Sticking it to my electronic friend

December 23, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

I got another draw with what could be decribed as the kitchen sink attack!

Sacrificial attacks in search of mate but couldn’t quite pull it off!

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Doing what feels right

December 23, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

With a 3-week christmas break from work, I flew into Bangkok as might be expected. I had hoped to visit the chess club the week I arrived and made it a priority but silly me fell asleep in the day it is open (Friday) and missed it, that being last week. I won’t let that happen this week and will bring my daughter and her mother with me. I also hope to meet up with my old friend Aek, who is much better than me and an old friend I haven’t seen in a while.

It may well be the case that the numbers will be low that evening, as a very great many leave Bangkok for the new year, and most likely I will either play little or no chess but this is immaterial. It remains the case that the sense of occasion is most important of all from visits to the chess club. By this I mean meeting up iwth old friends, enjoying the atmosphere, making new friends and so on as this helps me feel less guilty about being rubbish at chess. Since my daughter and her mother have both started helping out at chess tournaments regularly this year, I have noticed it just feels right to see them connected to our beautiful game. And sometimes we need to be reminded of what’s important, particularly if your lifestyle is as transient as mine unfortunately is. It is my hope that chess remains a part of my daughters life always, and so it makes me satisified to be in a chess environment with her whether she plays or not. Same also holds for myself even though I do seem to have chess on the brain these days. This, however, has come about because I enjoy writing about chess more than playing it and not because I am rubbish and ashamed of myself. To add further you could say I’m not as young as I was and the passion to play isn’t quite there…well that’s me being courteous. They only play blitz at Bangkok chess club, which is not so appealing shall we say.

So my hope is that I will visit Bangkok chess club which will be my only opportunity before I return to work and being there will help bring home what things are important. Simple pleasures serving as simple reminders. Hopefully Grace will enjoy it and be more open to going there in the future as well as scontinuing to help out at chess events with her mum. This is a definitive improvement on me turning up, going there on my tod, getting drunk and making silly videos, which I am happy to tell you are not going to continue, courtesy of the opportunities to go to the club becoming less and myself less inclined to act like a tit when there.

You may be curious as to what this all means? Yes it is true that despite my efforts when my daughter was younger, she has never taken to chess as I hoped she would. This can only be interpreted as a failure on my part. My efforts were unsustained and proved that not only am I a lazy sod but also a lazy git. and loving parents do not force their children to do things. Overall, she’s kept a only a slight interest in chess and rarely plays. So to see her showing more interest and being acquainted with the very thing that brought about her very own existence about does, to some degree, help appease my own failings…ah well, no one is perfect, at least I tried.

So as 2024 comes to a close I am happy to say that I am able to go to the chess club and do what feels right. That is a noteable improvement on the months preceeding where togetherness was absent and ill health accompanying my visitations. Just so I could go somewhere and converse with members I don’t really know just because they like the same thing I do, Self-assured I state, instead I am able to arrive at the club and benefit from an identity conferring experience. For I know what feels right and hope springs eternal. Maybe one day it will become the norm.

I hope that in reading this post it encourages or inspires you to question why you go to your chess club. By this I mean asking yourself what you get out of it and how you can get more out of your investested time and intentionality. You may find it develops more meaning and importance should you do so, especially if times have been hard most recently. You may, if you are fortunate find that contentment is more important than improvment and gain more from your time at your club as a result, Just a thought from someone left with an eternally enquiring mind, having studied Philosophy for 4 years after reading it solidly for 3 years.

Mark.J.McCready

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On the right path

December 23, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

I am already benefitting noticeably from abandoning online chess and playing Lucas Chess instead. The engine I chose, Cinammon 1.2c. I have to be at my very best to stand a chance, and in the dozens of games already played, I only have one draw. But in most game I really stick it to it and gain a strong initiative, sometimes with sacrifices. I’ve nearly had it beat quite a few times.

