Birthday tribute to a friend

Today marks the 60th birthday of IM Robert Bellin, the 1979 British Champion. A chess professional since leaving school in 1968, Robert grew up playing "real chess" in the days when the time limit was 40 moves in 2.5 hours, and with adjournments.He has always been a deep thinker about the game and has always despised the fast modern-time limits, which encourage incorrect play and pragmatic gambling. Sadly, his younger days in the 1970s were also a period when the opportunities for title norms were much fewer than today, and although he became an IM in the early 1970s, the GM title always eluded him.

Robert has written a number of fine books, notably three outstanding volumes on the Dutch Defence, which has always been one of his favourite openings. Back in the mid-70s, he was also the main force behind the popularity of the Veresov Opening, which he played with considerable success for many years, and on which he also wrote the seminal English-language book.

Robert and I became good friends some 15 or more years ago, when I played alongside him on the then BCM team, in the 4NCL. We have spent many happy hours together at chess events, and he has influenced my views on the game considerably. I am sorry not to be able to celebrate this milestone with you, Robert, but I shall certainly raise a glass to you this evening!

photo: Gibraltar chesscongress.com

To finish, one of Robert's numerous impressive wins with the Dutch:

"Computer glitch" cripples RBS payment system

"I knew this would happen, once they had to process all these ECF compulsory membership payments. Next thing you know, the banks will be having to fix the interest rate, to cover their costs" (Photo: John Saunders).

Buxton e2e4 hotel row - the Dear Leader speaks out!

"Some people get their hotel reservations cancelled - get over it!"

Perhaps there's hope after all...

From the Russian site chessnews.ru comes a piece of news to gladden my heart. The Association of Chess Professionals (ACP) is to hold a strong GM all-play-all event in Amsterdam next month, where the games will be adjourned after 40 moves!! The event, to be held alongside the Dutch Championships at Amsterdam's Science Park, will run from 14-22 July, and my spies tell me that the line-up includes both Ivanchuk and Kamsky. No doubt further details will become available over the next few days.

I am not sure why the organisers have decided to return to the honourable tradition of adjournments, but I welcome it wholeheartedly. Adjournments were abolished pretty universally some 20 years ago, at the behest of idiots and cultural vandals, who employed the absurd argument that the advent of computers meant that "the player with the best computer will win". Of course, the effect of computers on adjournments is exactly the opposite - in pre-computers days, the player with the stronger team of seconds had the advantage when games were adjourned, whereas once the computer came along, the odds were largely evened up. The main effect of abolishing adjournments has been to devastate the quality of endgame play, something I pointed out in the Preface to my recent book, The Greatest Ever Chess Endgames. Of the 50 endings presented in that volume, no more than a handful came from the post-adjournment era.

So, hats off to the ACP for this splendid return to traditional values. For maximum satisfaction, I look forward to hearing that the players will be required to wear evening dress, and to record their moves using original descriptive notation ("Pawn to King's Fourth", etc), written with a quill pen. Perhaps they could also emulate the playing conditions of London 1899, by providing a spitoon next to each board? We can but dream...

Perhaps there really is hope for the future, after all?

Chess, as it should be played!

In the meantime, I will be at the e2e4 Buxton tournament for the next four days, so this blog is unlikely to be updated again until next week.

The principle of proportion

It was Emanuel Lasker, in his Manual of Chess, who coined the term "the principle of proportion". It was his addition to the theory of Steinitz, and is something I may well blog about at a later date, as part of my theory  that Kramnik is in many ways a disciple of Lasker. But for now, I am more concerned with the chess world's apparent absence of any sense of proportion, when it comes to wrong and right.

There has been virtually no reaction at all to my blog piece of last week, regarding the systematic match-fixing engaged in by two of the world's strongest women players. Nobody could give a tuppeny damn, it seems. The termites have ignored the matter, whilst my suggestion that one of the world's premier English-language chess news sites might take up the story was brushed aside.

The termites, meanwhile, have been far more exercised about mobile phone defaults. It is a never-ending source of fascination to me, how obsessively self-righteous chessplayers get over the issue of mobile phones going off during a game. We already have hugely disproportionate penalties for this, with players facing instant default, even when the phone is proved to have switched itself on, to emit a two-second battery alarm beep. But from the guff spouted by chessplayers on internet forums, it is clear that most would like to see the sanctions increased at least to the extent of capital punishment, if not worse ("worse" being something such as 24-hour imprisonment, in a shared cell, with Carl "Old Mother" Hibbard, perhaps...).

