English Chess Forum

Player defaulted for an unspecified fair play breach when they were one move away from mating their opponent. Do we have any idea who and what this was about? Who it was - yes . Why - no. There is this comment in the TWIC game file : [Event "46th Olympiad 2026"] [Site "Samarkand UZB"] [Date "2026.0...

I went to the Olympiad for rounds 10 and 11 and saw something unexpected with her. She was sitting on some plastic inflatable seat thing, presumably because she couldnt reach the board without it. She's used a booster seat for as long as I can remember. I'd say she was using the same one she's had ...

Interesting! Do you mean you searched the comments in the PGNs? Almost; noticed rather than searched. TWIC weekly game downloads rarely have comments in them unless something went amiss in the game, so I noticed, for example, these comments in games - "The natural 1-0 result was reversed due to a f...

The comments in Olympiad games published by TWIC reveal a few surprising incidents that occurred in games: Player castled after having moved their King (as mentioned earlier in this thread). Player defaulted for wearing a WHOOP band during a game. (It's a fitness and health tracker.) Player defaulte...

The link is dead for me, even after refreshing the page? I noticed previously, your registrations link worked, but the website one was dead. They are sometimes slow in updating the links. That may be an unfair criticism. The list might not be ready for publication (although the 4NCL really ought no...

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 27, 2026 2:37 pm

The out-of-date nature of

https://www.wallingtonchess.co.uk/

may not have helped the situation

They may well have lost their webmaster. The person named on their website hasn't played for them since December 2023. He's been playing for Southampton University since October 2023.

Impressive scoring from Ynojosa on board 1 there. Defeated four GMs. Slightly strange two defaults from Venezuela today and Ynojosa rested tomorrow. The event has a 15 minutes default time so they might just have been delayed getting to their boards, particularly if the organisers deny responsibili...

John Upham wrote: ↑

Sat Sep 26, 2026 9:26 pm

Does anyone remember Aldershot Chess Club?

Having played in matches against them twice, yes.

I believe that Iwan Cave who is representing Wales, but has played for Chandler's Ford in the Southampton Chess League since 2022 will have achieved an FM norm (as long as he plays one more game). He has scored 6/8 with his win today. It's an automatic title award, no Norms or achieved rating neede...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 24, 2026 4:52 pm

I have a vague memory of an India 2 team outperforming their first team. Maybe not India and no idea if it was a high finish.

2022, when India 2 finished third, 1 match point, and one place, ahead of India 1.

Took another look at this. Computer is still saying that 53...Re2 draws but 53...Re1 wins. Still no idea why... Maybe because there are lines where White doesn't immediately take the pawn on d3, but instead advances his c-pawn as quickly as he can (preceded by moving his King so it can defend the p...

Mats Winther wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 22, 2026 5:23 pm

One could award a higher share of the prize money to the player with the highest tie-break.

The Hort system, which has been around for decades, does that.

What is the objection to sharing the money prizes? Some organisers would point out that, if cash prizes are tie-broken, they can put the money in an envelope prior to the prize giving and then just write a name on it when the winner is known. That avoids, for example, having to divide £400 between ...

Simulate a tournament yourself, with my online Monrad program . In the final result you can compare WNT with Buchholz and Cumulative. Why simulate a tournament? Why not take a few real tournaments from chess-results.com where there were players tied at the end and show what the tie-break results wo...

Anyone have thoughts about the England Open team so far? Overall, it's performing in line with expectations - the team as a whole has lost 0.6 ratings points over 24 games, which is nothing. The women's team is doing well - a gain of 41.1 points over 24 games, although you need to be aware that som...