Epsom 1 v Kingston 1, Surrey League division 2, Willoughby Arms, Kingston, 21 February 2022
This decisive game shows Will Taylor launch an unstoppable attack against Marcus Gosling in the promotion match played at Kingston. Marcus said that he had only just taken up this defence. There is no good time to try out a new opening and you would have thought that the Fort Knox variation of the French Defence sounded solid, but there is always another chapter to read.
Legendary IM Michael Basman gave a presentation on the games and legacy of H.E. Bird
Michael Basman treated us last night, the evening of St Valentine’s, to a lecture – more of a love note – to Henry Bird, one of the historic figures of English chess. Although primarily known as an openings innovator and chess instructor, notable for having founded the UK Chess Challenge, Basman has a keen interest in chess history, as befits a chess player who studied history at university.
The topic of the talk was unknown in advance to the assembled Kingstonian cognoscenti. We half expected a detailed analysis of some games in which Basman had narrowly failed to beat the Soviet legends Tal and Botvinnik back in the late 1960s/early 70s when Basman played for England. Perhaps we could have been treated to a discourse on the Fried Liver Attack which Basman had popularised in his early instructional pamphlets, having translated the term from the somewhat more stylish word Fegatello, an Italian dish. Instead, we were given a thoughtful and masterly account of the evolution of international chess in the Victorian period.
Basman devises his lectures as he devises his openings – with an element of surprise. We never know what we are going to get until it happens. There are, however, some constants. First of all, Basman is an excellent verbal communicator. He speaks fluently and authoritatively with an irrepressible wit. Given the subject matter, avian puns were unavoidable, in this case mainly from the audience sadly. Secondly, pure thought must be unadorned by technology. So the presentation notes were handwritten on loose sheets of A4 paper. The absence of staples meant that at one point the sheets inevitably got mixed up. Suddenly we had a vision of a hapless prime minister making a disjointed speech to the Confederation of British Industry. Fortunately, our speaker retrieved the situation without having to resort to ruminations on Peppa Pig.
I recall a presentation Basman gave at the London Chess Conference in 2016. The topic was “A survival guide to teaching chess”. I had expected stories of teaching chess in the classroom or of setting up a national schools chess tournament or even an academic account of chess didactics. Instead, we were given a financial survival guide based on Basman’s well-publicised dispute with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs regarding the application of VAT. Suffice to say that a pedagogue representing himself was no match for Queen’s Counsel, resulting eventually in the loss of the case and a financial disaster. Instead of Powerpoint slides, the presentation used large colourful posters held aloft by an attractive assistant. This episode was surreal to say the least. The attendees said later that they had no idea about tax law but that it had been very amusing.
Henry Edward Bird was born in Portsmouth in 1830 (or 1829 according to other sources) in a period when chess in England was in its infancy. Bird was to prove crucial in popularising chess and played a vital part in the development of the game during the 19th century. He was a railways accountant and wrote a book on the subject. The coming of the railways was fundamental to social and cultural change. Indeed, we can trace the emergence of chess in English towns to the arrival of the railways. So in his profession, Bird literally carried chess to the population (see also the Kingston railway connection).
According to Basman, Bird should be much better known. He attributes Bird’s relative obscurity to losing out to Howard Staunton (b. 1810) in what we would today call the information war. When chess history comes to be rewritten, Bird will earn his rightful place in the pantheon of masters.
One cannot help but surmise that the reason for the choice of topic is that there are biographical parallels between the lives of Basman and Bird. Both are notable chess players who arguably did not get the recognition they deserved. They are both openings innovators. Bird lends his name to Bird’s Opening (1. f4) and the Bird’s Defence in the Ruy Lopez. Basman has popularised offbeat openings (Grob, St George Defence) and his name is attached to various other openings (eg Basman-Williams attack against the King’s Indian). Bird and Basman were also both popularisers of the game. Bird had a vision of the newly emerged industrial working classes adopting chess and wrote several chess books, as has Basman.
We learned that Bird did not particularly favour the Bird’s opening. This leads us to the main takeaway from the evening: our openings repertoire is too narrow. Bird liked to try many different openings, including 1. g4 and 1. h4. His contemporaries were unsettled by this unpredictability, which was his main purpose. Eventually, 30 years after he started playing it more regularly, the Bird’s opening was credited to him in 1885.