These self-righteous clowns justify their absurd nonsense by prattling on about how disturbing it is when a mobile goes off. What rubbish! How is a momentary bleep from a mobile phone anything like as disturbing as a player coughing or clearing his throat every 30 seconds throughout the game, or shaking his legs under the table, or twiddling a captured pawn in his fingers in your eyeline, or slurping his tea, or assaulting your nostrils with his two-week old cumulative body odour, or any of the 1001 other indignities one has to put up with, when playing OTB chess?

"Of course, if Black's disturbing behaviour had been reported to me initially, I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, because I am currently on a cruise" 

It is high time the chess world got a grip, and acquired a sense of proportion. Reading the termite forum, it is pretty clear that if two competitors in the British Championship were to engage in full-blown sexual intercourse on the floor of the tournament hall while the round was in progress, nobody would dare utter so much as a syllable of disapproval, but if either of their mobile phones were to bleep whilst they were in flagrante, then the culprit could expect to be defaulted, expelled from the building, and, quite possibly, burned at the stake.

And whilst this were happening, in another corner of the tournament hall, two of the world's leading female players could be quietly playing out a pre-arranged game, to carve up the prize money, and nobody would give a fig. Welcome to the wonderful world of chess!

A great gesture

Tomorrow at 1.00pm, at London's Brompton Cemetery, a unique event takes place. The grave of the great 19th century master, Johannes Zukertort, will be rededicated, in a ceremony attended by two Polish priests. Over a year ago, Grandmaster Stuart Conquest tracked down the grave, which had been long forgotten, and discovered that it was derelict and overgrown, after decades of neglect. Stuart launched a public campaign, to raise several thousand pounds, so that it could be restored. It was a great gesture by Stuart, and attracted support from many sources, including the Ken Whyld Association. Work on the grave was recently finished, and tomorrow will see it rededicated. The event is open to all, so please free to go along if you are able.

The restored grave (photo: Stuart Conquest)

Zukertort was one of the strongest players of the second half of the 19th century, and was Steinitz' challenger, in the first officially recognised world championship match, in 1886. Zukertort started the match brilliantly, winning four games in a row, after losing the opener. However, as the match dragged on, moving between various American cities, he weakened, whilst the indomitable Steinitz gradually got stronger, and in the end, Zukertort lost. Within two years, his health broken, he died in London, aged just 45.

Zukertort and Steinitz, playing the fateful match (photo: endgame.nl)

His immortal game was the win against Blackburne at London 1883, but since that is so well-known, here is one of Zukertort's wins, from the opening phase of the Steinitz match. The notes are from Megabase.

England lose out in penalty miss agony

"No wonder Young and Cole missed - they were so distracted with worry about about the ECF compulsory membership scheme." (photo: John Saunders)

Tales from Bedlam

Over at the Bedlam Brigade blog this morning, I was amused to read CITC Horton's strictures about  people in the chess world being used as "stooges". Strangely, he omits to mention the recent case of a blogger, who spent five consecutive days, wittering on about a Times obituary, at the behest of his Alpine-resident puppet master.

Could our Justin by any chance be suffering from a touch of amnesia, or is this just another case of the Janus Syndrome? I think we should be told.

They think it's all over

A stirring battle from yesterday's round of the current $40,000 Kazan Women's Grand Prix tournament.

Interestingly, the two Kosintseva sisters are both theoretical experts on this variation. They first encountered it three years ago, in their game at the World Cup Women's Rapid event, where Nadezhda made an extra winning attempt with 15.Kh1, but then agreed a draw after the reply 15...Be5+.

Eleven months later, they tested the variation again, at the Russian Womens' Championship. This time, Tatiana was White, and no doubt felt that confronting her fearsome opponent with her own favourite weapon would place her at a serious psychological disadvantage. However, after mobilising all her mental strength, Nadezhda also managed to draw after 15...Be5+. At Hangzhou eight months later, Nadezhda tried her hand as White again, having prepared the crucial improvement of 15 "I offer a draw".  At the Rostov-on-Don Women's Grand Prix event three weeks later, Tatiana showed the extent of their sibling rivalry, by trumping Nadezhda's improvement with a TN of her own - she offered the draw after 13...Bh2+. And then, two months after that, she went one better again, taking the white side of the variation and unveiling the stunning further improvement, 13. Kh1, "I offer a draw".

It seems that yesterday's game was an acknowledgement that, under Sofia Rules, where a draw can only be agreed so early by threefold repetition, neither side can improve on the 15-move version of the game.