The most obvious benefit being it has revatalized my approach, level of seriousness and begun complexifying my decision making process for my moves. It’s pulling my out of the malaise 4 years of online chess created. There is work to be done as I am still making mistakes but less so and they don’t usually lose my the games, more so the initiative. Correction there is not work to be done, there is much work to be done. This is quite okay as I am already enjoying it because my style has become very attacking, and I am already far better than what I usually am. Happy to play 10 games a day, after all, I am am holiday and have to rest up anyway after the accident I had a few days back. Here’s a link to the draw I should have won, illustrated by embedded pgn, so you can play through it.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14443&p=313683#p313683

Impressive huh?

MJM

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An unwanton depersonalisation

December 16, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

I am in the process of reducing down online chess to the point of elimination and reintroducing computer chess. The principle reason being I have picked up veyr bad habits with online chess and have become too used to weak opponents and bad moves being played against me. It’s had a very detrimental effect, so I have started playing computer engines to eliminate this.

But there’s something I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s all so depersonalizing. This is symptomatic of my ability because my primary focus should be my own moves and not my opponents. Play the board not the man as Simon Webb once said in Chess for Tigers, I need to starat complexifying my decision making procedure when I play because I have identified I don’t like it when I make bad moves: the more infrequent they become the better, More concentration required…

Hope springs eternal…

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Local & national

December 16, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

We have Dennis Victor Mardle. Born and raised in Luton, a varsities champion who represented his country once in a match against Holland. Rarely out of England’s top ten players in the 50s.

We also have Michael McDonald-Ross, the man who Bedfordshire’s strongest player ever homegrown talent GM James Plaskett said was his toughest opponent ever in the Beds league in the 70s.

It’s 1965, the British Championship, and generations apart, they met over the board. The game itself was a draw and sadly uneventful, as the Sicilian Kan often is. Why is this game significant? It’s the first time two noted players from the Bedfordshire league met at the British Championship. They were both amongst the strongest our league has ever seen and met at the British championship in 65. I have no records of two eminent figures in Bedfordshire chess history doing so before them. If presenting Bedfordshire chess at a national level is important, this was the first recorded instance.

I did speak to Michael McDonald Ross about this and he does still remember the game. Fyi in terms of rating they were both about 2200-2300. Anyway, here’s the game, forwarded to me by Mr. Paul Habershon, he who continues to offer help and support when he can always.

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=2064348

MJM

Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess | Tagged | 1 Comment »

Who Wants to be a Millionaire chess special 4

December 16, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

Unlike the popular gameshow, features such as ‘ask the audience, phone a friend, and 50/50‘ are inapplicable here -sincere apologies. Unfortunately, there’s no money to be made from this also. 🙂 However, do your best but do it alone please -no googling!

Question 1 £100

Which piece sits aside both the king and queen at the start of the game?

A: Pawn

B: Bishop

C: Knight

D: Rook

Question 2 £200

Which of these is not an example of under-promotion?

A: promoting a pawn to a queen.

B: promoting a pawn to a knight.

C: promoting a pawn to a bishop.

D: promoting a pawn to a rook.

Question 3 £300

The term zwischenzug means what in chess?

A: an announcement of stalemate.

B: an inability to make any good moves

C: an adjustment of a piece

D: an in-between move

Question 4 £400

Which former world champion has a term involving a weapon named after him?

A: Steinitz

B: Lasker

C: Alekhine

D: Kasparov

Question 5 £500

Which maneuver can be classified as artificial or by hand?

A: castling

B: double check

C: pawn promotion

D: en passant

Question 6 £1,000

After 1. d4 is played, if black then plays 1. …b5, this is known as what?

A: The Czech Defence

B: The Hungarian Defence

C: The Austrian Defence

D: The Polish Defence

Question 7 £2,000

The fifth official world champion was from which country?

A: Germany

B: The Netherlands

C: Cuba

D: The Soviet Union

Question 8 £4,000

Former world champion Magnus Carlsen’s real first name is not Magnus but what?

A: Henrick

B: Oscar

C: Sven

D: Per

Question 9 £8,000

How many non-european presidents has F.I.D.E had?

A: 1

B: 2

C: 3

D: 4

Question 10 £16,000

Sans Voir is a term which refers to what?

