Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

December 7, 2019

From an interview of Chris Ward with Maurice Ashley during the broadcast of London Chess Classic. Chris is the most enthusiastic, effervescent commentator around:

Discussing the Ding Liren – MVL game:

“Ding has a lot of pawns still on the board. You know what we would like to see? There is the chance of seven new queens appearing on the board!”

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

December 3, 2019

Five Guys Named Jamieson

I never would have thought in writing great chess quotes that I would give the entire results of a tournament!

First, this quote from Ian Rogers:

Results of an extraordinary recent tournament in Peru, featuring five players named Jamieson, are here:

https://chess-results.com/tnr490387....et=YES&flag=30

However according to FIDE VP Granda, the tournament run by IA Tacuche Martinez never happened! Past fake events have created norms, but why this one??

-
Final Ranking after 7 Rounds
-
Rk.		Name		FED		Rtg		Pts.
‘-
1		Martinez Adell Sergi		ESP		0		5.5
2		Luis Antonio Perez De Leon		PAN		0		5.5
3		Lazo Roman Sebastian		CRC		0		5.5
4		Landeo Enciso Camila		PER		0		5
5		Luis Acosta Omar		ESP		0		5
6		Ochoa Alvarez Mauricio		MEX		0		5
7		Lazo Manriquez Edgardo		CHI		0		5
8		Toresen Isak		NOR		0		4.5
9		Perez Aban Carlos Andres		BOL		0		4.5
10		Jose Abreu Adrian Armando		DOM		0		4.5
11		Martinez Agapito Fernando		MEX		0		4.5
12		Rodrigo Aguado Jose Luis		ESP		0		4.5
13		Ochoa Arrue Inigo		ESP		0		4.5
14		Caro Villar cristian		PER		0		4.5
15		Luis Eduardo		POR		0		4.5
16		Lazo Gomez Ingrid Shadani		MEX		1830		4
17		Luis Castellano Miguel A.		ESP		1590		4
18		Luis Cejudo Gaizka		ESP		1477		4
19		Luis Alvarez Isabela		CUB		1467		4
20		Perez Abarca Raul		ESP		0		4
21	FM	Jamieson Peter M		SCO		2213		4
22		Jamieson Neil		ENG		0		4
23	IM	Jamieson Robert M		AUS		2444		3.5
24		Lazo Ramos Mathiu Anthony		PER		1671		3.5
25		Lazo De La Vega Katherine	-	PER		0		3.5
26		Lazo Verver Y Vargas Lenin		MEX		2002		3.5
27		Ulloa Perez Juan		PER		0		3.5
28		Perez Acebal Alfonso		URU		2158		3.5
29		Perez Sebastian		PER		1591		3.5
30		Jordyn Bijoy		IND		0		3.5
31		Luis Broock Carlos		ESP		0		3
32		Tores Belisario Anthony De Jesus		VEN		0		3
33		Luis Alvarez Elizabeth		CUB		2028		3
34		Perez Aban Javier Adrian		BOL		1516		3
35		Lazo Villarroel Isabel Camila		BOL		0		3
36		Luis Anthony Jayanata		INA		1643		3
37		Perez Vinicio		DOM		0		3
38		Perez Yenni		DOM		0		3
39		Jamieson Ian		SCO		1891		3
40		Ochoa Aldaz Mikel		ESP		1846		3
41		Martinez Acuna Aniuska Celeste		VEN		0		3
42		Landeo Enciso Enzo Andre		PER		0		2.5
43		Lazo Tapia Esperanza		CHI		0		2.5
44		Ochoa Mauricio		MEX		0		2.5
45		Toresano Lopez Daniel		ESP		0		2.5
46		Luis Abad Silvio		BRA		0		2
47		Ochoa A Camilo Andres		COL		0		2
48		Toresen Hakon		NOR		0		2
49		Perez Gabriel		VEN		0		2
50		Lazo Martinez Incaivi Brandon		HON		0		2
51		Lazo Manriquez Paz Andrea		CHI		0		1.5
52		Jamieson Alexander		ENG		1710		1.5
53		Luis Broock Tania		ESP		0		1.5
54		Perez Abellan Alvaro		ESP		0		0.5
-
-
-

Imagine travelling over half the world to play in a non-existent tournament, fated to do so because your family name is Jamieson.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

November 28, 2019

The Longest Game

Pentala Harikrishna in an interview in Kolkata during the recent Tata Steel Rapid and Blitz.

Recently, you were involved in one of the longest games ever played at the European Club Cup (236 moves). Tell us about it.