I trust readers will be as inspired as I am, to see two young professionals so pushing the boundaries of scientific exploration in our game. This is where we are so superior in chess, of course - in other sports, the spoilsport officials would have the two admirable sisters arrested for match-fixing!

Laughing all the way to the bank - the Kosintseva sisters, visibly racked with nerves, before their latest thrilling encounter (photo: Anastasia Karlovich/Chessbase)

Snubbed again!

I am devastated to see that I have once again been passed over for the ECF Player of the Year Award. Last Saturday, it was the Birthday Honours List, and now this - how many more rejections can a man be expected to take?

Along with several friends, I really thought I was in with a chance this year. I fear my big mistake was getting Ernie "Good Moaning" Lazenby to nominate me - I gather someone called Dugbins got quite a few votes...

Photo: en-wikipedia.org

I did briefly contemplate following the example set by my Ancient Greek hero, but my local pharmacy was fresh out of hemlock. But then, as I languished in my personal emotional nadir, GM Nigel Davies offered me a consoling thought, which has restored a modicum of hope and faith in the future...

...There's always the ECF Website of the Year award!

Of course, if Steve Giddins had consulted me earlier, I would have ensured that he was snubbed by the ECF long before now. By the way, did I tell you I am currently on a cruise?"

Collectors and otherwise

Ron de Haas' request for games scores played by Donner led me to think further about a subject, which has always interested me. We chessplayers are of course very lucky that our game lends itself to the recording of the moves, allowing us to preserve games by the greatest masters, and replay them at our leisure. On the other hand, as a devotee of chess history, I have always been pained by the thought that so many fine games have been lost over the years. Especially in the pre-database era, even many international tournaments were not the subject of bulletins, with the result that games were lost. A perusal of the Britbase site (established by John Saunders, Editor of Chess, Britain's leading chess magazine), whilst on the one hand throwing up a highly impressive collection of stuff, also reveals some notable gaps, with even some post-war Hastings Premiers not being complete. Had it not been for the diligent labours of the indefatigable W Ritson Morry, who produced numerous bulletins on a battered manual typewriter, one shudders to think how little would be left to us.

I guess chessplayers fall into two categories - those who retain their game scores and those who don't. Amongst professionals and masters, the majority must, I imagine, keep all their games, if only for the vital process of analysing them afterwards. But among amateurs, the practice is rather less widespread. Some are conscientious, and retain every game, but many others throw their scoresheets away soon after playing a game (especially if they have lost!).

I learned a few years ago that it is hard to predict which players are in which category. One player I was certain would have all his games was Michael Franklin, the English master. He has always struck me as a very meticulous and organised character, and I have seen him at tournaments, brandishing a record card, on which he had written out, in copper-plate handwriting, a full tournament crosstable, which he updated dutifully with each day's results. Here, I was sure, was a man who would have the score of every game he had ever played. Yet when I asked him about this over breakfast, at a 4NCL weekend a few years ago, he astonished me, by telling me that he did not even have the record of the London League game he had played 48 hours earlier! He has never kept any of his scoresheets, it seems - a terrible shame, as his career spans over 50 years, near the top of English chess.

Michael Franklin - not a scoresheet to his name! (photo: Cathy Rogers/Megabase)

Even when players do keep their games, there is always the danger that after their death, these "unwanted" chess papers will end up on a bonfire, as their non-Caissic family clear out the old man's effects. With the advent of computers, it is perhaps more likely that such records will be kept and passed on within the chess community. I for one would be delighted to receive collections (especially if already in electronic form) from strong British players, which could then be made available online.

One player who has all his games is John Nunn. He kindly supplied his two games against Donner (both played in the 1977 Anglo-Dutch match, and neither on Megabase), which I have been able to pass on to Mr de Haas. John's win in the black game was published in The Guardian at the time (I still have the exercise book, into which I used to copy the games each week from Leonard Barden's two Saturday newspaper columns, which I used to read in the local public library!), which makes it slightly more surprising that it has escaped the database diggers. It is a good example of what can happen to White, if he plays too passively against the Modern Benoni - the black queenside pawns are liable to advance remorselessly, sweeping all before them:

 

Termitewatch (30): Yapping on

Another splendid example of the inimitable charm and courtesy of Paul McKeown, the world's slowest writer of chess books. Over on the Forum, a discussion on the laws of chess has become rather fixated on the fact that the FIDE laws prohibit the use of descriptive notation (a law only honoured in the breach, it would seem). By termite standards, it was a perfectly polite and amicable discussion, but yesterday afternoon, McClown had apparently had enough. Interrupting his back-breaking daily labours on his long-awaited Bob Wade biography, he thundered

Why does everyone keep yapping on about notation, as if it was actually important?

