Media comments on chess

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David Robertson

Re: Media comments on chess

Post by David Robertson » Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:07 pm

Nick Ivell wrote:
Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:07 pm
Ah, discovered check is a sneaky one. You definitely don't want to announce that!
Indeed, you don't. But it's set me thinking: when, if ever, did I announce 'check'? Possibly as a child, but I have absolutely no recall of doing so as a serious competitive player (ie age 12+). Why not? Etiquette. It's simply ill-mannered to imply that your opponent needs to be alerted. And if they do need to be alerted...well, it's likely too late to help them. The kind subtleties of our game

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JustinHorton
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by JustinHorton » Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:43 pm

Oddly, I can recall having a post-match discussion with a teammate nearly twenty years ago on this very subject and they considered it good etiquette to say "check".
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NickFaulks
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by NickFaulks » Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:55 pm

JustinHorton wrote:
Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:43 pm
Oddly, I can recall having a post-match discussion with a teammate nearly twenty years ago on this very subject and they considered it good etiquette to say "check".
In one of my earliest games in a low division of the Insurance League ( those were the days! ) one of our team encountered a Yugoslav opponent who was furious that our man had not announced check to his queen.
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Nick Burrows
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Nick Burrows » Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:02 pm

David Robertson wrote:
Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:07 pm
Etiquette. It's simply ill-mannered to imply that your opponent needs to be alerted. And if they do need to be alerted...well, it's likely too late to help them. The kind subtleties of our game
Have you ever shown your opponent the move you made when they returned to the board? :lol:
Usually meant as a kindness, but I'm sure some players take as a minor insult

David Robertson

Re: Media comments on chess

Post by David Robertson » Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:31 pm

Nick Burrows wrote:
Wed Dec 29, 2021 9:02 pm
Have you ever shown your opponent the move you made when they returned to the board? :lol: Usually meant as a kindness, but I'm sure some players take as a minor insult
Nope. I've never done that, nor would I ever, for fear of offering insult. But I have had players, on mercifully rare occasions, ask me to indicate my last move whereupon, marshalling all the grace available to me in the circumstances, I point it out (and privately wonder why I waste my time on this nonsense)

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John Clarke
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by John Clarke » Wed Dec 29, 2021 10:07 pm

Didn't someone once announce check when playing Miles, who answered "Why, so it is!"?

That Yugoslav gentleman probably also thought you forfeited castling rights once your king had been checked.

And surely it's just common courtesy to show the opponent your move after they've come back to the board. I'd regard it as such. Some folk are simply too quick to take offence or perceive an insult when none is intended.
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Matt Mackenzie
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Matt Mackenzie » Wed Dec 29, 2021 10:15 pm

I nearly always do that - and have never seen it as "insulting" at all when it is done to me.

(when it is really obvious, i might reply "I know" with a smile)
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Stewart Reuben » Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:29 pm

I have returned to the board and been puzzled as to what move my opponent had played. Realising this from my body language, they then point out to me what had happened.
Once I returned to the board, sat and thought for a bit, and then made my next move. I then went to press the clock, only to discover that his clock was going. I was trying to make two consecutive moves! My opponent told me he thought something odd was going on, but just left it for the event to unravel.

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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:49 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:29 pm
Once I returned to the board, sat and thought for a bit, and then made my next move. I then went to press the clock, only to discover that his clock was going.
Larry Christiansen once did that in an Olympiad ( although he hadn't been for a walk, he had dozed off ). He put the blame on his opponent for playing such boring chess that it was impossible to guess whose move it was.
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Paul Habershon
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Paul Habershon » Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:03 pm

Paul Habershon wrote:
Tue Dec 28, 2021 4:00 pm
Nick Ivell wrote:
Tue Dec 28, 2021 3:49 pm
Proper chess too. You can invoke the touch move rule if the opponent has missed the check. This can lead to ruinous material loss.
I actually benefited from this in a county match on November 7th. My opponent did not notice a discovered check but made a rook move. Unfortunately for him the rook could also block the check with the aforementioned ruinous material loss. He didn't at first seem to realise that the rook move was compulsory and I felt rather embarrassed by insisting on it.
I've just been away for a few days, but now back home and able to illustrate the above. If I'd been Kasparov I could have posted sooner. Was it on the Terry Wogan show that the late presenter expressed incredulity that Kasparov had total recall of all his games? GK: 'Of course, it is my profession!'



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Geoff Chandler
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Geoff Chandler » Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:24 pm

I recall we voted on this about 12 years ago. 'Do you say "Check" or not??'

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1748&start=15

I mostly DO announce "check" = 10

I mostly DON'T announce "check" =53

It ran for 6 pages, one of the last comments was Stewart saying;

'Somebody who says 'check' during the game is arguably infringing 12.6 of the Laws of Chess.'

David Sedgwick
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by David Sedgwick » Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:26 pm

Stewart Reuben wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 12:29 pm
Once I returned to the board, sat and thought for a bit, and then made my next move. I then went to press the clock, only to discover that his clock was going. I was trying to make two consecutive moves! My opponent told me he thought something odd was going on, but just left it for the event to unravel.
I commented on this incident at viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9330&start=45.

Nick Ivell
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Nick Ivell » Thu Dec 30, 2021 8:15 pm

I'm not so surprised that Kasparov had total recall of his games.

To the uninitiated, skill at chess seems almost magical. I recall playing a skittles game with a colleague, many years ago. Afterwards I played through the game from memory, pointing out his mistakes. No one on this forum will think this any big deal, but my vanquished opponent certainly did!

This gets me thinking about more serious feats of memory. Did Leonard Barden say, during his TV coverage of the 1972 world championship, that Fischer knew every game that had ever been played?

Or does my memory deceive me?

Leonard Barden
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Leonard Barden » Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:13 pm

Nick Ivell wrote:
Thu Dec 30, 2021 8:15 pm
Did Leonard Barden say, during his TV coverage of the 1972 world championship, that Fischer knew every game that had ever been played?
Or does my memory deceive me?
Your memory deceives you, Nick.

In fact, I gave some GMs some informal memory tests about their own games during Leipzig 1960 and recounted the results on BBC Network Three. There was a surprising variance. At one extreme Gligoric told me that he could bever recall any of his games; at the other, I quoted to Tal an obscure game from early in his career and he told me the opening, the subsequent strategy, and the conversations he had with his opponent beforehand and afterwards. Fischer was in the middle: he had good memory of his own games, but weak recall of the games of other GMs.

Nick Ivell
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Re: Media comments on chess

Post by Nick Ivell » Fri Dec 31, 2021 5:46 pm

Thanks for the clarification, Leonard.

I suspect that Fischer had a phenomenal memory; probably all the world champions had.

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