English Chess Forum

Backgammon https://ukbgf.com provide some guidance on how to start OTB Competition's again Backgammon are quick off the mark, running their version of Blackpool almost immediately. The Blackpool Imperial Cup over the 25th-27th June weekend is therefore expected to be the first major live tournament...

Thanks, but what I mean is, I don't know who chessbae is. I gather from a brief search that the user name is chessbae94. As to her real name and position, if any, in the real world, that didn't become apparent. Seemingly an associate of Nakamura though and someone with power to remove content and b...

I raised whether the ECF should/ could organise more chess directly previously. The response here was predominantly that I was criticising the ECF unfairly, but I still think is a legitimate strategy point. Don't forget VAT. When chess is organised through a body with enough turnover to exceed the ...

If they are doing what Peter suggests does it really matter. Think of the joy he spreading about by giving people 5 move wins. If playing on line for some semi-serious practice or self training, it adds another category of time wasting opponent. You already have the non-resigners and those who let ...

Ian Thompson wrote: ↑

Sat Apr 10, 2021 4:32 pm

I thought I read somewhere that there might be another incentive to join the ECF offered by Chess & Bridge.

Isn't the best incentive that the ECF encourages some OTB chess to actually take place? Even better that it takes place unrestricted by rules inspired by risk aversion.

The solution that the service providers recommend is - get a new account and sin no more. As a consequence it's rare for them to be called out over false accusations. That enables them to claim a higher success rate for their methods than are deserved. When OTB organisations migrate to on line comp...

The player was breaking the rules, the system caught him and he was flagged. There is a question though as to what the rules actually are, how well or badly they are publicised and whether households sharing a connection could run foul of them. We seem to have it that players sharing an email addre...

You could try this for example https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-com-fair-play-and-cheat-detection As we know, their system made a false accusation against Justin based on his games in "daily" chess. I believe that in OTB chess, a line in the sand was drawn some years ago that accusations sh...

Indeed it was. If I remember correctly. Wood states in "To Our Readers" that the Federation of Master Printers had advised him to "settle" the dispute by closing down his in house printing operation, ostensibly on age and health grounds, and to make the staff redundant. I remember that as a recomme...

Win for Black: 2K5/1P6/2q5/8/3B4/2Pk4/8/8 w - - 0 1 There's an obvious winning plan of K-c4-b5-a6(or c6) and then Qxb7 mate. That works if the Black King just shuffles between b8 and a8. If however it tries to escape with .. Ka7 and .. Kb6, White has Qb5 putting the King back in the zugswang box an...

I think they are all still drawn. Not checked with an engine. Are these sort of positions in the 7-man tablebases? There's an Android app which looks up Lomonosov tables. Verdicts Variant 1: 2K5/1P6/2q3k1/8/3B4/2P5/8/8 Drawn (as is the original position) Variant 2: 5K2/6P1/5q2/1kB5/1P6/8/5P2/8 Mate...

The ECF Grading record for the event suggests MV Abbott or R Thompson won it, although it's not helpful that all sections have been graded as one. I'm assuming both players who scored 6 points, and the other two 5.5 point scorers, weren't playing in the Championship section. I'm also assuming D Cut...

ECF Grading record for the event confirms this, assuming neither of Steven Berry and Andrew Smith were eligible. Both were regular competitors in Exmouth, but never eligible for the title. The crosstable derived from the grading records is unreliable because it doesn't record what are now known as ...

The Thanet Congress, usually the weekend before the August Bank Holiday, is not taking place in 2021. Non availability of the usual premises (a school) is cited as one of the reasons.

I can't vouch for later years, but the first or second Whitby Festival in 1955, in which I played, was certainly organised by CHESS I thought the story was that after BH established the concept of two week tournaments that weren't the British Championship, that local organisers in Whitby carried on...