He then went on to...er, yap on about notation, telling a truly side-splitting story about what happened to him at an open tournament in Germany a few years ago, when one of his friends was worried about being defaulted for using descriptive notation!

Tennis star in line-judge injury incident

"You can't blame Nalbandian for being so annoyed about the ECF membership scheme". (photo: John Saunders)

Farewell to a true chess lover

I received news this afternoon of the death on Saturday evening of Professor Nathan Divinsky, the Canadian mathematician and chess lover. Born on 29 October 1925, he was thus in his 87th year. As a player, he was strong enough to share 3-4th places in the 1945 Candian Closed Championship, and 6-7th in 1951. He also represented Canada in two Olympiads, including the 1966 Olympiad in Havana. A Professor of maths, he was never a chess professional, and was more famous in the chess world for his writings and occasional TV appearances. "Around the Chess World in 80 Years" was a popular first chess book. Sadly, some of his later chess publications incurred the wrath of a certain Swiss-based chess historian, with Warriors of the Mind coming in for especially savage criticism (although the identity of Divinsky's co-author on this book may be presumed partly to explain the reviewer's hostility).

Photo: canadianchess.info

I never met Divinsky myself, but it was clear from one or two TV appearances that he loved chess enormously, and he came across as a warm and delightful man. Others who knew him all agree on this. Ray Keene described him as "a great guy", whilst Bernard Cafferty remembers him, as "a jolly fellow", who had "a kind word for everybody". RIP.

From his final Olympiad appearance:

Donner und blitzen

It has been an interesting, and very instructive week for Forum-watchers. My blog piece of 11 June set off a long debate amongst the termites, regarding the rights and wrongs of the CAS court action. The thread involved was supposed to be about the boycott of English arbiters at the Istanbul Olympiad, but the usual crowd soon hijacked it, to lambast their favourite targets. Eventually it became so acrimonious and downright abusive that the forum's chief censor, Carl "Old Mother" Hibbard, felt obliged to step in and lock the entire thread.

But still more instructive was what happened on the Chess History section of the forum. A Dutch chessplayer named Ron de Haas, posted a request for games played by Jan Hein Donner, in English tournaments, notably B H Wood's Chess Festivals at Whitby and elsewhere. This brought forth a typical load of uninformed nonsense from various posters, including confusing the Chess Festivals with the Stevenson Memorials at Bognor Regis (a completely different event), and the absurd claim that "most of Donner's games would have been published in Chess magazine". In reality, one will find hardly any of Donner's games in Chess; the festivals were never the subject of a bulletin, to the best of my knowledge, and almost all of the games will have been lost. The odd game might be available in magazines, but they will be few and far between.

Jan Hein Donner, engaging in a bit of what he called "sniffing-tactile perception" (photo: chessbase.de)

As a friend of mine has pointed out, these two tales are absolutely typical of all that is wrong with the Egregious Forum, and similar websites. The forum does no good whatsoever - when it is not answering sensible questions with this typical rubbish, people doling out free advice and gossip with the cool voice of authority, despite a complete lack of relevant knowledge, it serves only to host slanging matches between people with entrenched positions, giving a platform to crashing bores and barrack-room lawyers, and generally spreading falsehoods, unchecked factoids and groundless tittle-tattle. It beggars belief that senior officials of the ECF should waste their time, posting on such a forum, inviting ever-more fatuous self-important nonsense from its collection of semi-literate sociopaths.

Clearly, the sensible thing would be to close down the Forum altogether - it does nothing positive, and instead, merely harms British chess (it is known to have cost at least one sponsor). However, as my friend also pointed out, petitioning "Old Mother" to pull the plug (something which I suspect he might well be tempted to do) would almost certainly result in some unscrupulous opportunist springing into action and creating another one to replace it (from the technical viewpoint it is a doddle to set up and run a forum, and costs little or nothing), so we would be back to square one. On balance, perhaps it is a case of "better the Devil you know"?

On the subject of Donner games, I happen to be able to offer one game score, which Mr de Haas probably does not have. The following game comes from Bernard Cafferty's collection. He has retained most of his scoresheets from his 60-odd year chess career, and many hundreds of the games have been keyed into Chessbase, by John Saunders, editor of Chess (Britain's leading chess magazine) and founder of Britbase. The alert reader will notice that Bernard missed a glorious opportunity to take a notable scalp, with
29.Rc8!

