Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

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Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sat May 01, 2021 8:40 am

6 months seems quite quick for a CC game, even when the post travelled more quickly than it does now. Could it have been an internal CC game (at GCHQ?) where those names are actually departments or room numbers? They probably didn't publish names like "Anti-Soviet Code Breaking Team", perhaps they called it H5r, for example.

Mike Gunn
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Mike Gunn » Sat May 01, 2021 11:30 am

Could H5 be Hut 5? (left side vs right side)

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sat May 01, 2021 12:23 pm

Hi Kevin and Mike,

I have had two private PM's suggesting the very same things so great minds are thinking alike.

I too have been busy looking for a spook connection. 658 is not a prime number nor is it a Fibonacci number.

However...

War was declared on Germany on the 1st September 1939 and 658 days later, June 20th 1941
The German Naval Enigma was cracked by Alan Turing!

I think I'll wait till next week and see if we have 1950's year books.

Thanks everyone, all suggestions have been greatly appreciated. Keep them coming.

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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun May 02, 2021 1:37 am

Alan McGowan has been in touch.

BCM of Feb 1953 reports on the British Correspondence Chess League.
It lists the clubs who have entered and shows that three divisions were formed.

In Division 1 were:-

Appleby-Frodingham
L'Avenir
Barnet
Brighton
Cambridge City
Ealing
Erdington 'A'
Harrow
Insurance
Lensbury
North Thames Gas 1
Scots (BCCA)

Aitken's was a member of the Lud-Eagle club. (Div II and III not listed.)

Another source to check. I'll soon have this solved.

Kevin Thurlow
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Kevin Thurlow » Sun May 02, 2021 8:12 am

Bear in mind that there was also BH Wood's Postal Chess League, and that some people play for different clubs in CC. e.g. I played for Mushrooms at CC but never played for them OTB.

David Williams
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by David Williams » Sun May 02, 2021 8:23 am

We may know who or what H stands for by this evening.

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun May 02, 2021 9:51 am

Hi David,

Sound intriguing, hopefully a good lead or maybe even a solution.

Hi Kevin,

A Mushroomer! Oh how I envied you guys. I really did.

Image

see viewtopic.php?f=2&t=10973&p=249950&hili ... ms#p249950

You could be onto something, but did players not play one or two games v each team.
There is only one postal game (if indeed that is what it is). I will look at the 53-54 CHESS/BCM's mags for a clue.

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John Saunders
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by John Saunders » Sun May 02, 2021 9:57 am

David Williams wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 8:23 am
We may know who or what H stands for by this evening.
:lol: :lol: Yes, that joke had occurred to me too! (I guess a lot of us are watching Line of Duty - perhaps it deserves a thread of its own under 'Not Chess' to see if a chess players' collective can figure out what's going to happen).

Some very interesting ideas, some of which corroborate my own thoughts. In the original Aitken thread I have already appealed for someone to look things up the 1952/53 Yearbook as it would be very handy for details of county/National Club matches which used to be reported in full in the mid-1950s. The County & District Correspondence (Ward-Higgs) Championship idea had immediately occurred to me as it used to start around November/December time and often lasted around six months. As Tim says, it was the one correspondence event which OTB players could be expected to play in. I'm one such - I've played in the Ward-Higgs four times but in no other corr game. I like David's H5r/H5l interpretation - the 'right'/'left' thing hadn't occurred to me and seems quite feasible. Kevin's idea of 'Hut 5' left and right side looks promising.

By the way, 'H' reminds me of H-Block, of Maze Prison notoriety. Such buildings were so named because of their capital H shape, which was a very common one during the war, when all manner of buildings needed to be built quickly, often as temporary hospitals or other government buildings. I vaguely remember driving past (what I didn't yet know to be) GCHQ in Cheltenham in the 1970s and I think a number of their buildings were to this single-storey H-pattern. (I myself worked on a government site comprising similar single-storey H-pattern wartime-built buildings for 20 years before joining the chess industry. The site had been intended as a temporary wartime hospital for the aftermath of D-Day but, thankfully, was never needed as the war had not followed the pattern of WW1 trench warfare as had been expected. After the war, instead of pulling it down, it had been used to house civil servants and wasn't demolished until the 2000s. The same story applies to many other buildings all over the UK.) So maybe H simply stood for the shape of the office buildings at GCHQ and they were numbered accordingly.

I had a look for H5 online and up popped the 'In Memoriam: Hugh Alexander' article which I'm sure has been referred to here previously. In particular, this para...
As soon as the war ended Hugh [Alexander] returned to John Lewis', to be deputy head of the Research Unit, second to Welchman. But he did not really merge into a job that involved a black jacket and striped trousers, and a year later he was back at GC&CS, now called GCHQ and located at Eastcote, on the NW edge of the London suburban sprawl. He started off in 'R department'-the ancestor of HR, but then a separate division. The
original idea, which lapsed, was that he would become the first Director of the Australian centre. He in fact moved to head the Coleridge party, and soon moved again, this time upwards to be head of the Russian crypt branch, H5. In June 1949 Josh Cooper left H to join the Directorate and Hugh replaced him as head of the division, the post he held for the next 21½ years.
Perhaps I should have prefaced that with a spoiler alert...