Bird was of the romantic school of chess and relished sacrifices and attacking play. He played all the greats, including Horwitz, Anderssen, Falkbeer, Boden, Blackburne, Gossip, Mason, Macdonnell and Winawer. He played Morphy on the latter’s trip to England in 1858. Bird witnessed the rise of Steinitz and the scientific “accumulation of small advantages” school which went on to dominate chess strategy.
Bird had clear opinions on his chess contemporaries and the chess scene. He was playing before the invention of chess clocks and analysed the prospective introduction of chess time controls. He categorised players according to the time control at which they best performed. The comparison was measured in moves per hour. He warned against slow time controls as this would take chess out of the reach of the casual chess player and the working man. He recommended that around two hours was a suitable length for a game. This was a prescient observation given the rise of rapid and blitz chess in modern times. His views are completely in line with leading players of the present day. When I discussed this topic with Alexei Shirov, he told me that he wants two hours tops for a game, if only to minimise the chance of cheating.
Basman went on to look at some of Bird’s games from his book Chess Novelties and Their Latest Developments published in 1895. He handed out for inspection a first edition of this book, which had previously been in the possession of G.H. Diggle (1902-93), the eminent historian of chess in the 19th century.
One of the games we looked at was Cantab v Bird 1891, a casual game played against somebody presumably associated with Cambridge University. It illustrates Bird’s aggressive style of all-out attack. The text uses an older form of descriptive notation which is still a pleasure to read due to its spaciousness and verbally guided placement of the pieces.
Following the talk, Basman organised a unique rapidplay Bird tournament. It comprised a one-round Swiss complete with pairing cards. The uniqueness lay in the selection of opening moves. In the spirit of Bird, and fellow traveller Basman, the players were bound to play a wider variety of openings. Basman noted that there are 20 moves available on the first move for each player. He therefore obligingly brought along isocahedral (ie 20-sided) dice, which each player rolled to randomise their first moves.
The idea of randomising the opening moves stems from the feeling that chess has been extensively analysed and that some changes are required to bring creativity back into the game. An alternative method, Neoclassical Chess, developed by Gabriel F. Bobadilla from Spain, involves randomising the first three full moves. Randomising the opening moves may make some people uncomfortable, but the main alternative approach is Fischer Random, which has the downside that the starting position is different.
Having rolled the die, we consulted the table of moves, inevitably called a Bird Table, corresponding to the number on the die. The Bird Tournament passed off in good spirit. Basman’s win on top board against Peter Lalić was offset by Pat Armstrong’s win for the opposing team on bottom board against Mehran Moini, who hasn’t touched a pawn in 40 years. “I thought we were playing for the same side?” said a bemused Basman to Armstrong when the results were totted up. All were happy at the end of the evening. Thereafter, it was down to the bar to play blitz.
John Foley
Stephen Moss writes: Michael Basman died just nine months after giving this memorable talk and devising a wonderful evening of Basmaniacal chess. He must already have been ill with the cancer that was to kill him, and this will have been one of his last public events, though he also presided over an evening of highly competitive blitz at Chessington Chess Club to celebrate the club’s first birthday a few months later when he was visibly declining but still full of humour and love for chess. He produced a short book on Bird based on his talk and on the games played at Kingston that night – his last chess book.
Kingston v Streatham, Surrey League division 2, Willoughby Arms, Kingston, 31 January 2022
The experienced league player Robin Haldane and the up-and-coming David Maycock met on board 2 of the Kingston v Streatham match.
Had it continued, 33.Re1 Rxg2 34.Qxg2 Bxg2+ 35.Kxg2 Qd5+ 36.Kg3 Qxc5 Black’s extra pawns guarantee a win. A victory for youth over experience.
Surrey League division 2 (Beaumont Cup) match played at the Willoughby Arms, Kingston on 31 January 2022
As a rather fairweather Fulham FC fan for 50-plus years, I’ve enjoyed seeing the club’s recent statistically improbable results (Reading 7-0, Bristol City 6-2, Birmingham 6-2). Kingston have only played two matches in the Beaumont Cup so far this season, but 6-1 and 6-0 with one game to be decided (and we have the superior position) has us beginning to parallel Fulham’s run. Sadly, promotion to the first division of the Surrey Trophy will not give us a Premier League payout.