Just sick

I did not intend to blog again today, but sometimes, one just cannot help it. A Twitter exchange with John Saunders, editor of Chess (Britain's leading chess magazine), led to our setting up a new hashtag #ifFIDEdidfootball. How would the game be different, one wonders? Suggestions so far include English referees being banned from Wembley, the offside rule being changed partway through a match, and the World Cup alternating between Elista and Khanty-Mansisk.

But no sooner does one start satirising FIDE than the truth overrides. Into John's inbox popped the following announcement, regarding our favourite space-traveller:

FIDE President in Damascus to sign Agreement on Cooperation

Thursday, 14 June 2012 07:06

On June 13th the FIDE President arrived in Damascus (Syria) to sign an Agreement on Cooperation between the Ministry of Education of the Syrian Arab Republic, Syrian Arab Chess Federation and World Chess Federation (FIDE). According to this agreement the Parties will cooperate in the realization of а mutual incentive —programme "Chess in Schools", which shall be а purpose-oriented Educational programme. During his visit the FIDE President will participate in the opening ceremony of Syrian School Chess Championship.

Words fail me. I particularly like the bit about Illunatic visiting the opening ceremony of the Syrian Schools Championship. Presumably the winner is the kid who reaches the final round with most points, and without being massacred by an armed militia along the way...

Even by the standards of the Yakshagger, it is just sick. I have now changed my mind about the CAS court case. Having said I thought maybe the ECF should not have been party to it, I now think we were right after all. Something has to be done to remove this monster from his post, and making him follow the rules is an essential first step in removing him by constitutional means. And if constitutional means fail....

American satirist Tom Lehrer famously said that he gave up doing satire after Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize, because after that, satire just became pointless. At times like this, I know how he felt. In the hope of lightening a depressing  mood, here's an example of what he could do, before he gave up:

The Svulfnikov Sicilian

Yes, here on the blog we bring you everything - now even a Sicilian line I doubt you knew existed! Last weekend, my hero Ulf Andersson made an appearance at a weekender in Utrecht, Holland. In two of his black games, he employed a Sicilian variation, which I have never seen given any significant treatment in the books. It goes as follows:

1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 and now, instead of the Sveshnikov continuation 6...d6, we play the characteristic move: 6...h6!?

It's the Sveshnikov, but not as we know it. In itself, 6...h6 is a logical enough move - Black stops Bg5. Now he threatens 7...d6, with an obviously comfortable Sveshnikov set-up, so the critical move must be 7.Nd6+ (7.Nd5 is the only serious option, but then 7...Nxd5 8.exd5 a6! appears reasonable for Black). Play continues 7...Bxd6 8.Qxd6 Qe7. Yes, Ulfie is after getting the queens off!

Looking this up on the database, I was surprised to find that, as well as Ulfie, who has played it quite a few times in recent years, there are a fair number of other strong GMs, who have used it, including Gheorghiu, Vasyukov, Bilek, Lombardy, Reindermann, Agdestein, etc. Scottish GM John Shaw is another, who has given it a few goes. White probably should have an edge after the queen exchange, but it is not a lot, and a dedicated Ulfer is always happy to accept a slight disadvantage, if he can remove the girlies from the board! Andersson is like a pig in dung, in such positions. In Utrecht, the strong and talented young Dutch GM, Robin van Kampen, opted to keep the ladies on with 9.Qd1, but he got no real advantage and Ulfie held the draw fairly comfortably.

I don't say it's the best Sicilian in the world, but if you are middle-aged and like endings, whilst your opponent is under 30, and booked up to the eyeballs in Sveshnikov theory, it might be a nice way to take him out of his comfort zone. Here's the man himself, doing the business with it - and against a future GM, at that.

My non-denial denial

Two days of Forum rambling, much of it by the ever-entertaining Ernie "Good Moaning" Lazenby, has seen several ECF Board members claim that they have not seen any such legal advice, as that described in my post yesterday. Andrew Farthing has written that he is inclined to think no such advice ever existed. Lazenby, who rather to my surprise, has not yet expressed a wish to take me outside to the car park and beat me up, now writes that

That clearly makes Giddins lengthy piece on his blog what it is complete rubbish, untrue and mischief making

Elsewhere on the same thread, Carl "Old Mother" Hibbard has speculated whether I will "clarify" my earlier comments or not.

I rarely respond to such requests from termites, but on this occasion, I will make an exception and respond to all of the above.

To echo the words of a famous newspaper editor, uttered at a critical moment in a major investigation:

I stand by my story.

