Latest in 2015

Volatile Egos

  ‘For decades the world championships had been run by FIDE, the International Chess Federation; but increasingly there were collisions between this entrenched bureaucracy and volatile egos with high financial expectations. Relations between FIDE and the top players deteriorated sharply under the Presidency of Florencio…

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Arimaa: Game Over?

  What’s New with Arimaa? In an earlier articlea I introduced readers to Arimaa, a recently invented and hitherto almost unknown chess variant. I argued that Arimaa has a comparable beauty and complexity to chess, but a much higher potential (given the lengthy history and extensive…

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Gazza Factor

  ‘If all players were as intelligent, voluble and linguistically assured as Gary Kasparov, the game could print its own cheque-books.’ Julian Barnes, ‘TDF: The World Chess Championship’ The New Yorker (December 1993) reproduced in Letters from London 1990-1995 (Picador, 1995), p.273   See also…

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Humdinger of a Move

  Jean-René Koch – Neil Carr French U21 Ch, Montpellier, 1987  (Notes by Neil Carr)      1 e4 g6 2 d4 Bg7 3 Nf3 d6 Readers of the last Kingpin will remember (to their cost!) that I was feeling like a right Pirc during the…

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Frog in the Throat

The late Neil Carr recounted this anecdote in Kingpin 12 (Autumn 1987).    The French International U-21 Championship held in Montpellier in April was a well-run 9 round tournament which produced some fine attacking chess. It was won by L. Stratil of Czechoslovakia (Strepsil to…

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Great Swindles Of Our Time

  Neil Carr wrote some funny articles for Kingpin. His dynamic style of play, breezy sense of humour and fondness for excruciating wordplay made him an ideal contributor. This turbulent game appeared in Kingpin 11. The dubious honour of having contributed more to this section of Kingpin…

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Chess and Character

  ‘If ever there was a game calculated to bring into prominent view the idiosyncrasies of individuals, it is chess. It shows up a man’s prevailing characteristics at times so plainly that he who runs may read. The faults of human nature, as shown in…

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Neil Carr: A Natural

  Neil Carr, who has died suddenly at only 47, was one of the most gifted chess players to emerge from the English chess explosion of the late seventies and early eighties. A child prodigy, he won the British Under-11 Championship in 1978 and lifted…

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Chess and War

  ‘. . .  almost the whole basis of chess is the rule that each player must move in turn and only one thing at a time. This makes it entirely different from war, and explains why such enormous advantage results if one side can…

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