English Chess Forum

The death of Syd Kalinsky on 7 April has been announced on the Essex Chess Association website. Syd was 88 and retained much of his strength into his later years. His last grade was 136 and he continued to play regularly up until the pandemic. See https://www.essexchess.org.uk/
RIP Syd.

I managed to get Syd's age wrong. He was born in August 1931 so he was 89.

Better link

I attended Syd's funeral by zoom today. There were 111 participants.
They will be holding 'Shiva' for 4 days, presumably from Sunday. That is where the official mourners receive guests who come to pay their respects. In lock-down perhaps this is limited to the immediate family.
Sid had 4 children and 6 great grand children. Yet I learnt he was send to Switzerland by the new NHS to undergo treatment for TB. He left school at 14. but managed to pass the chartered accountant exams. His company employed a number of chess players. One, Danny Wright, will be writing an obituary.
He founded Cavendish CC, for which I Play as did Syd until Covid interfered. GM Jonathan Parker and GM William Watson have been among the members of this strong club. Syd was President of the Club from its start until he died.

I knew Syd as a young man at Ilford Chess Club. He was always helpful, encouraging and friendly to me and I really appreciated that. He was a true chess lover. RIP Syd, we will miss you.

Sad news. I didn't know Syd personally or for long, but his love for the game and the respect in which he was held in the club were obvious.

Sad news. I liked Syd without actually knowing him. I know he helped and gave accountancy work to my friend Richard O'Brien if Richard was ever in need of work. One anecdote involving Syd was that my team Slough, were playing his team ( I think Ilford or maybe Cavendish) in the National Club Competition around 1993. I was playing a member of their team who had a reputation for being a bit of a prickly character. He was a nice guy, but not known for being a good loser. Our game was very complicated and degenerated into a time scramble to reach move 40, and we stopped writing moves down. Eventually my flag fell, but I had a completely winning position. I was confident that I had made the time control and started to reconstruct the moves as I recalled them. But my opponent remained silent and made no effort to assist me. My reconstruction took the moves played up to move 42. I asked for my opponents opinion, and he said he did not agree. I asked what he thought the moves were, but he said he didn't know, but that my suggestions were incorrect. The match result hinged on this game. But we had reached a stalemate ! No point in sending the position for adjudication, because it was totally lost for my opponent. He wasn't claiming that I had lost on time - he was just saying that he didn't agree with my reconstruction of moves, and therefore wouldn't agree that I had made the time control. So he wouldn't resign ! But I remember it was Syd Kalinsky, who was hovering around our board (along with the other 10 players in the match) interceded and sportingly told his player " you lost" and "Dont be so silly, just resign" - or words to that effect. My opponent still refused to resign, so we left the away venue without an agreed match result. We submitted the match result as a win for us, and we appeared in the pairings for the next round so my opponents protestations must have been disregarded by his own team.

A short tribute: https://ilfordchessclub.com/syd-kalinsky/

I see from the last link that he was a fellow 2c3 Sicilian devotee

(given his liking for tactical play, that shouldn't be possible if you believe certain - wrong - people)