Owner: Streatham & Brixton Chess Club URL:http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.com/ Join Date: Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:34:09 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Daily chess stuff - not just updates about our club, but much else besides, like puzzles, news, games, photos, links and general interest articles. Site statistics:Click here
Bad book covers I 2008-04-26 03:37:48 Amatzia Avni, Danger in Chess, Cadogan, 1994.
ECF Folk Quit 2008-04-28 10:59:40 Unusual Second Posting of the DayA bunch of folk have quit the ECF board - and you can read about it on the atticus forum if you so choose.I've no idea about the ins and outs nor do I have a clue what it means for chess as a whole but I do know this...When I started playing club chess in the 80s England were one of the world's leading chess nations. We got three consecutive silver medals at the chess olympiad and at one time had two of the top five rated players.Now English chess is rubbish. I'm not sure the decline is entirely related to me taking up the game. Perhaps it's got something to do with the people who've been running things.So what's going on at the ECF?PS:Thanks to Angus for the tip-off.
Club News Update 2008-04-28 05:03:36 The London chess season might be petering out as summer approaches, but for Streatham and Brixton Chess Club it has finished with a flourish. Our team in the London League Minor Division have not only finished top of their table, but have done so with a perfect score of eight match points out of eight. Congratulations to Captain Chris Morgan and his tight team of players.Two other bits of news. Firstly, a slightly under-strength S&BCC side faced Mushrooms I on 14th March in our final London League First Division match of the season, which we currently lead 6-5 with one game adjourned. This means we should finish in the top-half of the table: not quite as good as last year's fourth, but certainly respectable. Interestingly, last year we scored six match points and will at least do that Read more:Update
The Worst Move On The Board V 2008-05-01 03:27:28 Matanovic v Sarapu, Sousse Interzonal 1967. This is a very fine effort indeed: there are all sorts of ways to put the white queen en prise and more than one way to allow a mate in two. Yet Alexander Matanovic, playing the New Zealander Ortvin Sarapu, managed, despite time pressure, to find the absolute worst move on the board. Readers are invited to find it themselves and - before playing through the game - to guess the following move.Worst Move index Read more:Board
Miss Easy Tactics! with Justin VIII 2008-04-30 05:45:55 [Our pedagogical series in which we look at a portion of a game I played the previous weekend in which some obvious tactic is overlooked. Readers are invited to practice their skill by seeing if they can spot what was missed.] Slip slidin' awaySlip slidin' awayYou know the nearer your destinationThe more you keep slip slidin' away.In the end, it was one missed win too many.Horton v Cid Royo, Aragón Team Championship 2008, promotion/relegation play-off, Casino Jaque (Huesca) v Hermanos Cortes-Moog (Zaragoza): top board, position after Black's move 30...Ke7-f7.It was the last day of the season, and everthing came down to this game and this position.We had lost quickly on board four and we were losing on board two, but board three looked to be winning a bishop ending (which was, indeed, even Read more:Justin
Again with the ECF 2008-05-02 01:15:04 Last Tuesday we posted a short article concerning the recent resignations at the ECF. It sparked off a fair few comments (24 and counting) and if you haven't seen it yet it's well worth having a look with direct or indirect contributions from three of the central players - Martin Regan, Claire Summerscale and particularly Peter Sowray who was kind enough to offer to respond to any points raised in the discussion.Here's a thought from me to take us into the bank holiday weekend ...Peter Sowray"... the Council meeting was poorly attended … I think I counted about 20."I don't see how any organisation of any kind can make decisions with these kind of numbers - and it was poorly attended? I dread to think how many people would have been in the room had they all turned up.No wonder things aren Read more:Again
Bad book covers II 2008-05-03 03:00:00 David Bronstein, El Maestro De La Improvisación, Chessy, 2007.
