English Chess Forum

I have struggled to find games from the Robert Silk Fellowship tournaments during the 1970s.

There are a few games from the 1982 and 1984 events.

Does anyone have any games from the 1970s events?

I have Littlewood-Mestel from the 1976 event and there a couple more scattered in BCMs and CHESS.

Thanks!

No games. Only this 1974 starter for eight -

Thanks. I do have all the BCMs and CHESSs from that era. It is the games I (and the databases) lack.

Canterbury 1973

Mestel v Crouch 1976

Speelman v Durão 1978

Hebden v Wells 1980

Item 85 here offered (21 years ago!) around 90 scoresheets, which sounds a lot

Item 1584 here suggests that there was a bulletin for the 1976 event

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 3:41 pm

Canterbury 1973

Mestel v Crouch 1976

Speelman v Durão 1978

Hebden v Wells 1980

Item 85 here offered (21 years ago!) around 90 scoresheets, which sounds a lot

Item 1584 here suggests that there was a bulletin for the 1976 event

Thanks Justin: much appreciated.

Yes, much lower profile events than these had their own tournament bulletins in those days.

Incidentally this excerpt from di Felice (via Google Books, I do not have the item) suggests that the 1978 event overlapped with the Evening Standard Open for a period of several days. Can this be right?

Wells v Hodgson 1980 and in fact all of Wells' games from that event - but only his, I've checked - seem to be available here.

EDIT: this would appear to be because Sean Parker transcribed them from Ian's own scorebooks, so they are not from a source that would produce further games if inspected.

If anybody has a Times login, and they Google the term "robert silk international" they ought to get a first-page hit as follows:

www.thetimes.co.uk › archive › article

The Times Archive | The Times & The Sunday Times

By Harry Golombek Chess Correspondent Play in the second round of the Robert Silk international chess tournament in London yesterday was as lively and ...

But from what year it is, and whether any play is given, I - not having a login - cannot tell you.

EDIT: Well with a bit of cunning I can tell you it was 7 July 1976 and I can uncover this much of Golombek's column, but you'll need a login to see any more, if indeed there is more to see

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 4:07 pm

Incidentally this excerpt from di Felice (via Google Books, I do not have the item) suggests that the 1978 event overlapped with the Evening Standard Open for a period of several days. Can this be right?

The Evening Standard events were 6 round Swisses on what was then the normal 1*Friday, 3*Saturday, 2*Sunday schedule. They did however run over two consecutive weekends with a split schedule and grading restricted sections. Unless you were over 190, you could play both weekends. As far as I recall the Open was the second weekend, so the Robert Silk would have finished by then. From memory, both weekends were in the big Cunard hotel next to Hammersmith flyover.

It was in Paignton in 1971, and Birmingham Daily Post was very excited that Martyn Corden was doing well, sharing the lead after two rounds. No games though (yet). I will continue the scroll through the British Newspaper Archive

Kevin Thurlow wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 5:22 pm

It was in Paignton in 1971

I wonder if there's any chance that this book might have any of the games (or that its author might be able to locate some).

JustinHorton wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 15, 2021 3:41 pm

Canterbury 1973

With Stean v Botterill and Adorjan v Stean annotated here (p.434 et seq) by Laszlo Szabo, no less

Meanwhile I see that Botterill v Beliin was annotated, partly by Botterill himself, in a book called Counter Gambits, some of which can be viewed on Google Books. There's one page missing, albeit only one game move, 5...exd5, and presumably a great deal of theory and analysis by the book's author, one Tim Harding.

Who was Robert Silk and his Fellowship? Was this different from the Robert Silk Young Masters?

Competitive activity is the lifeblood of chess and The Robert Silk Young Masters was a most important series dating back to the early 1970s.

https://www.englishchess.org.uk/100-yea ... eration/4/

Apparently other awards by Robert Silk included sponsoring trips by young chess players to the USSR!

(Possibly the "Robert Silk Travel Hartston Upton Fellowship".)

This quote from 1972 suggests an enduring business-sponsorship model:

The emblem of the Robert Silk Surinvest Managed Fund mounts the horse's head that is left when the base is taken away from Robert Silk's chess knight on the bull chosen by John Ormond to express Surinvest's prevailing frame of mind.