Whenever the popular press presumes to write with authority about chess, the self-appointed custodians of the game (that’s us) get sniffy, usually with good reason. When chess hits the headlines it tends to trigger a reflex in newspapers. They (tabloids especially) reach for their trusty…
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To mark the historic visit of FIDE President His Excellency Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to London last week, we invite readers to offer captions to these excellent photos we’ve appropriated without permission from FIDE’s website. Winners will receive the following prizes: A trip to Mars to meet the President’s…
Read MoreFurther non-essential reading offered by chess players inspired by Tony Miles’ infamous two-word book review. (Mark Thornton) Winning Database Dumps by Many English Grandmasters (Mig Greengard) How I Plan to Overthrow Kirsan in the Next FIDE Election by Nigel Short (Sarah Hurst) Tarts,…
Read MoreInspired by Tony Miles’ famous two-word book review, several readers have offered suggestions for chess books that should never be written. There are more on Kingpin’s Facebook page. They say that everyone has a crap book in them, so please send us your ideas! (Mig…
Read More‘A raking pin by the proud prelate. White threatens to thrust the flagship of his armada forward with the galloping move e5, leaving his discomforted steed on f6 feeling like Yasser Arafat at a barmitzvah.’ A great spoof by Colin Crouch from Kingpin 20 (Spring 1993).
Read MoreEdward Winter bemoans the lack of pen-portraits in chess writing: ‘a highly demanding form of writing which requires no particular chess expertise yet is almost universally avoided nowadays’. Chess writers are, with a few exceptions, chess experts rather than writers and rarely venture outside their…
Read MoreThe Students’ Olympiad 1967 W. R. Hartston This event was held in Harrachov, Czechoslovakia in July and Cambridge University provided two members of the English team. On board two I scored two wins, nine draws and one loss in soporific style while on board…
Read More‘John Witherow and Fraser Nelson, editors of the Times and Spectator respectively, are happy to employ a hack who regularly steals other writers’ work and passes it off as its own … This isn’t the first time the Penguin has been caught red-handed.’ Private Eye…
Read More‘How many more daylight robberies can he get away with before the editors of the Times and Spectator call a halt to his criminal spree?’ Private Eye No.1354 29 November-12 Dec. 2013, p.8 Have you noticed that each time Raymond Keene appears in Private Eye these…
Read MoreWhen accusations of plagiarism hit the ice shelf one fortunate old bird always seems to wing it. The strange evolutionary advantages of Raymond Keene.
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Gary Kenworthy
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Jon Manley
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S.B. Cohen
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