Sunday puzzle 2008-05-04 03:40:00 White to play and draw.(Reti) Read more:Sunday
Club Championship 2008-05-06 01:00:00 If you've been paying attention to your emails from Angus you'll know that the club championship starts tonight. Aside from the sheer fun of it, prizes this year will include a chess computer and a host of books donated by Andy Thake.The tournament is open to club members - never to late to join us :-) - and won't cost you a bean. Turn up by 7:15pm if you wish to enter although Angus would prefer if you contacted him to let him know beforehand.The tournament format as the same as previous events:-6 round tournament25 minutes/player/gamePlayed on 6 May and 13 May with three rounds on each day starting at 7.30pm, 8.30pm and 9.30pmSwiss pairings - players will be paired with others on the same or a similar score; all players are guaranteed 6 gamesResults will be submitted to the English Chess
Andy Thake 2008-05-05 03:06:00 Newer members of the club won't recognise the name but old timers will recall Andy as a longstanding club regular who moved out to Singapore a few years back.With no immediate plans to return to Blighty, Andy has generously agreed to donate his chess equipment to the club.BOOKS We've decided to auction off Andy's books at a bargain price of £1 each with the money to go to club funds. The books will be available at the club over the next couple of Tuesday's. There are some real gems here - and several I'd buy myself if I didn't already have a copy.In addition to the sale, top 5 places at this year's club championship will win a book of their choice from the collection.Here's the list (and it's not exhaustive - there's more I haven't had time to include)Bent Larsen’s Good Move Guide, Ox
No title 2008-05-07 03:11:29 Flash Club Championship update: Robin, last year's champion, and Tom, winner of the mid-season rapidplay, have both already dropped points. Only Angus and Alexey have made it to 3/3. Tom will bring you a full report on the first day's play - hopefully glossing over my rather woeful contribution to the entertainment - tomorrow.In the meantime, allow me to point you in the direction of Justin's post on Sunday - a fantastic problem by Reti. It's well worth a look if you haven't seen it yet.It reminded me of this ..."In the restaurant he opined that Richard Reti had been an over-rated player, repeating Alekhine's despicable theories about the treacherous game in which both bishops are fianchettoed. I might have drawn his attention to his game against Filip but this didn't occur to me at the ti
Club Champion 2008: Half-way Report 2008-05-08 03:44:00 The Streatham and Brixton Chess Club Championship 2008 has reached its half-way point, and has already witnessed much excitement and several surprises. Top-seed Robin Haldane has dropped a whole-point having been mated improbably in the third round by Angus French, who along with Alexey Shumay leads the field with a perfect 3/3 - whilst the second-seed and present writer alone follows them on 2½/3. Only half a point behind a group of players have 2/3 from the field of 20, all also chasing the first prize of a year’s free membership. The same prize goes to the highest-finishing player from the second half of the draw, whilst a chess computer goes to the highest-finishing player from Streatham Chess Club, and there are other book prizes too. The final three rounds take place Tuesday 13th
Once more at the ECF, again 2008-05-09 04:55:12 As you almost certainly know, the English Chess Federation (ECF) have been in the spotlight recently, due to a sudden rash of resignations from their board. What you might not know - and I certainly didn't, until I found out by accident after reading news of the resignations - is that the ECF also runs a Forum, and a Forum with a lot of potential too, it seems to me:The forum is not censoriously moderated - even controversial posts, critical of the ECF, are allowed - and the moderators are responsive to suggestions from the Forum tooReal names are the norm, an excellent policy which cuts down trolls, especially because those whom loiter behind pseudonyms will always carry less weight in their postsAlready some interesting people are posting, including several well-known titled players and
Nigel Davies' email to the S&BCC blog 2008-05-11 05:59:01 From: Nigel Davies
[ email address withheld - JB ]Date: Sat, May 10, 2008 at 5:44 PMSubject: Libelous comment on your blog"To Streatham and Brixton Chess ClubThere is a libelous article on your blog of which thefollowing comment is the clearly actionable:"[ Text removed - JB ]"[streathambrixtonchess_blogspot_com]This has no basis whatsoever (the supposed 'evidence'is just ridiculous) and is damaging to me personallyand professionally. To avoid legal action I suggestyou remove the entire post immediately.I will be writing to your blog host separately.Sincerely,Nigel Davies"The comment to which Mr. Davies takes exception, which was not written by a S&BCC blog contributor nor even a S&BCC member, has been removed.The article and the remaining comments can be seen here.
