Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Historical knowledge and information regarding our great game.
David McAlister
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by David McAlister » Sat Aug 28, 2021 9:55 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Sat Aug 28, 2021 5:50 pm
Heh, your request for help is now searchable, as I found it here (along with the comment from your 'contact' who is presumably Jon D'Souza-Eva, unless he read it here first):
https://gwentchess.org.uk/mctunday-mctonedy/
If we follow the possibility that the name of Aitken's opponent was misheard, then the answer may appear at the Gwent chess website. Going to the Gwent Closed Championship page: https://gwentchess.org.uk/gwent-closed/ this entry appears in the list of Championship winners:
1978 G H Motamedi

Geoff Chandler
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Sun Aug 29, 2021 10:53 am

Hi Guys,

From the Newport Chess Facebook page:

Peter Ashley Clifford Varley
In those days, the top three boards for Newport were J.A.Macdonell, R.G.Taylor and D.O.Vaughan (not necessarily in that order).

However it is very possible that G H Motamedi was misheard over the phone as G H McTonady.
David (above) has hinted at this as well as the Newport Facebook page.

Graham Alcock
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Graham Alcock » Sun Aug 29, 2021 3:04 pm

Christopher Kreuzer wrote:
Sat Aug 28, 2021 7:42 pm
Would "St James" chess club possibly be the St James Club, a private members club in Mayfair, that might have been able to put together some strong chess players from its members to run Cheltenham close - more likely than some random church named "St James"...
St James was a club in the Birmingham league when I played in it many years ago.

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:39 am

Good spot, Graham. I was being seduced too much by the idea of a 'glamorous' London members club! A Birmingham league club called St James is far more appropriate. Apparently something to do with Longbridge Chess Club as well, some renaming going on. I will defer to Birmingham area players here...

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Christopher Kreuzer
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Christopher Kreuzer » Mon Aug 30, 2021 1:41 am

Geoff Chandler wrote:
Sun Aug 29, 2021 10:53 am
Hi Guys,

From the Newport Chess Facebook page:

Peter Ashley Clifford Varley
In those days, the top three boards for Newport were J.A.Macdonell, R.G.Taylor and D.O.Vaughan (not necessarily in that order).

However it is very possible that G H Motamedi was misheard over the phone as G H McTonady.
David (above) has hinted at this as well as the Newport Facebook page.
That sounds very likely. G H Motamedi, if the same person, has six games in the 365chess.com database, all from 1987 to 1990, and one of them in the US Open. Wonder if the playing style matches??

Haven't found anything else about G H Motamedi, but the surname is likely Iranian in origin.

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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Mon Aug 30, 2021 11:21 am

John Saunders wrote:
Sat Aug 28, 2021 6:44 pm
Maybe the later match on 18 December wasn't a National Club match - maybe the NC stood for something else on this occasion, or maybe it's his dodgy handwriting again and not NC at all. Can you show us, Geoff?
Sorry about delay John, here is the other N.C.C. game. As you can see Aitken has been in later to
add the 'Newport and Gwent.' (different pen) He has corrected or added to his score sheets a few
times at a later date. On one game he actually apologises for his handwriting! That cheered me up.

Image

See how Aitken does his '7's' (1977), sometimes they look like 1's. On the day date
I have been hit a few times with is it: the 11th, the 17th, the 21st, the 27th,
I've had to give an educated guess by looking at the dates of the previous and following games.
(of course if one of those dates has been also been 'Aitkenised' then I curse like a sea dog.)

The games score he is more careful with, and you can usually see right away if he means the first rank or the seventh.

Still enjoying this task, but these wee niggles upset my entering rhythm though not half as much as me thinking
one of the players has missed a trick or a trap. I try to ignore it but have to admit I still get sucked in and take
time out (once over an hour) only to eventually and reluctantly put the game through the mangle (my Fritz 6)
to satisfy my curiosity as what was it my cheapo-eye thought it saw.

I'm leaning heavily towards 'G H Motamedi' and it being misheard over the phone by a non playing captain.
With no official paperwork changing hands between the clubs maybe the person who graded the event might
have the details. (or did they too wonder who McTunedy was?)

