Kingston Invitational, 12-16 August

[Christopher Kreuzer]

4-way tie between Bezuidenhout, Larkin, Badacsonyi and Czopor.

I am currently trying to work out how the name Larkin ended up in Ukraine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larkin_(surname)

That will teach me to make assumptions. Of course Larkin is most familiar to British audiences as the surname of Philip Larkin, but the surname is also relatively common in Russia as well. A strange case of three different meanings in Russia, England and Ireland converging to the same name (if you allow for transliteration).

[Roger de Coverly]

I would be interested to hear from Billy Fellowes as to why he did not resign a long time before the end.

When an opponent seems not to be looking for the shortest or cleanist finish, instead mucking about by queening lots of pawns, there's the outside chance that the player with the excessive material advantage will set up a stalemate.

[Ian Thompson]

I would be interested to hear from Billy Fellowes as to why he did not resign a long time before the end.

A quick scan of his database games shows that he chooses to play on until he's mated, or very close to it, quite often. As Roger says, when your opponent is playing silly buggers that justifies playing on.

[John Saunders]

Without disagreeing with the above posts, I think the reality is slightly different. I've noticed that quite a lot of very young players play on to mate regardless of the position and have heard quite a number of adults grumbling about this. In my view this is not done with any malice aforethought, or bloody-mindedness, but is entirely innocent. They don't know any different: it is what they are used to from playing a lot of primary school and junior tournament chess, where it is perfectly sensible and reasonable to play on to mate since the likelihood of an opponent going wrong in any position is quite high. They have simply not become accustomed to the different and more rigid etiquette of OTB classical chess as played by seasoned, stronger adult competition players, where it can be perceived to be insulting to the intelligence of experienced opponents to play on long after all realistic hope of a result has evaporated. As to what can be done about it, I'm not sure. Perhaps chess coaches and schoolteachers should brief their students about what to do when playing in higher-level tournaments. In most cases I expect that junior players who play in adult chess regularly will soon catch on and fall into line.

It is a relatively new phenomenon because, back in the day, there was very little pre-secondary school chess. In the 1960s and 1970s we started playing competitions in our teens and perhaps joined a town club around the same time, and were thus initiated into adult chess, and adult chess etiquette, rather sooner.

[John Saunders]

As Chris mentioned above, there was a four-way tie for first place in the Kingston Invitational which concluded this evening.

(1-4) Maciej Czobor (POL - trophy on tie-break), Vladyslav Larkin (UKR), Roland Bezuidenhout (RSA), Stanley Badacsonyi (ENG)

Stanley Badacsonyi also became the inaugural winner of the Barden Cup, awarded to the best player aged under 16.

rd9-prizewinners.jpg

(left to right: Roland Bezuidenhout, Vladyslav Larkin, Maciej Czopor, organiser Stephen Moss, Stanley Badacsonyi)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I would be interested to hear from Billy Fellowes as to why he did not resign a long time before the end.

A quick scan of his database games shows that he chooses to play on until he's mated, or very close to it, quite often. As Roger says, when your opponent is playing silly buggers that justifies playing on.

It has been noted that Bodhana Sivanandan does this as well. She is: (a) younger than Billy Fellowes; and (b) stronger. Whether it will mean anything when they eventually stop this, is another matter. Psychologists would have a field day about self-consciousness and concepts of self and the point at which a game player balances time spent at the board against other needs. Juniors (those that do not read forum threads in any case) are also likely to not care about this. The point at which they do care, will probably mean they are not a junior any more (in the sense of taking on the cares and worries of adulthood - or the neuroses, YMMV).

[Christopher Kreuzer]

PS. Huge congratulations to Stephen Moss and all the others involved in organising this event. It is really great to see such strong local chess tournaments in this area of London. Long may it continue and go from strength to strength.

[SMoss]

Thanks Chris, that's very kind. Your point about juniors having all the time in the world and being happy to sit at the board for an extra hour to get mated while seasoned adult players reckon they have better things to do is an astute and brilliant one. There must be a PhD to be written there.

I gave Billy Fellowes a special organiser's prize for his extraordinary resilience on the final day. He had insisted on playing the adjourned game early so he could play round eight. He had had no sleep the night before the final day of the tournament because of a partying guest in the hotel room next door to him. He ate breakfast in 15 minutes before getting to the board and winning his round eight game. He then drew a ding-dong game in the afternoon. What a fighter.

I was criticised by one senior player for giving him a prize in the light of the non-resignation in the Lalic epic. But that was of little consequence to me compared with his resilience and fighting spirit. Losing to Peter Lalic after seven and a half hours and 272 moves might have made many players withdraw. Instead, it made the sleepless Billy more determined. I thought it was extraordinary.

I may as well say something else about the furore. Arbiters' beloved notion of "bringing the game into disrepute" is dangerously subjective nonsense. Very useful perhaps for arbiters, who can cite this vague nostrum to do what they want, but in practical terms a can of worms. In this tournament we had a few very short draws and players playing on for long periods in dead drawn positions, thus denying their opponents rest time between rounds. Are these examples of bringing the game into disrepute?

Surely the term should only be applied to the most egregious behaviour: cheating, obviously; collusion (of which I assure you there was none in the Fellowes-Lalic "world record" game); punching your opponent or an official (which we also managed to avoid, narrowly). To apply it to making a few extra pawn moves or a reluctance to admit defeat strikes me as total nonsense.

The apparent desire of arbiters to stop players playing chess or to quit rather than fight on explains to me why the great majority of them are weak players. As GM Ben Finegold once said to me, "Fight like a dog and be ready to die in the ditch". Like most American players, he hates draws and says you learn nothing by NOT playing chess. He, for one, would admire young Billy's amazing spirit.