Miss Easy Tactics! with Justin IX 2008-05-10 03:41:40 [Our pedagogical series in which we look at a portion of a game I played the previous weekend in which some obvious tactic is overlooked. Readers are invited to practice their skill by seeing if they can spot what was missed.]If you want to know how bad you are, ask your computer. On arriving home from my weekend in England at the 4NCL I ran my games through the computer - and I do not much like what it has told me.My final round game from the Monday, against a FIDE Master, should appear some time next week, for no better reason than I won it: I actually played all right, if "thinking you are losing when in fact you are not" can be so described. My Saturday game was agreed drawn in a position Rybka rates as a pawn and a half better for my opponent: I suspected as much when I offered it. Bu Read more:Justin
Club News, Update! 2008-05-12 05:56:55 A few bits and pieces of club news. London League Division 1 has reached its conclusion, with Streatham narrowly overcoming a closely-matched Mushrooms 1 side in the adjournments of our final match of the season to finish in the top-half of the table with a respectable 6½ match points. Congratulations go to Wood Green, title-holders once again - although unlike last season they missed out on a pe Read more:Update
Hack and counterattack at the 4NCL 2008-05-14 16:28:31 Here's a couple of good efforts from the last weekend of the 4NCL. Contrasting efforts too, and unsurprisingly, given that the winners were Robin Haldane in one game and the present writer in another. Robin's game was his nth win with the Haldane Hack: mine, my fifth win against a FIDE Master.A couple of diagrams. The first shows Robin's game after Black's 13...Qe7-f8:it's the sort of position whe
Nigel Davies emails 2008-05-13 05:11:00 Over the weekend, GM Nigel Davies
emailed us about the post Echo Echo and in particular a comment on it. We removed the comment and then published Nigel's email here, and we also emailed Nigel back offering him the chance to respond more fully via the blog about the matters raised. He kindly sent me the following email back for this purpose (which he also reproduced on his own site here):Thanks fo
Top Cat 2008-05-15 19:00:00 Close friends already got to call him T.C. but now along with everybody else, they also get to call Tom Chivers 'Streatham & Brixton Chess Club Champion 2008'.Last week we left things at the halfway stage with Tom in third place behind Alexey and Angus who were both on a perfect 3/3.Two games later he was in the lead and facing a last round showdown with 2007 champion Robin Haldane. On board 2
A cure for hiccups 2008-05-15 01:51:11 Some time ago my girlfriend, much to my hidden amusement, developed hiccups. Much to my unhidden amusement, she announced that she was going to terminate them using the "eggbox technique". So, right there, in the middle of the kitchen, she closed her eyes, let her hand dangle in front of her as if it were about to pick up an imaginary egg, then picked up that imaginary egg and deposited it in an i
Modern Life is Rubbish 2008-05-17 03:05:28 Part 968: FA Cup Finals and chess adjournmentsNothing, no matter how permanent it may seem, lasts for ever.Take the FA Cup for example. These days the big clubs can barely bother their arses to field their reserves for cup ties let alone full strength sides. It's not like, picking a year entirely at random, 1976 say, when The Cup Final (the capitalisation being appropriate back then) was very much Read more:Modern
Sunday puzzle 2008-05-18 03:10:00 White to play and mate in two moves.(Langstaff, 1922) Read more:Sunday
What happened next? II 2008-05-20 06:04:18 Position after Black's 37th move.What happened next?
AVRO 1938; Player Portrait Photographs 2008-05-19 06:33:20 I found these photographs in a dusty old pamphlet published by the BCM containing the moves of the great AVRO 1938 chess tournament, and frankly, I also found them to be rather splendid. I published one previously here, asking readers to guess what kind of player was pictured, but I felt interest was not particularly high in answering that question - so I thought that instead I'd post the whole lo Read more:Portrait
That Will Have Somebody's Eye Out 2008-05-22 02:55:11 Never let it be said that we don't bring you the big chess stories here at the S&BCC blog. Today, ladies and gentleman, it is our happy duty to report that the political campaigner formerly known as the World Chess Champion recently had a speech interrupted by a flying plastic phallus.Where can I get me one of those? Read more:Somebody
What happened next II 2008-05-21 03:54:47 Matulovic-Bilek, Sousse Interzonal 1967, position after Black's move 37...Qc3-c6.White now played either 38.Bf3?? or 38.Kg1, depending on how you look at it.Graham Clayton on Chessville explains: Matulovic played 33.Bf3??* and before Bilek could play 33...Rxf3 Matulovic put the Bishop back on e2 and played 33.Kg1.He explains: [Matulovic claimed] that he was merely adjusting the pieces on the board
A New Evil? A New Good? 2008-05-23 06:17:35 Let's agree that both the PlayChess server and the ChessClub server have two fundamental but surprisingly useful flaws: One, that you have to pay to really get the most out of them. Two, that you have to download software to use them. The latter flaw makes them unlikely candidates to destroy your desk-job, to leave you staring into your computer screen until the early hours, as life bubbles on all
Sunday Puzzle 2008-05-25 03:05:19 Excelling at Chess PredictionsA different kind of puzzle this week.Who, in 2001, wrote:-"Anand, by the way, did not have a strong tournament, and it is quite well known that he is not a very patient person. In his youth he played very quickly, living only on his enormous talent. He never became the great player he could have been, and I predict he will not be" Read more:Sunday
, Puzzle
Bad book covers III 2008-05-24 01:20:31 Secrets of Opening Surprises, New in Chess.
Club News, Update! 2008-05-26 04:59:50 Is it raining all over your Bank Holiday Monday, too? Well, at least we have some good club news to spread a bit of sunshine around. Because two Mondays ago, Streatham and Brixton Chess Club won the Eastman Plate, and by the tightest of margins: 5½ to 4½ against an Insurance side who outgraded us on most boards. Congratulations to all who played, and especially to Chris "Captain Miracle" Morgan, Read more:Update
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