Andy Southall

[LawrenceCooper]

Obituary on the Warley Quinborne Chess Club website: http://www.warleyquinborne.co.uk/

[Simon Rogers]

Sad news about Andy.
I believe he reached a peak performance of 220 ECF and gained an IM norm.
RIP

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Does anyone know Andy Southall's birth year? I think it was 1957, from both the FIDE ratings website and the ECF grading record (both for Andrew C. Southall). And if anyone has details of his IM norm (e.g. tournament and year), that would be of interest as well.

From the Warley Quinborne obituary:

He was famous for his Morra Gambit. I believe he has been one of the most knowledgeable players in the world on this opening. It is a shame Andy never kept any of his games as I believe they would supply precious supplementary theory on this opening.

Hopefully some games can be found.

[Ian Thompson]

And if anyone has details of his IM norm (e.g. tournament and year), that would be of interest as well.

The FIDE website says he's unrated. I don't know how someone could get an IM norm without also getting a FIDE rating, so I'd question the accuracy of that statement.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Maybe the same way you get a FIDE database entry without a rating? I don't know.

Not listed here:

https://ratings.fide.com/title_norms.ph ... ountry=ENG

But even if that proves mythical, the other claim could be corroborated: "Among his scalps were often GMs and IMs". Some of those games must survive, even if they are draws rather than wins (I'd happily count a draw against an IM or GM as a 'scalp'!).

[Chris Rice]

Thinks I've located a sizeable scalp here Chris

Mark Taimanov v Andy Southall, Birmingham 1989

1.Nf3 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Ng5 Nf6 4.d3 e3 5.Bxe3 Nc6 6.Nc3 e5 7.Nge4 Bb4 8.Bg5 d5 9.Nxf6+ gxf6 10.Qh5+ Ke7 11.Bd2 Be6 12.O-O-O Bxc3 13.Bxc3 d4 14.Bd2 a5 15.f4 Qd5 16.b3 a4 17.Kb2 axb3 18.axb3 Qc5 19.Ra1 Rxa1 20.Kxa1 Qxc2 0-1 0-1

[Matt Mackenzie]

Doesn't say what event is was apart from "Birmingham" which could cover all sorts of things.

Still, the idea he never had a FIDE rating does stretch credulity a bit doesn't it.

[IM Jack Rudd]

He could have gotten an IM norm and then fallen off the bottom of the list while the floor was still 2200, I suppose.

[Roger de Coverly]

He could have gotten an IM norm and then fallen off the bottom of the list while the floor was still 2200, I suppose.

The Olimpbase site http://www.olimpbase.org/index.php has scans of all the FIDE rating lists published in Informator up to 1991. BCM and Chess periodically published FIDE ratings of British players as well.

That said, you might expect someone with an IM Norm to have one or two games included in bulletins at the time and then being picked up by databases.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Thinks I've located a sizeable scalp here Chris

Mark Taimanov v Andy Southall, Birmingham 1989

1.Nf3 f5 2.e4 fxe4 3.Ng5 Nf6 4.d3 e3 5.Bxe3 Nc6 6.Nc3 e5 7.Nge4 Bb4 8.Bg5 d5 9.Nxf6+ gxf6 10.Qh5+ Ke7 11.Bd2 Be6 12.O-O-O Bxc3 13.Bxc3 d4 14.Bd2 a5 15.f4 Qd5 16.b3 a4 17.Kb2 axb3 18.axb3 Qc5 19.Ra1 Rxa1 20.Kxa1 Qxc2 0-1 0-1

That's nice. Surely a simultaneous display?

Have tried to find records of Taimanov giving simuls in the UK in 1989.

Chessgames does have Taimanov playing in a number of tournaments in 1989, including the super-strong GMA Baleares Open (which appears to have also featured Samuel Reshevsky, though that looks a bit dodgy). But nothing in Birmingham.

Ah, here we go, it was probably a simul:

Chess - Volume 53 - Page 2 - 1988

"Brian Whitehouse reports on the visit of GM Mark Taimanov to the Birmingham League Club Warley Quinborne Left to right ... By way of a change , we decided not to arrange the usual simultaneous display ( he had in fact played several"

Southall is mentioned in the report, and the simul took place on Thursday 6 October 1988.

There was a Vittoria Closed event (6-17 November 1989) where Taimanov "dominated" to score 9.5/11 (organised, apparently by "Joe Grech junior and his father".

Details in BCM in an early 1990 issue. Also known as the "Malta International".

Maybe a kind soul with access to the 1989 CHESS issues could look up the cross-table?

[EDIT: On second thoughts, maybe this thread is best left at the point of celebrating the lovely win by Andy Southall against Taimanov. It is a nicely played game.]

[Matt Mackenzie]

Reshevsky did play in that GMA event I think, IIRC practically every living GM did.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

There is no trace on the Olimpbase text lists of the FIDE ratings prior to 2002 of any rating for Andy Southall.

Though the FIDE rating page for him shows no rating, no individual calculations for his games and nothing on the 'Rating Progress Chart', there are 8 of his games on the database but these may only be rapidplay games (in any case, I believe 9 games are needed for a rating or did that change at some point?).

This is the statictics tab:

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/452831/statistics

The 'Total Games' pie-charts show 8 games, but the information there doesn't quite tally with the pie-charts for the rapid games (nothing showing for standard or blitz games). Maybe something missing in the underlying data.

For those interested in possible games (more likely to find them from fellow club members), the names of some of his 'rated' games (these count towards the ratings of others, I think) are:

Steven Briggs (win and a loss)
John E. Crump (win and a loss)
Marcus Walsh (one win)
Irvin Ortega (one loss)

First three above, all ENG. Irvin Ortega registered Phillipines (PHI).

Here is Irvin Ortega's result against Andy Southall:

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/520504 ... ent=452831

And against Jack Rudd:

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/520504 ... ent=405736

I am beginning to suspect that the FIDE statistics part of the rating website is, er, faulty?

I tried to look up his ECF grading history, but apparently the ECF grading history is no longer online prior to 2020.

[Nick Ivell]

A win in a simul doesn't really count as a 'scalp', however pleasant it feels at the time.

I'm reminded of Karpov's quote that simuls never taught him anything. They are never more than a bit of fun really. I did draw with him in a simul, but I never make anything of it, because he simply blundered a pawn after positionally outplaying me.

[Roger de Coverly]

I tried to look up his ECF grading history, but apparently the ECF grading history is no longer online prior to 2020.

I think you must have been looking at the calculation details.

Try the "View OTB Results" button.

http://www.ecfrating.org.uk/v2/new/list ... de=104751G

That shows Birmingham, Wolverhampton and local club results. Nothing that would have been FIDE rated.

Irwib Ortega's ECF history also shows him playing in the same leagues as well as the 4NCL.

[Joey Stewart]

The only interaction I ever had with Andy was limited to say the least, I called him to see if he might be able to play a match in Birmingham and he simply said 'no' and slammed the phone down.