The visit of Streatham triggered memories of their absurdly strong teams of the late 1970s/early 1980s, when on different occasions I found myself playing Glenn Flear and Andrew Martin on boards 3 or 4. Streatham are now a less glitzy team, but still very competitive. So does the 6-0 score flatter Kingston? I don’t think so, except, without false modesty, in my own case, as in the opening Martin Smith smoothly refuted my attempted refutation of his Sniper Defence (Attack?) and only went wrong under time pressure. The final position was very nice for me:
David Rowson v Martin Smith: The final position
Black’s queen is lost, and the attempt to divert my queen by 33…e3 does not work, as after 34. Qxe3 Qxd6 I still win his queen with a knight fork. At least Martin did not leave empty-handed as he sold a couple of copies of his indispensable new book Movers and Takers: A Chess History of Streatham and Brixton 1871-2021.
All the other games were interesting, exciting or even slightly mad. Jon Eckert was the first to win, with characteristically ferocious attacking play. Alan Scrimgour and his Scottish compatriot fought over a single square, f4, and once Alan controlled that it was remarkable how his opponent’s game fell apart. Julian Way converted his extra pawn by persuading Chris Bernard to go for a king and pawn ending which turned out to be easily won for Julian. John Foley established a passed pawn on the torturous square of d7 (if you’re White) and methodically went about squeezing his advantage.
Peter Lalic can’t help but be original. His signature flank pawn moves in the opening were a feature again, as he advanced early to h5 (I’ve resisted writing “Harry the h pawn”, until now that is) to be gambited. His opponent, ex-Kingstonian Graham Keane, fought back well, but in the position for adjudication Peter is a pawn up with each side having rook and minor piece.
The position for adjudication on board 1
I’ve left the star attraction till last: the ding-dong encounter between David Maycock and Robin Haldane. David told me beforehand that he was expecting Robin to play the Göring Gambit, but when this duly happened he made what looked to me like a serious oversight on move 6, with the result that it was hard for him to defend his f7 pawn. Nevertheless, with great tactical creativity, he fought back, forcing Robin to make tough decisions on almost every move. The tables were not just turned, but overturned, and White soon had to resign.
Before the match we were, I think, quietly confident, but could never have expected such a dominant result. Our next match is probably our biggest test, against Epsom on 21 February. Unlike the English Football League Championship, this is a sprint, not a marathon, so that match, out of just five in total, is crucial.
David Rowson, Kingston Beaumont Cup (Surrey League division 2) captain
* The Lalic-Keane game was eventually agreed as a draw between the players. In the final position, White had a small plus, but it was not deemed sufficient to press for a win. That result left Kingston winners by the imperious margin of 6.5 to 0.5, but Captain Rowson and his troops are trying not to let the success go to their heads.
Kingston 1 v Richmond 2, Thames Valley League division 2, Willoughby Arms, Kingston, 24 January 2022
Peter Lalić offers an in-depth analysis of a vibrant victory against the ever combative Bertie Barlow. If you read through these detailed annotations, you will get a remarkable insight into both the complexity of his concrete analysis and the playful spirit in which Peter plays his games – putting pawns on a4 and h4 on move eight in the game in part because he couldn’t resist the symmetry of the position. Chess as both science and art, war and aesthetic exercise, eventually leading here to an overwhelming attack conjured up after a sustained period in which Peter had been playing on the 10-second increment.
Uploading my games to a database for the first time has made my chess life flash before my squinting eyes. And it has not been a pretty sight
John Foley
I recently embarked on the task of uploading my games to a database for the first time. This has engendered the strange feeling of my life passing before my eyes as I scroll through the games. This life review experience is sometimes reported by people when they are falling from a height to their presumed death. One theory is that this is due to “cortical inhibition” – a breaking down of the normal regulatory processes of the brain – in highly stressful or dangerous situations, causing a “cascade” of mental impressions. Looking through my past games is stressful, indeed traumatic. I am recalling matters long since deliberately buried in the recesses of my memory. Twinges of regret are surfacing to remind me of my cognitive limitations (or, if I am being cruel to myself, stupidity).
This late-chess-life crisis all started after I had given John Nunn a lift to Ashtead for the Alexander Cup final, the Surrey team knockout championship, in 2018. In the pre-digital age, we had met in the London Under-14 championship and inevitably I had lost, but I couldn’t remember anything about the game. I went on to win the London Under-16 (ahead of a certain Jonathan Speelman) whereas at the same time John Nunn won the London Under-18. Given his prodigious talent, he won everything as a junior in England and had set his sights abroad. By the time I won the Oxford University Chess Club (OUCC) championship in 1976, he had a doctorate in mathematics and was well on his way to becoming a grandmaster.