[IM Jack Rudd]

I see the chessgames.com page for the game in question lists all 272 moves while claiming the game has a length of 255 moves. Gotta love these number type errors.

[Thomas Rendle]

I may as well say something else about the furore. Arbiters' beloved notion of "bringing the game into disrepute" is dangerously subjective nonsense. Very useful perhaps for arbiters, who can cite this vague nostrum to do what they want, but in practical terms a can of worms. In this tournament we had a few very short draws and players playing on for long periods in dead drawn positions, thus denying their opponents rest time between rounds. Are these examples of bringing the game into disrepute?

Surely the term should only be applied to the most egregious behaviour: cheating, obviously; collusion (of which I assure you there was none in the Fellowes-Lalic "world record" game); punching your opponent or an official (which we also managed to avoid, narrowly). To apply it to making a few extra pawn moves or a reluctance to admit defeat strikes me as total nonsense.

The apparent desire of arbiters to stop players playing chess or to quit rather than fight on explains to me why the great majority of them are weak players. As GM Ben Finegold once said to me, "Fight like a dog and be ready to die in the ditch". Like most American players, he hates draws and says you learn nothing by NOT playing chess. He, for one, would admire young Billy's amazing spirit.

First off I'd also like to congratulate Stephen on the success of the event. In particular it was an impressive performance from joint-winner Stanley Badacsonyi. I'm also pleased that Billy Fellowes recovered to finish the event strongly.

I would disagree about this not 'bringing the game into disrepute', and part of this is because of intention. Peter Lalic is not turning up to play chess, but to break the record for most moves in a game. He is doing this by getting closed positions against weaker (although not weak) opponents, and forcing for them to wait (or resign). He has said himself (see chessgames) that he is effectively holding his opponents hostage. This is different to manoeuvring around a bit in order to make a breakthrough, it's making the game go on for as long as he wants.

It's something he's done multiple times, causing problems at multiple events.

At what stage does it bring the game into disrepute? If he reaches a drawn endgame (opposite bishops with lots of pawn moves available, but drawn for example)? If he decides he wants a game that's 300 moves, 400 moves long, with no consideration to the opponent, arbiters and the tournament at large?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

I agree with the above ("He is doing this by getting closed positions against weaker (although not weak) opponents, and forcing for them to wait (or resign)"). Not that I'd be able to do this. I wonder what would happen if a grandmaster tried this in a stronger event? Would the other player (also a GM for the sake of argument) resign or punch the other player? Most likely, they would find a way to break out somehow.

There are theoretical endgames that take hundreds of moves for the winning side to demonstrate the win. If one of those arose on the board, that would be of interest. These 'longest' games in closed positions are not really of interest. There was a time when the top couple of longest games were also examples of interesting endgames.

I too am glad that Billy Fellowes showed such resilience. It is not quite the same, but I still feel slightly guilty at a game I won over 13 years ago, over 149 moves and four sessions (three adjournments), mainly because there was lots of moving around in a Q+P endgame (probably of quite low quality). That was only possible because it was a league game, in a league that had adjournments (we were at the limit for the number of adjournment sessions allowed as well - adjudication would have been forced at the end of the session where I eventually won).

There is no way I could have played that, then or now, in one session. There should be a place in chess for long manoeuvring games, but maybe not of the sort that Peter plays (but how do you legislate against them?). I am aware that strong players can play long endgames (e.g. Q+P and R+P) at quick time controls, but surely not accurately. If Peter played those sort of endgames, with instructive play, that would be great (maybe he does), but not these closed positions.

[John Foley]

Stanley was in great form and could have been sole winner had he converted his endgame against IM Conor Murphy.
Black to play and win.
6k1/p7/1pK5/4P3/8/8/P2n4/8 b - - 1 42

[Kevin Thurlow]

I agree with John S above. There's lots of online (and OTB) speed chess as well. where you probably don't resign quickly, or agree draws. Maybe this has engendered more of a fighting spirit. I drew a game with Supratit Banerjee recently, as it reached opposite coloured bishops and 5 pawns each. In the analysis, he demonstrated some rather good ideas on how he would try to win it. Are old-timers more used to adjudication or adjournment at move 30-36, where you might well agree a draw to avoid vagaries of adjudicators (or league secretary fiddling the result), or having to drive on a cold, dark night to a freezing venue, to play 4 moves and then agree a draw. Even tournaments had adjournments until fairly recently.

I played Billy Fellowes in a Blitz event and he seemed perfectly pleasant. Maybe in the game with PL, he felt that having got that far, he might as well continue to the bitter end? Maybe someone should annotate Peter's games with titles, as they did with Mahler's symphonies? "Interminable", "indescribable", that sort of thing.

Anyway, congratulations to Stephen Moss for his hard work. My advice as a happily retired long-time chess organizer is that someone will moan whatever you do, so accept whatever thanks you get with pleasure!

[NickFaulks]

I gave Billy Fellowes a special organiser's prize for his extraordinary resilience on the final day.

An excellent gesture, well done!

I was criticised by one senior player for giving him a prize in the light of the non-resignation in the Lalic epic.

Appalling. Are you willing to name and shame?

[Ian Thompson]

It must be nearing the arbiter declaring it 0-0 for bringing the game into disrepute!!

I wonder who put this comment against the game in TWIC - "I don't know what the players thought they were doing but they were fairly lucky not to be double defaulted. Anyhow Chessbase doesn't like games longer than 250 moves and this farce ended on move 272."