Camerons leave 8-year old daughter in pub

"It only happened because they were so preoccupied with worries about the ECF compulsory membership scheme". (photo: John Saunders)

Keeping one's powder dry

There has been much angst over the past week, regarding the latest fallout from the ECF's court case against FIDE. Those unfamiliar with the details can find them elsewhere - such as here. In essence, English arbiters - read Lara Barnes - have been banned from the Istanbul Olympiad later this year, because the ECF is party to a legal action against FIDE.

As far as the actual decision to enter the legal action in the first place is concerned, I have to say that, on balance, I think it was unwise - the danger of retaliation, harming the interests of players and everyone else involved in English chess, is too great. Having said that, I am not oblivious to the strength of the counter-argument, namely, that Ill-Lunatic should not be allowed to ride roughshod over FIDE's own rules whenever it suits him, and the only hope of stopping him is to invoke the intervention of the courts. It has been suggested that it would have been better to refer the matter to FIDE's own "Ethics Committee". The problem with this is that the latter, whilst apparently composed of decent, qualified and relatively independent people, takes months to hold a meeting, and is also toothless - even if it decides against FIDE, it can do nothing except say so. No, someone needs to stand up to Kirsan and use the courts to stop him. But, NIMBY that I am, I am not sure it should have been the ECF.

"We are one family - and people who sue FIDE are another". (photo: Chessbase)

But the issue that has got collars most heated amongst the termites on the Egregious Forum, is the fact that the ECF's involvement in the legal action was not disclosed to the federation's AGM, in October last year. Reports from various officers, most crucially (in terms of those most closely involved in the decision) from the President, CJ de Mooi, and the FIDE Delegate Nigel Short, both omitted any mention of the action. So too did the CEO's report by Andrew Farthing. Alone of the three, the latter has offered a public explanation of his omission - an oversight!

The non-disclosure has caused outrage and fuelled conspiracy theories. I too, was initially cynical about the reasons for keeping the details from the AGM, but I have now discovered that there is actually a perfectly understandable explanation for this. Sources close to the ECF Presidency have told me that there were legitimate legal concerns at that time, regarding the attitude of the court to the funding of the case. Broadly, the plaintiffs' financial risk is being borne by Garry Kasparov (or persons connected with him - the full details are not publicly available). At the time of the ECF's AGM last October, nobody was sure how the CAS would react to this fact, and it was decided that, as a matter of elementary legal tactics, the plaintiffs should not go out of their way to publicise the situation, and thereby hand their opponents a potential legal technicality, on the basis of which to try to get the case dismissed. Legal advice was also obtained, regarding the quality and reliability of the financial guarantees, and on that basis, it was decided not to disclose details of the case to the ECF AGM in October.

In fact, sometime after the ECF meeting, lawyers for FIDE did indeed attempt to raise exactly this point about the funding of the case, but the judges dismissed it as irrelevant. Nevertheless, prior to that moment, nobody was quite sure how they would react, and it is thus perfectly understandable that the plaintiffs should have decided to keep the issue as quiet as possible for the time being.

So that, then, is the true reason why the ECF Council did not hear about the court case last October. On legal advice, a conscious decision was taken to withhold it from them, lest premature disclosure should harm the case. Now, one can argue about whether the case should ever have been brought in the first place, but once that decision has been taken, it makes little sense then to act in a manner contrary to legal advice, and which may prejudice one's chances of winning. Given that separate legal advice had apparently confirmed that the ECF did not face any significant financial risk, there was arguably no real harm in the ECF's members not finding out about the court case for a few weeks or months longer.

It is a tangled web, and perhaps things could and should have been done differently. But the bruised termitic egos on the Forum, outraged at not being told about the case earlier, are barking up the wrong tree, in focusing mainly on the disclosure issue. As to the case itself, my sources tell me judgement has been deferred again, and is now due on 29 June.

Self-obsessed?

Stewpot's latest pronouncement on the Egregious Forum:


I was chairman of the BCF at the time and effectively Chief Executive.

The reason Sarah was removed from her position as Editor of ChessMoves had nothing whatsoever to do with her stance against Ilyumzhinov and her stance about our not playing in the Olympiad. She was invited to a BCF Board Meeting, her views listened to and the decision was made democratically to go to Elista in 1998. She made allegations against Ilyumzhinov that have never been substantiated. She also said the Kalmykians didn't want us there. I did go and I doubt all those children could have been brainwashed or reheared into pretending they were happy to see the Olympiad there. 

The reason was 1. She was a loose cannon who had exposed the BCF to the possibility of a libel case by a British citizen. Repetition of that concern could only have been solved by my censoring the magazine every month; other officers had failed to notice the problem. 2. The federation needed to save money and my volunteering to edit the magazine free for a period enabled me to pressurise directors into taking cuts in their own budgets.