As we wended our way back through the Surrey Hills, I nonchalantly mentioned that he was the reason I had given up chess. He seemed abashed at my unwonted revelation. I explained that it was apparent some people were so talented that there was no point in competing with them. On the principle of comparative advantage, I should spend my time doing something else. However, I was foolish; I had misinterpreted the data by observing only those around me – the “availability bias”. I had not twigged that I was amongst a special generation – two of my university contemporaries, John Nunn and Jonathan Speelman, were the core members of the England team that went on to win the silver medal at the Chess olympiads in 1984, 1986 and 1988, behind the mighty Soviet Union. I mentally placed chess in a box called “it was fun while it lasted” and embarked on a modelling career (not that sort of modelling!).
The Yugoslav Attack after 10.h4
Soon after our trip, John sent me the game we had played in the Under-14 championship in which I had succumbed to his Yugoslav Attack. I winced as I recalled my temerity in playing the Sicilian Dragon without having even read a book on it (although to be fair maybe one had not yet been written in English). The game is too embarrassing to show, at least if I am to retain any sense of dignity. What struck me was that Doccy (as Nunn is universally known in the chess community) had recorded, studied and still remembered every opponent and probably every game he had ever played. You don’t get into the top 10 players in the world by being casual; you need focused application.
I recall a conversation with Mike Truran, progenitor of the 4NCL, the national chess league, just prior to his being ensconced as chief executive of the English Chess Federation (ECF). Over an entertaining lunch at the Fleece, his favourite hostelry in Witney, he casually mentioned that we had played in the university championships. “Oh really”, I enquired, “what happened?” He had won, he beamed. I could not recall the game, let alone the result. Nor could I remember my opponent, but I was too polite to mention this – he probably wasn’t as handsome then as he is now with a trimmed goatee. It turned out that Mike had also kept a careful record of all his encounters over the board. By contrast, in those days I had seen myself as being on the grand tour of intellectual self-discovery – and, dare I admit, romance – whilst occasionally conceding to the seductive charm of chess.
It is only in hindsight that one can make sense of disconnected comments. When I resumed chess after 25 years in the “real” world, I was playing in an evening league match next to Robin Haldane, the terrific and prolific suburban competitor, who informed me that I had beaten him in a “very nice game” in the London Under-14. This was the final proof that I was in the minority of players who treated the game without the respect it deserved. I should have been keeping a record of each game. Only thus would I be able to respond to Robin with some informed pleasantry such as “but you put up a stout defence”.
Yet I should have been forearmed. In the OUCC championships of 1975, I played Dominic Lawson, now a distinguished journalist and the esteemed president of the ECF. Dominic played a crisp, albeit obvious, combination to win. He was surprised to discover later that the combination had been included in a compilation book (presumably for beginners). As he recounted to ChessBase in 2014, and previously in Chess magazine in the 1980s, he was pleased by this recognition and cited it as his most memorable game.
White to play and win
Dominic Lawson v John Foley (Oxford University Championship, 1975)
Although not thrilled to be on the receiving end of a published combination, I drew some comfort from the dictum that it takes two players to make a game. It is only worth publishing moves in games where there is some reasonable opposition. I noted that my repertoire had moved on from the Sicilian to the French Defence, but I could still be crushed in both. My regret in reading Dominic’s article was not that I had lost to a cheapo (the move, not him), but that I could not lay my hands on the game in which I beat him the following year on my way to the championship title. I recall I played the Modern Benoni with the f5 flourish, as made famous by Jonathan Penrose, who beat the then world champion Mikhail Tal in the Leipzig Olympiad in 1960. If only I had had that game, I could have fashioned some riposte. Actually, I have not quite abandoned the last thread of hope, because there are still some storage boxes in the attic which have not been disinterred in decades.
I fancied that a future biographer would write an encomium about how an average club player could, after years of apathy, apply himself intensively and become a grandmaster. This was more or less the theme of The Rookie, the book written by my Kingston colleague, and another contemporary at the OUCC, the Guardian writer Stephen Moss, which tracks his odyssey through chess (and life).