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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Mon Aug 30, 2021 12:05 pm

A lad has posted on the Gwent Chess FaceBook page:

"Newport (Black on odd) names first: 1 R G Taylor 0 N Patterson 1 (time); 2 G H (Hussain) Motamedi v J M Aitken unfinished, for adjudication; 3 D O Vaughan 0.5 P W Coast 0.5; 4 N Tarkesh 1 J Cock 0; 5 A (Tony) Hughes 0 A Hurman 1 (time); 6 P Cunningham 1 M White 0. National Club Championship rd. 1. Nasser Tarkesh outplayed his opponent in a symmetrical English.

Phil Cunningham mounted a landslide K-side attack in a Smyslov variation of the Ruy Lopez. I let an advantage slip and repeated in time-shortage in a QGD Tarrasch. Newport`s losses on time were attributed to their lack of experience of telephone matches, though this didn`t bother the Iranians. When board two was adjudicated a draw Cheltenham went through on tie-break. IIRC the late Brian Heath made the arrangements and his wife assisted. Newport played at the Suflex factory in Risca where Brian worked.

Wonderful! Thank you all who contributed.

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John Saunders
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by John Saunders » Mon Aug 30, 2021 3:58 pm

I echo Geoff's sentiments - an amazing piece of detective work, well done everyone who contributed.

I have now updated the Aitken file to include book 41. A reminder of its location...

https://www.saund.org.uk/britbase/pgn/a ... iewer.html

The games are now largely* complete to October 1978. Geoff tells me that just four of the 43 available* scorebooks remain to be input.

Anyone fancying a bit more chess detective work might do well to look through the file, which has a few other examples of names which may not have been correctly deciphered. Also, quite a lot of names for which I've been unable to find a forename.

* unfortunately scorebooks books 23 and 24 (covering the period May 1961 to May 1963) haven't yet been located, though it is to be hoped that they turn up eventually.
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John Saunders
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by John Saunders » Mon Aug 30, 2021 4:24 pm

Geoff Chandler wrote:
Mon Aug 30, 2021 11:21 am

Sorry about delay John, here is the other N.C.C. game. As you can see Aitken has been in later to
add the 'Newport and Gwent.' (different pen) He has corrected or added to his score sheets a few
times at a later date. On one game he actually apologises for his handwriting! That cheered me up.

Image
OK, now the Motamedi/McTonedy mystery has been cleared up, I thought I'd have a closer look at this second NCC game played 18 December 1977.

White was P Abbott, and it is evident that Aitken has written the club identification 'Newport & Gwent' at a later date.

As I mentioned somewhere upthread, Cheltenham beat a club called St James by 3½-2½ in round 3 of the National Club Championship. Graham Alcock has helpfully pointed out that St James is/was a Midlands club. That is a useful bit of info, thank you. I then googled for P Abbott, chess and found this link...

http://records.birminghamchess.org.uk/BDCL-History.htm

... which is a history of the Birmingham & District Chess League (and an excellent piece of work).

I had already looked up P Abbott on the grading list though not found a club affiliation of St James. However, the BDCL history site has this snippet...
BDCL History wrote:St James named after the church and original venue in Leach Green lane Rubery, grew in size and moved to the King George V Pub Longbridge, where they were fielding 8 teams in the BDCL, when the pub closed down it was onto the near by Austin Social Club, with the demise of the Austin car plant and the redevelopment of the Longbridge area St James in 2005 moved across the road and became Greenlands.
... which tells us that St James and Greenlands are one and the same. I looked back at the entries for P Abbott on the grading list and found that there was a player of this name who was affiliated to Greenlands. He's not played for donkeys' years but was active around 1994 with grades in the 150s/160s.

So, my guess is that Jim Aitken has misidentified the occasion of this game in his scorebook at a later date and that it was in fact played in the round 3 National Club Championship match between Cheltenham and St James (Birmingham). That's what I'm going to go with until someone comes up with a better theory.
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Re: Aitken Opponent and Event (help)

Post by Geoff Chandler » Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:45 pm

Hi John,

Have thanked Gwent Chess for their help. Very helpful all round in particular David Vaughan
who if ever I need anything about Welsh Chess again will be first on the hit list.

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