Somebody commented that I was party to the ECF decision to sue FIDE. That is perfectly true. I backed the elected officers who believed this was the best course of action, namely Nigel, Lawrence and CJ. I didn't personally agree as I believe going to law is nearly always pointless. It is also true that I have travelled on FIDE business 4 times this year and will be doing so again to Turkey.

The purpose of this court case is that 3 FIDE Vice Presidents were elected against the FIDE Statutes. The ironic thing is that all 3 volunteered to stand down as VPs. This was led by Ali, who stated his willingness publicly in Krakow and had done so before. When I asked David Jarrett, why not following the FIDE Statutes? He responded, 'We aren't going to be bullied into doing so.'

Again ironically, until Ali's pronouncement about the arbiters I had thought him the best chess organizer I have ever met. And, yes, that did include me.


Total personal pronoun count: 14. 

"Of course, if Narcissus had consulted me initially, I would have told him that he was in danger of falling in love with himself".


PS. 10.20pm, 9/6/12.
Life imitates art! The Little I Am has now added a further claim:


Ulster Chess Union tried to affiliate to FIDE separately quite recently. Earlier so did the Isle of Man (at the same time as Greenland,etc.) Both were turned down under the current FIDE statutes. Had the latter applied when I first suggested it, they would have been accepted.

No checks in the post

The utter incompetence of the Egregious Chess Federation is well documented, of course, and those of us who have been around for a few years in British chess are rarely surprised or shocked by new examples. But one scandal has come to my attention, that has hitherto escaped public notice, and which shocks even me. This concerns the Ward-Higgs Trophy, the annual English counties' correspondence chess event.

Correspondence chess is a rapidly dying thing. The advent of the computer has persuaded many players that there is no longer any point in playing chess by correspondence, be it post, e-mail or server. If one really wants to play a slow game against Rybka or Houdini, one can simply do so against one's own version of the program - why bother playing somebody else's? However, notwithstanding these considerations, there are still plenty of diehards who wish to play correspondence chess, and who derive great enjoyment from it. It is right that the national federation should support them.

The Ward-Higgs is a long-established event, run by the ECF, in which each English county enters a team (of 30 boards, if memory serves). Each player is paired with an opponent from another county, and they play one game, lasting about 9-10 months. At the season end, unfinished games are adjudicated, and the county which has amassed most game points is the winner. Because it only involves a single game, the Ward-Higgs has always attracted a lot of OTB players, who make the concession of their one annual postal game for their county. The pairings traditionally go out around October.

The 2011-12 season should be finishing about now. But there is just one small problem - it has still not started! A full nine months (!) after pairings should have gone out, there is still total silence from the ECF. None of the county captains, nor their players, have heard a dicky-bird. The event controller is one John Philpott. I do not know him, but he is listed on the the ECF website, complete with smiling picture, as "Chairman of the Governance Committee". Readers familiar with the catalogue of ECF governance failures over the past couple of years might feel that such a title is a bit like being introduced as the Safety Officer on the Titanic, but for now we will pass on from that issue.  What is beyond doubt is that Mr Philpott exists, since he posts regularly on our favourite forum ("I post, therefore I am", as Descartes almost said). Indeed, he is most scrupulous in responding to questions touching on matters of ECF governance - it only needs someone to post a question, asking, for example, how many proxy votes a left-handed, one-legged delegate with bad breath and piles requires, in order to call a motion of "no confidence" in the ECF office coffee machine vendor, and Mr Philpott can be guaranteed to reply within minutes, giving chapter and verse from the ECF bye-laws.

But when it comes to the Ward-Higgs, he is silent. County captains e-mail him, asking for news - no response. ECF board members e-mail him, asking what is going on - silence. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel, they seek him here, they seek him there, but the damned elusive Philpott cannot be raised anywhere. When it comes to the Ward-Higgs, he maintains a policy of omerta, that would do credit to Joe Bonnano. One might have thought that the powers that be at the Egregious lot would have taken over the issue and sorted it out by now, but no - they are too busy working out how to implement their compulsory membership scheme. Never mind about organising chess events for the players of this country - all that matters is extracting money from them.

"Ward-Higgs? Never heard o' the guy! Talk to my lawyer!" (photo: hollywoodusa.co.uk) 

The result is that the players and captains have now given up. Clearly, there will be no Ward-Higgs for 2011-12. Sussex, reigning champions for the past two years, have already declared that they will not now play, even if pairing notices should suddenly emerge from darkest Chingford, where Philpott allegedly resides. Is this to be the end of the Ward-Higgs? Probably not - if a new controller can be found, the event is likely to continue. But I am prepared to bet that a few more players will drop out. As if captains did not have enough trouble each year, fighting the drip-drip-drip with which players are lost to CC, this farce is now going to accelerate that process. Yet another triumph for the Chess Destruction Federation.

