English Chess Forum

I am on my 57th book overall (starting in 196O) and still have 15 of the Eley books to use. I don't think I am likely to fill them all in my lifetime. I am still wondering what advice to give my heirs about my personal game collection. The books will probably remain in an offspring's loft for decad...

Many thanks again, Gerard. I've added them to the 1950 BritBase file.

I've added another item to BritBase documents: the 1974 BCF Grading List (down to 185 or approx. 2080 in modern terms)

Thanks for the game, Gerard - added to the 1950 file. Leonard tells me he has no recollection of his 1950 game against F.Noble, nor how Oxford University came to be playing Sheffield University in a match since there was no BUCA team event at that time. It may have been a National Club match but I h...

Thanks for the latest games, Gerard. The Chapman-Halliwell one was already on BritBase; it was published earlier in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer. I shall have to resume my email dialogue with Leon to see if he is ready to send me some scoresheets. I'll report back. Earlier today I came across...

Thanks, Gerard. I've now added these games to the BritBase collection for the 1953 British Championship... https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/195308bcf-viewer.html I've also added a full crosstable for the 1953 British Boys' (Under 18) Championship, won by Ken Inwood of Kingston Chess Club. I've ...

Ernie Lazenby wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 07, 2022 4:03 pm

In the context of the time he was active and at his peak in the UK he was one of the top players. Our local chess scene was the better for having him.

Yes, indeed. On the 1968 BCF Grading List he was graded 214 which put him in the country's top 30 players.

That's sad news. Ron Thomas played in five British Championships and his games may be found on BritBase as follows: 1967 , 1968 , 1969 , 1974 , 1977 . In this case it might be easier to access all his Championship games in one go by going to chessgames.com Regarding the game lost as the result of an...

4.d3 rather than 4.d4, perhaps? That would remove the ...cxd4 issues. Yes, that was one of the moves I tried. As you say, it solves the problem of the underdefended d4 pawn, but then (a) it wouldn't have been necessary to record Black's 6th as QPxP; (b) ...d4 by Black on the 5th or 6th move looks o...

Does anyone fancy trying their hand at reconstructing a score? This game is from the 1951 Southsea (Stevenson Memorial) tournament and lasts only eight moves. It ends with a big blunder but the fact that there are at least two other highly implausible moves along the way makes me think the score is ...

Today I watched the start of play live for the first time. As Anand v Carlsen reached Move 3, a fire alarm sounded in the commentary area ... It's quite terrifying that the curse of Sedgwick, which first manifested itself in 1990 , can now operate remotely from 1,000 miles away. Anyone needing to k...

For interest, the link to the BritBase page covering the 1958/59 Hastings tournament is as follows... https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/195812hast-viewer.html It includes a link to a short video clip of play during the 2nd round, including Erno Gereben v Bob Wade... https://reuters.screenocean.c...

Many thanks for these games, Sean. I have added them to the BritBase file. The colour sequence does seem odd, doesn't it? Coincidentally, earlier today another BritBase contributor sent me what he thinks was the draw order for this tournament (using standard Berger pairings). If he is right then Jim...

Having been entirely responsible for going off-topic I feel it is now incumbent on me to return to the original theme... Re researching Staunton: for anyone wanting to become a seeker after Staunton scores, or indeed any chess game scores, probably the easiest and best way to get started is to subsc...

Good find. These games don't appear amongst the ChessBase, chessgames.com or StarBase 4.56 collections, so would appear to be newly digitised. I would have expected someone to have systematically combed through old newspapers for old Staunton games by now but apparently not. I'm not planning to do s...

Thanks, Gerard, and also apologies for making you look at another Lacy-Hulbert game. Actually it is the same game you've just been struggling with. I think I have the solution. I struggled with it too until I looked harder at the improbable move 25...R-K5. How on earth does it manage to get there? T...