English Chess Forum

True, though somehow I don't recall our drawing with Lithuania before. I would have thought of them as the sort of team who would be competitive for a while but would find a way to lose to us eventually. Ireland! hadn't noticed them. We can perhaps take some consolation that today Lithuania made ra...

Hi all, rarely post here but thought I would make a one-off exception to address speculation. Yes, I am annoyed I am not in the team. No, I do not wish the team badly or wish to malign any players themselves, who after all have merely accepted offers that they were made. I am an English GM, live 253...

This all seems like a bit of a witch-hunt. I would advocate extreme caution with the implications, even the legally defensible ones. Not only is the guy a kid, but the game fragments linked here remind me a little bit of Hawkins in his pre-GM years: he famously had a rather under-the-radar, late ris...

Obviously, whatever tiebreak is used, 3/5 of the people involved will probably end up feeling aggrieved. In my case, this was mitigated ever so slightly by two facts: having qualified in 2016, also on tiebreak; and having been dead lost in no fewer than 5 rounds (2,3,6,7,9) from which I ended up sco...

Not a bad haul in the end. I'm a very proud "chess big brother", and the IM title couldn't have come to two nicer or more deserving people than Joe and (my ex-schoolmate) Andy. Greatly appreciate the forum support as well!

To be on the ultra safe side he's not planning on playing any further games on the October rating list. Quite extraordinary. It does rather suggest he's failed to understand the rules. You are right. But that may be because the rules are difficult to understand. From where I'm at, neither title reg...

To my mind there are only two options. -Insist that all draw offers are made through the arbiter, or -Permit any and all draws. Doing anything in between these two options leads to all kinds of theatrics that benefit nobody, least of all the spectators, who were presumably not after a masterclass in...

With a few more rounds having been played I agree with Jack's sentiment both here and on Facebook. It seems well-nigh impossible to make norms at this tournament. According to my back-of-envelope calculations, Daniel Abbas (who has 50% vs GMs and IMs) must play Alan Merry next (with White, probably?...

Thanks all for the support I wasn't able to play round 5 due to splitting headaches that kept me up the whole of the previous night. I emailed the organisers yesterday morning and they said they understood and would pair me for future rounds if things improved. They also told my opponent, so he didn...

A quick check of Adam Scibior's FIDE profile will reveal he has played no rated games at long time controls in years. Hence board 7- and in fact he was quite lucky to win it in my view. I allowed without protest our President to field Ryan on top board in deference to his personal score against me. ...

In my case, if one --doesn't-- filter the list by federation, my name is there, under the SIN (Singapore) federation, and FIDE have both norms in the system. I suppose it makes sense because I made my first one while playing under that flag. Less clear is why I'm not returned when one filters either...

Quite a surprising place to see myself and one of my tournaments being mentioned! It bears mentioning first of all that the game inputting left much to be desired. For instance, my game with GM Drazic, marked as a 23 move draw beginning 1.c4, http://chess-db.com/public/pinfo.jsp?id=5801605 , was in ...