Yet subconsciously I had evolved almost the same attitude as Ken Inwood, one of Kingston’s strongest players for decades. Ken discards his scoresheet after each game in what appears to be a careless disregard for self-improvement. But then Ken does not have anything to prove, having won the London Under-14 and Under-18 titles before becoming the British Boys’ Champion at Hastings in 1953 and playing top board for England in the Glorney Cup. He has for many decades made a pilgrimage to the Hastings international tournament at the turn of each year to watch the top games with flask at the ready. There comes a stage when chess is played for pure enjoyment, win or lose.
At least I had the foresight to hang on to these precious documents. Wads of distressed scoresheets have been strewn in drawers and stuffed into bookshelves. The process has begun of collating and painstakingly transcribing the moves of the games I can unearth into Hiarcs, the Mac-friendly chess database and engine. Some of my games were conveniently retrieved from doubly checked online databases such as 4NCL’s. That made me realise what a terrible written record I had kept of the moves.
Note on notation: the algebraic system gives rise to reflection errors when recording: a becomes h and b becomes g; 1 becomes 8 and 2 becomes 7 etc, so there is a lot of decoding required. One must play a game out until the moves no longer make sense and then reverse back to the last reflection. Descriptive notation largely precludes this sort of error.
The main defect of transcription, however, cannot be cured by any notation system. The problem occurs towards the end of each game. When time is short, accuracy goes out the window. Distinguishing between moves and squiggles becomes impossible. In the worst case, when the remaining time drops below five minutes, it is no longer mandatory to record the moves. The end of the game is lost to history unless the opponent is obliging. Returning to a game years later, one plays through to a perfectly good position up to move 35 or so, but then the scoresheet puzzlingly records the game as a loss.
The advice for constructing personal game histories, learned late in my life, is to correct the scoresheet immediately after the game. Ideally, one should make some quick notes on the game – perhaps during the post-mortem analysis conducted by the players – and input the moves without delay.
The games I am currently inputting are from random dates in the past. I am up to game 150, which must be a tiny fraction of the games played in my chess “career”. The games are not of any theoretical importance, except that each game can trigger a personal memory or give rise to a newly perceived finesse with potential instructive value. A game fitting this latter category was one I played as Black against Martin Gruau in a Surrey v Kent county match in 2018. After a hard-fought and complex game, we reached the following position. I was so sure I was winning, and the move so obvious, that I did not think I needed to calculate my next move.
Black to play and win
Martin Gruau v John Foley. Surrey v Kent, 27 January 2018
Like anybody else who has been striving for victory for five hours at the board in a chilly community hall, I was exhausted, but finally the win was within my grasp. In the diagram, Black is playing down the board. My king had advanced and pushed my opponent’s king to the back rank. I could capture the a3 pawn and then saunter over to pick up the h6 pawn, whilst the white king had to deal with the passed a4 pawn. I should be able to shoulder off the white king if it tried to race over to stop the h pawn. This much was clear and there was no need to consider any other plan. So I played 70 … Kxa3? There followed 71 Ka1! I followed my ill-thought plan and we reached this position after Black’s 75th move.
White to play and draw
I was on track but my opponent seemed confident, which was rather worrying- wasn’t he supposed to resign? I finally began to put my brain in gear and realised that I had sleepwalked into a draw. The final position is shown below. The black king is forced to the edge and cannot escape without allowing the white king to reach the drawing square h8. Dagnabbit! I dealt with the anguish by the technique of instant forgetfulness – the nostrum of choice for the disappointed player.
Drawn
So as I was inputting and reviewing the game again, I noticed something surprising. I had been right to believe that I had a winning move in the opening diagram position. The finesse is to refrain from capturing the a3 pawn! I had played a pedestrian move, failing to recognise that I was standing at a crossroads. During a game one is not presented with a caption “white to play and win” which would immediately raise the level of awareness.
The crucial point is that if Black captures the a3 pawn, then the white king is given a shortcut to Black’s a4 pawn via a2 in two moves instead of the long way round via c3 and b4 in three moves. In an endgame, a tempo can make all the difference. White gains a move to advance and promote the h pawn. Black should have been counting tempi rather than material. In fact, in the diagram, remove the a3 pawn and white still draws a pawn down. A common error and one which the diligent student of the game should have been able to figure out. There may be many more such gems yet to be recovered from the past.
