English Chess Forum

Remembering IMC James Adams (04-ix-1921 27-vii-2013)

Thanks to Matt Mackenzie for initiating the thread elsewhere.

Nice couple of games there.

Another chess player mentioned there sounds like an interesting character:

...a very fine player named A. F. (Algy) Battersby, later to become General Secretary of the British Correspondence Chess Association. He had spent the greater part of the First World War playing chess in the Sinai Desert...

Would 'Algy' be short for Algernon?

I did find an "A. F. Battersby (London)" mentioned in a draughts column from 1904 in The Boy's Own Paper (also re-published in annual form as The Boy's Own Annual).

EDIT: Apparrently co-author of Chess For The Rank And File with W. L. Roche.

That was the same Battersby, yes, a stalwart of the British Correspondence Chess Association from early on. He (and the book mentioned above) are referenced a few times in my "British Correspondence Chess 1824-1987".

There was an Arthur Frank Battersby (2 Jun 1887 - 11 Apr 1955), an insurance agent, living in the same part of London as Jim Adams. Here's a photograph from an online family tree, originally posted by one of his children, showing him seated at a chessboard.
I can't find any Algernon Battersby, though, so I suspect Algy was just a nickname and Arthur Frank must have been our man.

I met AF Battersby more than once, and that's definitely him. I knew Jim Adams too and probably played him a few times at the Gambit in around 1946-7. My memory, not always to be trusted, tells me that Jim Adams had a deformed hand from birth a la Mikhail Tal, possibly a missing or stunted thumb on his right hand. Today I looked at the pics of him handing over the Mitcham trophy without coming to a sure conclusion about that. He was an outgoing, friendly man, never shy of expressing his views, and he liked to discuss opening theory with me. There might be some earlier letters from him to CHESS apart from the 1990s one.

Would be great if there were more letters in CHESS. Amazing that there is a photo of Battersby (a really nice one as well!), and that Leonard has confirmed that this is him. You do get the impression that postal/correspondence chess before the advent of computers really was something special.

"You do get the impression that postal/correspondence chess before the advent of computers really was something special."

Well, yes. I didn't play international CC until computers became available for transmission of moves. I heard too many nightmare stories of moves taking 3 months to come back from Russia. But playing purely domestic games allowed me to have a season emulating Estrin by playing the Latvian Gambit (+0=5-1), which I wouldn't do now. I gave it up as it was too drawish, but I expect with silicon help it's losish. The big benefits were that you could learn openings with the use of books, (mainly) avoid blunders and particularly play people you wouldn't normally meet. Of course the latter still applies - I played an early email event where an opponent sent me a photograph taken in his back garden next to the beach in Tahiti on Christmas Day! You still occasionally get friendly chats with some opponents, and as (up until recently) overseas travel was common-place, you sometimes do actually meet your opponents at some stage. I played a Norwegian a few years ago and said I'd like to play a Norwegian tournament sometime, he recommended Gausdal and the next day Hans Olav Lahlum emailed me to give me all the details. My opponent couldn't play, but met me at Oslo airport!

Obviously, computers create a lot of draws, but they have benefited CC as well. Tournaments don't last seven years any more...

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 08, 2021 9:10 am

Would be great if there were more letters in CHESS.

I'd say we are stuck with five.

You could try CHEESE perhaps taking you up to six.

Well, Roche has five letters, all different as well.

I presume the W. L. Roche above is the same as the co-author of Bridge for Ladies (1947)?

Like many people of this era (this has been discussed here before), it seems initials only is the order of the day. Very difficult to unearth the Christian names.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 08, 2021 2:57 pm

Well, Roche has five letters, all different as well.

I presume the W. L. Roche above is the same as the co-author of Bridge for Ladies (1947)?

Like many people of this era (this has been discussed here before), it seems initials only is the order of the day. Very difficult to unearth the Christian names.

Indeed. For cricket it was even more pronounced.

Not only that but you had to be called MJ something to be an England cricketer and attended public school.

Christopher Kreuzer wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 08, 2021 2:57 pm

Well, Roche has five letters, all different as well.

I presume the W. L. Roche above is the same as the co-author of Bridge for Ladies (1947)?

Like many people of this era (this has been discussed here before), it seems initials only is the order of the day. Very difficult to unearth the Christian names.

William Lewis Roche.