Incidentally, nobody has yet commented on the game moves. I've had a look and can't say I was impressed. White started rather poorly and by move 18 Black has a dominant knight on d4 which cannot easily be evicted, as well as a pin down the c-file and pressure on the c4-pawn. But he immediately trades in the knight for, OK, a pawn plus, but someone playing decent correspondence chess might have been able to foresee a strong intermezzo move and a subsequent loosening of the position, with considerable counterplay for White. Black's material advantage quickly evaporates and his level position quickly subsides into a lost one with weak endgame play. If players of Aitken's quality were involved, they could only have been White, and even then their choice of move must have compromised in some way by the preferences of consultation partners of a considerably lower ability.
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Geoff Chandler
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun May 02, 2021 2:42 pm

Ah 'H' is something to do with 'Line of Duty.' :) Sorry I did get it, but I can honestly say I have never watched a single episode.
I got hooked into 'Elementary' for a while (and it has chess in it!) but it started to get endless with a boring back story.
Very picky what I watch on TV. Anything to do with comedy, but nothing comes close to Fawlty Towers, Bilko or another 'H' Hancock!

Hi John,

Without a doubt Aikten was White ('1' marked in the Index and white won.) .
It might not mean much but he also played 3.c4 v the O'Kelly in v Donald Leslie, 1952. The only time before 1953 he met 2...a6.

Very possibly a team consultation game. It obviously meant something to him, else why enter it.
Also in the very brief intro to the index he adds this was his serious games.

Image

See how he does 'I' in 'I had White' it looks the second letter of the black player.

Image

HIL (?)

Ian has loads of loose score sheets from which Aitken copied in his game. There might be something in there.


EDIT: Just thought of something, this is the only game where AItken gives both sides names.

Image

Obviously for all the others he leaves his name out. But here both sides are in....

....the good news is am using the AItken games on my blog.

https://www.redhotpawn.com/chess-blog/l ... ogpost.482

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John Saunders
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by John Saunders » Sun May 02, 2021 4:04 pm

Geoff Chandler wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 2:42 pm

See how he does 'I' in 'I had White' it looks the second letter of the black player.

HIL (?)
Yes, but in the index image I don't think that middle letter could be a capital I. The more I look at it, the more I think it's H5 (something) in both cases. Harry the h-pawn gets everywhere, doesn't he? (GingerGM should be informed). (OK, maybe HS in both cases is possible, too.)

But, let's face it, Dr A's handwriting was a nightmare. We could hire a graphologist but they'd probably want double time. I hope Dr A's wartime contributions were a bit more organised and legible. As the German hotel visitor asks at the end of a well-loved Fawlty Towers episode, "however did they win?"
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Geoff Chandler
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun May 02, 2021 4:27 pm

Hi John,

Part of the examination to get into Bletchley Park was a page full of scribbles.

"Decipher this." It was Aitken's shopping list.

Meeting Ian on Tuesday. Will search for year books and everything Aitken in the 50's CHESS and BCM. (the bound copies have an index.)
Having an Aitken entering day off but every time I go into my study I see this pile of score books and feel guilty.
Also Mrs C. is currently tiling the bathroom floor, I'll have to get out of that (and criticise her work afterwards) so I'll do some more tonight.

I think I mentioned there is more fun to come when we hit the 60's.
In a few games Aitken has the names, date and event.....but no moves!!
I actually held score book up the light to see if he used invisible ink.

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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by David Williams » Sun May 02, 2021 5:00 pm

Geoff Chandler wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 4:27 pm
I think I mentioned there is more fun to come when we hit the 60's.
In a few games Aitken has the names, date and event.....but no moves!!
I actually held score book up the light to see if he used invisible ink.
That's easy, because I've got scorebooks like that. You play a game and record it on a scoresheet, but before you can transcribe it into your scorebook you play another game which you do record in the scorebook, and you leave a blank page. And then you never do get around to transcribing the first one.

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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun May 02, 2021 7:04 pm

Hi Dave,

I am shelving the reason as to the why and will cross that bridge when I come to it
but I will say I cannot imagine Aitken never getting around to it. He was very thorough.

His score books are a mixture of what I call 'live' books, the book he used during the game.
and 'copy' books, books he has used to enter from a score sheet.
It may be he has lost the score sheet, the index book for that period will explain all.....(hopefully).
The lost score sheet looks a good bet because sometimes the dates are out of order giving the impression
he has found a score sheet. But until that happy day I'll concentrate on the 1950's one game at a time.

E Michael White
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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by E Michael White » Sun May 02, 2021 7:59 pm

When he writes what looks like "I had white" I think he is possibly writing "J had White" ie J for James.

Sorry if anyone else has already pointed this out; I haven't got time to read all the post at the moment.

Around about the time I played him I bumped into him at an amateur opera. I might write something about this on the other thread. This may have been a new retirement interest he could then follow or perhaps he had more time to follow an established interest. Maybe he commented our game - "this man played non-standard opening lines as well as non-standard notes in the overture!"

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Re: Aitken Game 658 (a mystery)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Wed May 05, 2021 3:19 pm

I was at the club today trying to clear up this wee mystery.

I usually walk but a bus appeared just as I left the house so I jumped onto it. (this is relevant - read on).
On the way to the club the bus was involved in a minor prang with a car.
Nobody was hurt, but the bus had to wait till the police arrived. I got off and walked to the club.

Searched all the BCM's, no joy, but the volume of CHESS I needed (vol. 19) was missing!
The librarian was there and showed me the records indicating the club has a copy and
these bound books are never lent out. Where is it?

I am now convinced that game 658 is hot in the spy world.
They (MI5 or Mi6) arranged the accident to delay me giving them enough to time to nip into the club and nick the book.
(funny how the bus just appeared as I left the house - perfect timing.)

If anybody else thinks they have volume 19 of CHESS, I'd check to see if it still there.