‘The ultimate truth about chess is that it is a game of chance. All a chess player can do is react to opportunities and possibilities which are provided from outside and for which he can only hope and wait.’ J.H. Donner The King: Chess Pieces…
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“Chess is a kind of human activity which has room for manifestations of both intellect and the competitive spirit. But this is a bloodless competition. FIDE’s motto is Gens una sumus. And personally, I approve of only one kind of battles – the ones that…
Read MoreWe are sure that readers will have come across humorist Stephen Fry. A few months ago, the star of Blackadder, Saturday Night Live, the Comic Strip and numerous radio programmes was interviewed on television. In the background on his bookshelves was a copy of Batsford…
Read MoreStuart Conquest remembers his mentor Our first address in Hastings was 11, Cloudesley Road. Some years later an acute economic squeeze forced us to sell that spacious abode, so instead we moved a few miles west, to a small semi-detached property high up on a hill,…
Read MoreStuart Conquest recalls his reckless youth When one’s surname is Conquest, and when one spends ten years of one’s life in the town of Hastings, then the line: ‘Is your middle name Norman?’ (or similar witticisms) does tend to crop up with alarming frequency. I…
Read MoreWhat is your earliest memory of playing chess? I remember playing my father in our first game in about 1971. What is your most memorable game? Beating Mikhail Gurefish [sic] in the last round of the Manila Interzonal. What was your worst…
Read More‘The game of chess has never been held in great esteem by the North Americans. Their culture is steeped in deeply anti-intellectual tendencies. They pride themselves in having created the game of poker. It is their national game, springing from a tradition of westward expansion,…
Read MoreWhile looking at a copy of Chess Monthly, I read with interest while Chris Ward revealed how he had been thinking during his penultimate round game with Jonathan Levitt during last year’s British Championships. Having reached a very promising middlegame position Chris started to daydream. I hand you over to the man himself:
Read MoreWith his sharp eye for the unusual and the bizarre, Tony Miles offered this ‘candidate for the most absurd combination of the year award’. Bellon–Sosonko Amsterdam 1978 Having been positionally outplayed Bellon now produced the incredible 21 Bxa6!!??? The ‘justification’ lying in the variation 21…Bxa6 22…
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Gary Kenworthy
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