Reverting to the classic lunch at the Fleece (or should that be the Golden Fleece), Mike Truran, who studied languages at Oxford, vouchsafed to me a line from the Aeneid: forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit. Classical scholars still debate the precise translation, but one interpretation is: “Someday, perhaps, it will help to remember those troubles as well.” The positive take on this aphorism is that, far from forgetting unpleasant experiences, we should instead wait and integrate them into our personal experience when we are ready. There will come a point when we confront adversity and feel more complete for doing so. The more I review my historical games collection, the more I understand the narrative of my life.
Photo credits: Sophie Triay (Mike Truran); Linda Nylind (Stephen Moss); Brendan O’Gorman (Robin Haldane)
British Boys’ under-18 championship, Hastings, 17 April 1953
The 1953 British Boys’ Under-18 Championship attracted 38 entries and was run on the Swiss System, with nine rounds between Monday evening, 13 April, and Friday night, 17 April. The winner, K. F. H. Inwood, of Tiffin’s School, was the London Chess League’s nominee; he beat T. A. Landry, of William Ellis School, in the last round, by a good king’s-side attack, after the latter had overlooked the winning of a pawn earlier. Landry and G. Jessup, also of William Ellis School, shared the second and third prizes with 6½. M. F. Collins, Sandbach School, Crewe, P. Gough, King Edward VI School, Norwich, J. T. Farrand, Haberdasher’s Aske’s, Hampstead, and A. Hall, of the same school, with P. Starling, of Middlesbrough, all scored 6. Amongst the also-rans was Anthony Leggett, who went on to win the Nobel prize in physics. In the opinion of Sir George Thomas, the general standard of play was higher than last year, but there was no boy outstanding.
Thomas Anselm Landry (19 August 1935 – 11 January 1996) went to Pembroke College, Oxford and played in the Varsity match of 1955. Tom Landry was a noted draughts/checkers player, who held the record for winning the London Championship 11 times in all and also the 1983 Northern Ireland Championship. He was president of the English Draughts Association and personally financed (and played in) the 1973 Great Britain vs America draughts match. He wrote books on the subject. He was a stockbroker and insurance consultant.
Here is the key game from the last round with both players on 6.5/8. The game shows the Inwood hallmark: first a period of calm and balance in which he is always the equal of his opponent and then an inexplicably easy finish against a defence that disintegrates.
The top four members of the England team in the Glorney Cup 1953 were recruited from the event. Ken was on top board with Landry on board two.
Ken, who is 86 and has been a member of Kingston Chess Club for more than 70 years, recently entered a nursing home in Woking. We wish him well.
Sources: Britbase; Kingston Chess Club Magazine (February 1975)
Kingston 2 v South Norwood 2, Surrey League division 4 , Willoughby Arms, Kingston, 10 January 2022
Vladimir Bovtramovich won a fine game on top board against the dangerous attacking player Ron Harris which enabled Kingston to secure a draw in the match against South Norwood.
When you haven’t played an over-the-board tournament in 15 years, it takes courage to return in a hot blitz event full of underrated juniors in the middle of a pandemic
Gregor Smith
I am not going to lie; I may have been under the influence of alcohol when I decided to enter this tournament. However, it was the Dutch courage I needed to return to the over-the-board tournament scene after a 15-year hiatus.
I played a lot of tournament chess as a junior, but then barely moved a piece until becoming one of the 12 million worldwide who joined chess.com during the pandemic. So here I was at the “Richmond Christmas Blitz” (prize fund £3,000!) making my comeback, off a rating of 1353 given to me on the basis of a few online-rated games.
Some things were familiar – the cold gym hall filled with chess tables, the hustle and bustle when the draw sheet was put up for each round, and the usual reminders from the arbiters before each round that touch move applied.
Other things were less familiar: a 4 min + 2 sec time control (digital clocks and increments didn’t exist last time out, and this was a bit quick for my comfort zone); random metal detector searches to see if anyone was playing with their phone in their pocket; and of course playing in facemasks, only to be removed if you wanted to offer a draw.
So how did it go? Here is a whistlestop tour of my 11 rounds. Unfortunately, unlike the phenomenal Peter Lalic, I cannot remember the exact moves in my 11 games. In fact, I can’t remember five consecutive moves in any game. It was all a bit of a blur.