A: Blindfold chess

B: Kriegspiel

C: 960 chess

D: Bughouse chess

Question 11 £32,000

The F.I.D.E 2004 World Championship between Vladimir Kramnik and Peter Leko was held in which country?

A: Germany

B: Italy

C: Austria

D: Switzerland

Question 12 £64,000

Who was the world blitz champion of 2021?

A: Hikaru Nakamura

B: Magnus Carlsen

C: Maxime Vachier Lagrave

D: Sergey Karjakin

Question 13 £125,000

Who, in 1991, was the last player to become Soviet Union Chess Champion?

A: Evgeny Bareev

B: Artashes Minasian

C: Alexander Beliavsky

D: Garry Kasparov

Question 14 £250,000

According to rule 7.3 of the 2023 F.I.D.E rule book. If a game has started with colours reversed, what is the most amount of moves that can be played by both players before the game is discontinued and a new game restarted?

A: 9

B: 10

C: 11

D: 12

Question 15 £500,000

The celerbated problemist Genrikh Kasparyan, known to be one of the greatest end-game study problemists of all time, had which title in classical chess?

A: CM

B: FM

C: IM

D: GM

Question 16 £1,000,000

Who won the first World Open held in New York, 1973?

A: Bent Larsen

B: Pal Benko

C: John Fedorowicz

D: Walter Browne

So there you are, well done if you did well. No money once again I’m afraid owing to being a poor English teacher. I do put thought into this, so if you got more than half right, you did well. Hope you enjoyed, you might even want to give it a shot yourself! 🙂

Mark. J. McCready

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Answers to Who Wants to be a Millionaire chess special 4

December 16, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

  1. B
  2. A
  3. D
  4. C
  5. A
  6. D
  7. B
  8. C
  9. B
  10. A
  11. D
  12. C
  13. B
  14. A
  15. C
  16. D

Posted in Trivia, Who wants to be a millionaire chess special | Leave a Comment »

If…

December 13, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

If there is one thing chess teaches us that is of greater value than all else, surely, it must be the importance of learning from your mistakes.

If we apply to life what we take from chess, imho in the paragraph above therein lies the answer.

MJM

Posted in Life beyond the chess board | Leave a Comment »

Chat with Peter Gayson

December 8, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows;
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

A. E. Housman, A Shropshire lad

80’s Luton board 1 player Peter Gayson talks bout pitting his wits against the toughest.

MJM

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Before or after?

December 8, 2024 by mccreadyandchess

In chess you get letters before your name if you do well. CM, FM, IM, GM for example. Even though they are worthless outside their field, they are nonetheless a source of great pride for a great many and rightly so.

If you enter into academia instead, you also get letters but they usually come after your name -or at least they used to-, with certain exceptions such as Dr. Given that they are academic in nature, and embolden numerous transferable skills, which sounds weightier in terms of value? Should we frown upon titled players given that we have more letters than they do or should they frown upon us for having letters after our name and not before? Does anyone really care?

Which seem more cherished and why? What does that tell you? It seems to me that academics care much less about letters after their name as they tend not to be boastful about this whereas titled chess players are rightly proud of their title (even though its worthless outside of chess). Within chess, though, it is clearly advantageous on a number of levels, and generally speaking, holds greater importance than current rating, well for weaker Grandmasters most certianly, less so for the so-called SuperGMs. Whatever the answers may be amongst the very great many who do or do not play our beloved game the answer may be found in Nietzsche’s maxim ‘live by your passions’, which according to him, we all should be doing (note: not ought to be doing as that implies moral obligation which is not the point here).

Advice: should you encounter a titlted player and they point this out with statements such as I am a GM, you can always counter by saying something like, ‘no you are not, you are you, and whenever you bypass the normative aspects of what something is you invaribaly end up saying very little about it’.

As I am sure you know, there is snobbery in chess, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Ultimately though, everyone gets on just gets on fine and many refrain from defining themselves in terms of their titles, which to be fair, are identity-conferring.

All that aside, enjoy your chess. (ah, yeah and this just be me wanting to write again even though I don’t have much to say)

MJM

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