From the days when the Ward-Higgs involved playing chess:

Ruining the French Defence

I have spent the last few days at the e2e4 Diamond Jubilee event at Gatwick, another triumph for Sean Hewitt and his e2e4 circuit. One of the players was my old university friend, Peter Sowray, whom it is always a pleasure to meet at chess events. I was especially interested in his first round game, where he played the French Defence as Black. This was for a special reason.

A few months ago, at another e2e4 event, Peter told me a very funny story, of how one of his earliest trainers had "ruined the French Defence for me". In his youth, Peter was coached for a while by Cenek Kottnauer, a very strong Czech national and IM, who settled in this country in the late 1940s, and was for years one of our strongest players. Peter recalled that Kottnauer liked to play him games at rook odds. This was pushing his luck a bit, because by this time, Peter was already pretty strong, but despite this, Kottnauer initially managed to win a few games, even at such large odds. However, then Peter realised that this only ever happened when he answered 1.e4 with 1...e5. Soon, he started employing the French, keeping the position closed, after which Kottnauer's task became hopeless.

However, this had its long-term consequences. Peter explained that nowadays, every year or so, he feels he should give the French a go in serious games. The trouble is, as he put it, "...the positions never look so good without an extra rook!". In effect. Kottnauer ruined the opening for Peter! As a result, every time he thinks of taking up the opening, he ends up backing away.

I am pleased to be able to report, though, that he has finally overcome this psychological block, and played the opening successfully at Gatwick. If he decides to study it further, I can recommend the new book, The Modern French, by Yugoslavs Dejan Antic and Branimir Maksimovic. This excellent volume provides a French repertoire for Black, based around the MacCutcheon and the 3...Be7 Tarrasch. I had a small hand in its production, having been employed by publisher New in Chess, to tidy up the original English text. I was very impressed by the content, which is detailed, up to date, and has the right blend of variations and verbal explanation. You can order the book here.

Although the game does not feature in the book (the variation is not part of the book's repertoire), here is a French game, which has always been an inspiration in my own use of the opening (not that I ever produced anything remotely as good, of course!).

Venus in rare sun transit - Sir Roger de Coverly speaks out

"If it weren't for the ECF compulsory membership scheme, it would cross the sun much more frequently than once every 105 years" (photo: John Saunders)

At Gatwick

I am currently working at the e2e4 Gatwick Diamond Jubilee event. This is the biggest e2e4 event so far, with almost 200 competitors. You can see more, including daily reports and live games, at the official website.

Termitewatch (29) - General Ignorance

It seems the average termite simply cannot open its mouth without putting its foot in it. In the wake of Anand retaining his world title, someone on the Forum asked who holds the record for the most successful title defences. Immediately, one Ian Kingston, a particularly unpleasant specimen of the termitic genre, who never misses the opportunity to make disparaging comments about this blog, responded with the answer six, quoting as evidence that omnipotent source, Wikipedia. The number six is arrived at by counting Steinitz, Marshall, Tarrasch, Schlechter and two defences against Janowski. To this moment, nobody else on the Forum has questioned this assertion.

Sadly for Kingston, it is a well-established fact that only one of the three Lasker-Janowski matches was for the world title. This was proved many years ago by the respected chess historian, Ken Whyld. When Lasker agreed to play Janowski in 1909, he was already committed to defending his title against Schlechter the following year, and he made clear that the title could not therefore be at stake in the match against Janowski. None of the contemporary newspaper or magazine sources referred to the latter as a title match and there can be no doubt at all that the title was not at stake.

The Ian Kingston of the TV quiz world? (photo: qi.com)

Kingston's ignorance is all the more reprehensible for the fact that the truth about the 1909 Lasker-Janowski match is available in many, easily accessible sources. Inter alia, I would refer him to my article in the March 2012 issue of Chess, Britain's leading (in every sense of the word) chess magazine. The article posed a Stephen Fry / QI / General Ignorance-style quiz, of popular misconceptions about chess history. The final question asked how many times Lasker defended his world title against Janowski, and gave chapter and verse on the matter.

Never let it be said that I do not do my best to educate the termites, but I fear 'tis a hopeless task!

Xstrata boss offered $29 million to stay on

"Of course, I would be willing to stay on for considerably less than that".