Round 1: Destroyed by a titled player. Blundered a pawn in the opening as Black and didn’t get a sniff. (0/1)
Round 2: A solid victory over a (very) young Richmond Junior. Such a splendid kid – before the game he asked me if I knew the “Dragon” opening (I don’t) and then, after the game, he complimented my handwriting on the results slip (my handwriting is barely legible). His time will come. (1/2)
Round 3: A feeble attempt against another much higher-rated opponent. Rolled out my “Tiger’s Modern” opening (something I found on YouTube), but got too cramped and was slowly crushed. (1/3)
Round 4: Another loss, but a braver attempt. It was probably a drawn endgame, but I managed to blunder a pawn in time trouble and my opponent finished well. (1/4)
Round 5: Another (very) young Richmond whizz. My first big blunder of the day and my opponent had me on the ropes, but managed to flag himself on the brink of victory. I honestly felt terrible for him as he slumped back to his parents. He more than deserved to beat me. That kid will go far. (2/5)
Round 6: A nice win over a higher-rated opponent. This time I got the better of another drawn-looking endgame after winning a pawn and managing to promote my passed pawn on the flank. Swings and roundabouts. (3/6)
Rounds 7 & 8: Two crushing defeats as black for my YouTube defence against stronger opponents who didn’t put a foot wrong. I guess I don’t know the opening as well as I thought I did and continually end up with cramped positions and no plan. I decided at this point that I am never, ever playing it again. (3/8)
Round 9: A rare occurrence where my opponent played 1…e5 in response to my 1. e4 and then proceeded to accept all three pawns in my favourite Danish Gambit. These are such fun games to play; I don’t even mind losing from this position. It’s always a bumpy ride. I managed to set up a scything attack and won quickly. (4/9)
Round 10: This is where the magic happened. A first-ever victory against a 2000+ opponent, Luis Ortiz from Spain. I played the Smith-Morra Gambit (another YouTube special) and reached a comfortable position before finding a nice tactic to win a piece. I then spent the rest of the game preparing myself for the inevitable defeat. We all know that Imposter Syndrome feeling – there’s no way I can actually beat this guy, right! But I did, keeping patient and managing to fork his rooks to end up two rooks to one in the endgame before finishing it off. (5/10)
Round 11: By this stage, everyone was looking a bit weary, but thankfully my adrenaline was rushing high. So high, I even retrieved my earlier retired Tiger’s Modern from the scrapheap after my higher-rated opponent opened 1. f3!? and I didn’t know what else to do. 1… g6, 2. g3 … chess.com comes up with zero games in its database that have followed these moves, and no wonder. What followed was an extremely closed and complicated game, and my opponent strangely went into the tank for three consecutive moves and flagged himself while I still had two minutes left on the clock. Definitely weary. (6/11)
My goal for the day was to beat someone better than me, and to manage to beat three players rated higher than me made the occasion all the sweeter. But the main thing was that it was great to be back.
Thanks to Kingston club-mate David Maycock for his constant support and words of wisdom throughout the day. He even took the time to talk me through the Philidor Defence in a five-minute break between rounds after I’d played badly against it in round 4. The great thing was I always knew where to find him between rounds – camped beside the Halogen heater!
I learned several lessons from the tournament. Eleven games is a lot of chess: don’t let early disappointments get you down. Always have a plan: too often I didn’t have one, and you don’t have time to think of many options. Even strong players make mistakes in blitz: this was a David Maycock special – always believe you have a chance of winning. My rating performance was 1605 – a considerable improvement on my starting level of 1353.
And, finally, thanks to Paul McKeown and the team at Richmond Junior Chess Club, who ran a seamless and safe tournament in memory of Rik Thomas, one of their coaches, who sadly passed away during the pandemic, and also marking the deaths of two Richmond Juniors’ parents, Suman Chatterjee and Jatinder Sian. Thanks, too, to Orleans Park School in Twickenham, where the event took place. It was particularly fitting to see so many talented juniors so enthusiastic about the game.
The club is now taking a break until the scheduled resumption of the season on 10 January. Meeting that schedule will of course depend on whether there is a further tightening of government restrictions on socialising in the next three weeks, and on what attitude the leagues in which Kingston plays take to the spread of the Omicron variant. Although the club is not holding any events, there is at present nothing to stop members from visiting the Willoughby Arms to play casual chess. The club will continue to monitor the Covid situation and will update the events calendar and issue further bulletins here as required. Happy Christmas and best wishes for a more buoyant New Year than we have enjoyed over the past 22 months.
John Foley, chair, Kingston Chess Club
