Posted in Chess, Humour, My own warped humour, Selected on-line games on July 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
DISCLAIMER: as insomniac author of this post, I take no responsibility for any electronic device, laptop or PC blown up by running the game linked below through an engine you have installed.
DATED:
July 2nd 2025
SIGNED:
Look at this position:
It comes from this game https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1064810&kpage=3
The question is not who stands better but what will happen if I run it through an engine -I’m not doing it, I wouldn’t dare.
Marcus -Colombia
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess, Chess, Selected on-line games on January 7, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Either I’ve gone up in the world by being given administrative control over my home town club so that I can organize tournaments online or I’ve gone down in the world by giving into a request to resume the role of club tournament organizer, a role I relinquished many moons ago…
Whatever the case may be, the first in a series of tournaments went down well. We had 10 participants and some old friends were there. I managed to come joint first with 4/5 but board count put me in 4th overall as my loss came earlier than the losses by those also joint first.
Overall I am quite happy with my performance and have included two games, one constituting a loss where I missed a clear win, and the other showing my cut-throat style in full force against an old friend and playing partner.
Posted in Selected on-line games on December 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, Selected on-line games on December 25, 2020| Leave a Comment »
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
Posted in Selected on-line games on October 28, 2020| Leave a Comment »
All too often, I appear to be playing people that lose as soon as I start concentrating and it’s becoming a bit annoying…
I do love the St. George’s defence and know it inside out now, having played it hundreds of times. Here’s two typical October wins: my opponent’s play is uncoordinated, whilst mine is harmonious, and what happens in the middle game is I win instantly as per usual…and this with the most passive of all defences. Given that I play the English Opening, The grand Prix Attack, and The St.George’s Defence I do indeed play Very English Chess.
Posted in Life beyond the chess board, Selected on-line games on October 21, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I can’t say I ever was an admirer of Steiniz tbh. In fact with Morphy no longer on the scene, it wasn’t until Alekhine imperially rose to the throne, that chess became worth looking at in close detail.
I always thought his wandering king was just dubious conceptually, and likely to be his downfall eventually. So what am I doing playing the opening theory in fashion during his reign, and drawing inspiration from his antics? Having fun, that’s what, as the video shows. An amusing victory both antiquated in its approach but highly effective nonetheless.
Olcmarcus
Posted in Selected on-line games on September 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Something I bought in the mid 80s
I visited Vienna in 97. It is still today one of the most beautiful cities I have been to…
Posted in On-line journal, Selected on-line games on August 30, 2020| Leave a Comment »
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Through submission to and admission of how the entrails of normality have been garroted in the months gone by, owing to a pandemic that Chomsky describes as ‘a colossal market failure’, a slow subterranean maneuver has been made.
I’ve followed suit and forgot about chess over the board because it just isn’t happening. Well it is. I mean should I saunter off to Bangkok Chess Club, I can play in a blitz tournament each Friday evening. But at the end of a working week, a tournament with a time control of 3m 2s, just isn’t worth it. I don’t consider that time control as conducive to ability and love of the game but rather a game of he who moves fastest wins. That’s just silly to me, invariably I lose on time and if I win it is at best a pyrrhic victory…it’s not worth the effort frankly. Blitz, to me, is a rather childish way to play chess, I don’t see what there is to be gained from it…
So I transgressed from OTB to on-line via whichever server is up and running. In having abandoned chess theory altogether and relying solely in what I learn from my own games, I would appear to be on the up. And then all of a sudden I realized I love playing on-line, despite it being a depersonalized alternative to what I am used to. I’ve begun to take it seriously and play some very good chess at times.
I went and joined my home town club, which is now established on-line. I went and played for my county and rejoined The English Chess Federation. They’ve invited me to represent ‘the south’ of England in a match against ‘the north. I admit I played for my town, my county and my region as a promising junior but never the part of the country I am from. That’s a first for sure.
I’m told it’s a resumption of a match that was last played 126 years ago (details to follow). In those days you only played OTB, by cable or by correspondence, an example of the latter can be seen below.
Things have moved on from 1908 but on this sceptred isle an undying love of chess beats with the hearts and minds of men who play on, and on. One of whom is myself. And the consequence of which is? I had better continue getting my act together because pride and honour are at stake. Details of the invite can be found here: https://www.chess.com/news/view/north-v-south-match-5-september-2020
To give a sense of where I am at, here’s two games. I make mistakes in both but are not beaten in either.
A draw by repetition through fear of a back rank weakness in an endgame with a position I thought was unclear.
After being outplayed in the middlegame, shoring up my defences allowed me to exploit my opponent’s uncertainty and win quickly.
Olcmarcus
Posted in Selected on-line games on August 29, 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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McCreadyandChess 