: https://www.chess.com/article/view/first-brilliancy-prizes
More on patriotism, I visited this tournament but not this round where GM Mc Shane won the first brilliancy prize of The London Chess Classic.
Regarding prizes per se, a more comprehensive historical account can be found here: https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/prizes.html
Explore further as you so wish. If I find further relevant research, I shall post it below.
MJM, South America
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Postmodern History, Quaint Chess History on June 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
In May I posted details of Bedfordshire’s baptism of fire in the S.C.C.U back in 1923. I drew attention to Middlesex’s board 3, pointing out that he beat two former world champions and drew with one, using that as an explanatory factor in the size of the defeat dished out, amongst others. The post is called Bedfordshire Outfoxed and can be found in the search bar.
The post contains the aforementioned games but I felt drawn to his game against Alekhine in particular. Yes it was part of a simul with sacrifices galore, as so often happens in such events but upon looking at the game closely, I found one move in particular of Fox’s that I am rather fond of I must say. It was both brave and in the spirit of things or was it his saving grace instead? Let’s have a look:
White has just played 29. dxe5. What would you play as black here? You can see what Fox played in the image below.
As much as I would love to paraphrase Kasparov in ‘How Life Imitates Chess’ I cannot. So I can’t say this exemplifies how ‘the best form of defence is attack’ for it is a counter-attacking move and doesn’t quite qualify. It is, however, unusual to see being mated averted by threatening mate in one yourself, if that’s the case of course. Since it is a simul, we don’t know how much time Fox had to make the move, probably not very long. Great move nonetheless. Here’s the game again.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012317
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
(Note to self: consider making more posts on moves you like)
MJM
Posted in Quaint Chess History on June 11, 2025| Leave a Comment »
The NBC, or National Broadcasting Company, as our American friends may tell us, was formed in 1926, it’s headquarters being New York New York -the city so good they had to name it twice. Evidence of which can be found within its music scene, that being the best America has. (please watch the video below)
And so my favourite city in the world once brought us footage of the Soviet Union V USA match back in 1955, a return match after the previous year’s meeting in New York New York. Here it is and interesting it is too.
Futher details may be found here. https://dgriffinchess.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/reshevsky-botvinnik-1st-round-ussr-usa-match-moscow-1955/
Mark. J. McCready
Posted in Quaint Chess History on August 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I am re-reading Eales’s: Chess the History of a game, as chess history is supposedly my thing, and I did accidentally throw the thing away four years ago 😦 . New copy came through the post before the woeful summer commenced!
The first paragraph of the preface is as follows:
A history of chess is firstly a history of chess players, and as such I hope it will interest modern players who realize that in taking up the game, they are entering on a rich inheritance built by their predecessors. But it is also an account of the changing background against which chess has evolved, the forces which have caused it to be sometimes respected and encouraged, sometimes disapproved of, or even made illegal. The long development of chess has led through many different cultures and societies. It has been variously described as a game, a sport, a science or an art. At different times its social appeal has been seen as primary noble, intellectual, or even proletarian. In literature it has served as a metaphor, for order through its ranking of distinctive pieces. For these reasons I hope the book will also interest those who do not play chess well (or at all), because it deals with many important historical issues, though from an unfamiliar point of view.
pg. 9
I have to say, as something of an admirer, what does the final clause in the final sentence mean? ‘…an unfamiliar point of view’? probably that it is based on discourse. I may be wrong but some explanation would have helped.
Posted in Quaint Chess History on May 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Quaint Chess History on May 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »
How the times have changed. It’s highly doubtful that anyone takes the boat to Australia now. But if they did and the voyages offered the same as the reportage below then there’s chess, backgammon and draughts tables for you to use to fill in the time. You never know, it might improve your chess!
Posted in Quaint Chess History on May 4, 2024| Leave a Comment »
The Bedford Record once again.
Myself aside, who in their right mind plays chess at 4am?
Posted in Academia, Quaint Chess History on December 10, 2020| Leave a Comment »
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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