Not since living in Azerbaijan have I had to dust off ye olde Canon. Now some might consider that rather forlorned, which it is, but it’s what ya do with what ya got which counts the most.
I love my Portrait Lens and it’s f1.8 shallow depth of field, as ya shall surely see. It’s me daughter’s first chance to represent her country so a rusty me will be a creative-me too, as yee shall see… .
As esteemed chess coach Richard James will tell you results so rarely matter when they are so young…
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I’m staying put despite the workload ahead…
Changes afoot there are aplenty…
I’m too paid up to alter the principle, let alone the interest off it…
All shall be explained in due course…
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Greetings all. I lament that this site will close and will probably close quite soon. I’ve been reprimanded and beaten into submission. I don’t think I did much wrong nonetheless I must pay the price. Whether I like it or not I have to create my own website, the details will follow. I had hoped to freely post the project I am so deeply engaged in but I can’t. The emerging project I can to some degree but only that.
Progress, in our modern age, cannot be defined without recourse to financial gain by the ‘bourgeoisie’ as Marx would have put it. I lament that a publication appears to be in order, so I can’t post the one thing I was hoping to although I can, so I am told, post excerpts. I have to pay the price for a website both all my own and one others can profit from.
End of post.
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How can an academic not condemn chess literature as being nothing more than decadent and overrun by charlatans? How can an academic not become giddy with excitement when they purchase a publication written by a Grandmaster who is an effective writer and well-educated too? Now I know what you are thinking. You are thinking ‘Mark/Marcus, it’s not yet April 1st, please drop the silly jokes.’ However, some Grandmasters are well-educated and aren’t the archetypal one-trick pony which almost all GMs are. Some possess knowledge about the world beyond the chess board, and far more importantly, the means to communicate it too. They are few and far between but they do exist, I assure you….yes I know you think I am joking but I am not, please read on.
Enter the Scotsman with letters both before his name and after, Mr. Jonathan Rowson. An ex-British champion who is smart enough to learn there is much more to life than some old board game. If you are a typical chess player, your reaction will be to home in on his rating and remain incapable of thinking about anything else until you have worked it out, at which point you will think something along the lines of him being just another sub 2700 player or something like that.
Some Grandmasters are actually well-educated and can write well despite having never broken into the Super GM substrata. Should you be interested in what a well-educated GM has to say about life and chess, than Mr.Rowson is your man. You might want to ask whether myself being a Philosopher too induces a bias I cannot overcome? No it doesn’t for I am a part-time practising philosopher only, it’s only post-modern history that I preach and not philosophy…definitely not philosophy.
You may have encountered Rowson before you may not. You may want to follow suit and purchase what you see below you may not.
As a genre, chess literature is something we must remain suspicious of at all times, and so when we find something both highly educational and well worth reading, its worth sharing…
Enjoy. Won’t cost you much. He’s very smart. A very effective writer. He has a lot to say. He loves to write…what have you got to lose?
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Cajoled when rusty, I sheepishly agreed to play the first competitive chess in three years and did surprisingly well with three wins from four games. In the first, my opponent resigned with a shake of my hand and sincere smile, stating the manner in which he lost involved the most clever trap he’s ever seen. There’s no doubting I finished the game in quick fashion but there was no trap involved and I told him so. I always play intuitively and believe firmly that evaluation triumphs over calculation, and herein lies a proof.
Firstly I confused him with a set up I played in the early 90s and recently rediscovered, courtesy of the following link.
I reached the following position and was quite comfortable. My opponent admitted he didn’t know what to do -his piece placement appears to back that up. I have the black pieces and was expecting Bb7, Qc7, and 0-0-0, just like Petrosian used to play.
I gained control of the centre easily enough then reached the following position. It’s not won yet but I did notice if he repositions his knight he will lose immediately, and that’s why I moved my king next.
I played 25…Kd6 inducing 26. Ne4. This he played so I returned my king to e7, expecting him to misplace his knight, which he then did. He played Nc5, cutting off the rooks and attacking an undefended bishop. It looks pretty but it’s not. I can drop the exchange and get it back straight away with a strong positional edge anytime I like. And I didn’t see one false move from him will cost him the game immediately -and that’s exactly what happened. So it went 26. Ne4+ Ke7 27. Nc5 ?! Rc2xc5 28 dxc5 Rd8+. I calculated Kc1 only, thinking I would regain the exchange with a better rook and a dominant position. I didn’t see Kc2 and was fortunate enough to find it was ‘one false move’. and only that 29 Kc2 ?? Bd3+ 30. Kb3 Bxb1 31. Rxb1 Rd3+ 32. resigns… .
The final position.
Had I seen all that, indeed a nasty trap was set and sprung. But I didn’t see it all, I just focused on piece improvement and utilized that only. Nonetheless, my Austrian opponent remained exceedingly respectful. He was complimentary but unjustifiably so I think.
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Courtesy of a source who shall remain anonymous, I have a portrait of William Ward, born in Abbots Langley in 1867 but lived in and around Luton for some of the first three decades of his life. He went on to champion the Atheneum club in London and the City of London club itself. He finished joint 2nd in the British Championships twice, and represented Great Britain in the Anglo-American cable matches long before we all had a plethora of expensive electronic devices at our disposal. Should you wish to know more about him, then by all means find the Bedfordshire Chess and Chess History categories, which is where he hangs out or alternatively click here.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=19561
Mr. William Ward
Posted in History of Bedfordshire Chess in the 19th century | Leave a Comment »
Here’s two videos from her first tournament. I will be playing with her in the next one. Below both, a picture of I watching on appears.
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If six hour sessions most nights constitutes being heavily caught up in a writing project, then I am. And focusing on it so intensely it is having a profound impact on my life. The post itself details in great length what I did and didn’t gain from chess in my youth. In writing it I became fully aware of the fact that chess had a far larger impact on who I was than anything else in my youth, and forever thereafter for that matter. It is clear what my goal in life now is, and that is to inspire my daughter to become a stronger player than I was…and so the preparation begins. She goes to a chess school, here is an excerpt from her first lesson. It’s in Thai but you can follow the action easily enough. The amusing irony here is that Grace opens with the move I played most of my life.
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In the first video you see my daughter in the pink dress take her place.
In the second you see me for what I really am. I Still do not have full use of all my limbs and the damage to my nervous system is much worse than I thought.So did I stay at home and do nothing but recover? Like fuck I did. I run non stop and push it so hard on my bike at all times even though I can’t grip the handlebars with my left hand very well. I posted this because I have spent over a year writing a post that dispels many myths surrounding chess, and I am tremendously proud of it. My upbringing is very much different to what you might expect. So now you can see me as I really am and not whoever you thought I were.
Posted in Life beyond the chess board | 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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