Check out this #chess game: MarkJMcCready vs mostafa1981 – https://www.chess.com/live/game/65083870917
It would appear that the world’s cutest chess player -Andrea Botez- can box too!
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Some videos from Bangkok Chess Club on December 9th. I apologize that the quality of the videos isn’t so great. We were asked to play on the forth floor that night and the lighting was poor.
MJMBKK
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What you see in this picture is a pint of Magners Cider by a chess board but I shall not allow myself to drink alcohol at the chess club anymore, so you won’t be seeing that again. As pleasurable as it is, my chess is affected so badly by it, I just can’t let it continue on and won’t.
Mark. J. McCready 7.51 pm 13th December 2022
Chachoengsao, Thailand.
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A quick win indeed.
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What a steal! How did I turn that into a won endgame, the exchange down?
https://www.chess.com/game/live/62984926471
MJM
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Perhaps, just perhaps, not the ideal preparation for a night of chess in BKK, and yes that is Magners cider.
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Bangkok Chess Club meets every Friday evening above The Royal Oak Pub (previously The Bull), and so it was only fitting that I returned to the club which I have been frequenting since 2003. For map, see here: https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Royal+Oak/@13.7324472,100.5662752,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x30e29f02051edc49:0x14f2a19a89270b09!8m2!3d13.7324447!4d100.5684728 And given that it’s two years since I was there last, I had a very pleasant return indeed which had a sense of being somewhat overdue. It’s nice to see old friends, and see them happy to meet again, and the sense of familiarity which comes with that is always a welcome reminder of why friends remain what they are irrespective of how little you have in common beyond a shared love of chess.
There was about fifteen members present, arriving at various times, including the sister of Alexandra Kosteniuk. They look so alike I thought it was her at first as its not uncommon to have visiting Grand masters or titled players of a lower category turn up once in a while under the guise of some tourist passing by. The usual blitz tournament started around 8, which is earlier than usual, however, this proved not to be advantageous. I started drinking cider almost immediately upon arrival, partly due to being a piss head and partly because cider is my tipple anyway…oh and partly down to being an impulsive little shit so-and-so at times who is remarkably adept at not thinking things through clearly and just doing what he wants instead…oh and that I was in a pub anyway with the usual pomp and circumstance ensuing, and you could also argue that enjoying the evening on the whole mattered much more than my results given that contentment and not improvement is what I tend to gravitate towards chesswise: it matters not whether I get any better but enjoying my chess is always of greater value. So most unfortunately I got not just tipsy and not just rather merry but pissed up instead, perhaps the sense of occasion took centre stage and it seemed like the most natural thing to do. Why wouldn’t it? After all, you enter downtown and are at a bustling English pub in one of the better suburbs. Hard not to join in and have a drink…when in Rome and all that shit…
So the evening was characterized by drinking, chatting to old friends, being not quite quick enough for such rapid time controls, and drinking, and yet more drinking. Good evening all round in which the results didn’t really matter too much. I took some pictures and made some videos of the club itself, which you can find below. It was with great affection that I began to look forwards to OTB chess last month, and my first visit to the club showed exactly why that was so. Rightly so. And must remain so.
Listen up: under no circumstances whatsoever should I still be alive. The blood clot which reeked havoc in my brain was removed in a hospital along the road you see here.
In this video I don’t express very well just how much I used to boss that road on my Trek, and that I am still proud of it.
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With a return to OTB chess imminent, I have to start liking chess players again and making an effort. But what’s up with that? Why should we make an effort with others just because they like chess too. There’s much more to a person than that. What is it with liking people who like the same things we do. They might be a degenerate fucker and best avoided. Why does having shared interests have to change things? And it must be remembered that many chess players love to shag blow up dolls in their bedroom. If a chess player is shagging blow up dolls also, it would be better not to speak to him at all and get him banned from the club. As you probably know, the most common reason for a drop in rating points is down to chess players spending hours every night shagging blow up dolls instead of studying chess. There should always be suspicion in play because you don’t know what people get up to.
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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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- Thai Junior Championships
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- 2011
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- 2010
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- 2020
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