I think it was the first time I played more than 200 moves. It’s really difficult to play that amount of moves. My opponent, David Howell, initially said he was playing because his team mate was losing. So, in order to equalise the match, he tried to win on my board. So, maybe, that was the reason he played 50 or 100 moves initially. And then I was surprised as to why he was playing so many moves, he was moving from one side to the other and not really making any progress. At some point it was quite funny because there were more arbiters waiting in the playing hall than the players because only we were playing and around nine or ten arbiters were waiting for our game to finish. I think we played for around six hours and forty-five minutes. Not much time was left for dinner (laughs)…when I saw the final drawing pattern, I didn’t know whether he wanted to make a record or something. It was quite tiring. First, it was long and second, there was no improvement. We sat and wrote the moves on four sheets of paper. I was exhausted and I was hoping the match would finish soon so that I could grab a bite, but it was important not to make a mistake in the match.

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/im...16_i_1_sf.html

The game’s score is at:

https://forum.chesstalk.com/forum/ch...-events/page13

It is entry #191

[Aris Marghetis]

Colin Strother (Democratic strategist based in Texas) describes the battle over impeachment messaging this way:

"We have this thing in Texas about playing chess against a chicken. He'll just knock over all the pieces and crap on the board, then strut around like he won the game."

[Nigel Hanrahan]

GM Susan Polgar: Who has the right to play Chess God and decide what achievements are good and what are meaningless?

Hooray for Susan Polgar and may she keep kicking chess bigots where the sun don't shine.

And make them cry for their mama!!

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 20, 2019

Harry Golombek was an editor of The British Chess Magazine in the 60s and 70s, an arbiter of the World Chess Championship matches between 1954 until 1972 and also one of the Bletchley Park codebreakers during WWII.

In the BCM for March 1956, he annotated an Alekhine game from 1918. In it, the opponent Evensson as Black played 6….KxB.

Golombek apparently forgot about the king move and twice on moves 8 and 13, he recommended castling for Black!

Well, the next month, in April, in BCM he had to write this:

A Note on Illegal Castling

I suppose I should apologize for my double endeavour at a posthumous swindle of Alekhine in the game where I recommend that Black should Castle after having moved his King, but readers have had such fun in reproving my lapse that regrets seem unnecessary.

An old chess opponent of mine, Dr. Aitken, writes: “I can see after this rather sinister revelation of your illegal proclivities I shall have to be extremely wide awake when I next meet you!” W. H. Cozens betrays his murky past by stating: “I have tried this device on several occasions but so far without success.” D. J. Youston merely sends a card giving the number of the game and the exclamation “Oh-Oh!”

Then there are some anonymous verses from Hampstead running as follows –

When Smyslov with Olympian might
In Moscow’s halls Botwinnik fought
Who reigned as judge amid the fight?
Whose frown upheld the code of sport?

Oh, tell us! Speak the great one’s name
Whose knowledge thus was deeply proved!
Hush! He who twice notes in one short game,
A King should Castle, having moved!

All in all, readers appear to have enjoyed themselves so much that perhaps I ought to add a deliberate mistake each month; but perhaps this might not be good policy since readers in their search for the one, might well stumble upon hundreds.

H.G.

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/i...ine_v_Evensson

[Jonathan MacDonald]

Touchpiece Magic:In a split second you touch a piece you'll see more in the position than the last thirty minutes you spent studying it.--Donner

[Jonathan MacDonald]

The King is a fighting piece.Use it.-Steinitz

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

Oct. 20, 2019

The Oldest at the Strongest

From the EC Forum under the heading of FIDE Grand Swiss Tournament 2019 – Isle of Man, early this morning:

Keith Arkell – That terrifying moment when you realise that of the 152 players in action tomorrow, in the strongest tournament in the history of chess (not including Round-Robins), you are the OLDEST!

And this reply three hours later:

John Moore - Morning Keith. Vlastimil Jansa is 76 so you will have to settle for being second oldest!


https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic...0262c3#p236125

Later: Leonard Barden chimes in and overturns everything by writing – Jansa has the bye in round 10

Just for the record, Arkell drew his game with Gonzales with a perpetual in 78 moves.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

from the French film "Fahim, the Little Chess Prince", the great French actor Gerard Depardieu plays French FM Xavier Parmentier (1963-2016) ...

"There are more adventures on the board than on all the high seas."

p.s. I just have the quote from the trailer for the film ... so there is no confirmation that the words are actually from FM Parmentier.

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

October 6, 2019

World Chess again

World Chess has questionable marketing. In previous quote
#529, blockchains were discussed. The logo for the WCC 2018 is infamous.

Now, this description of the entry zone for a chess club. I find the allusion to Mercer Hotel lobby bar cryptic.

When designing an entry zone for a hip chess club, we were drawn to neon. WCCM, the first club we launched, is designed like part NYC Chinatown massage parlor, part Mercer Hotel lobby bar. #chess The first one is in Moscow. What city should be next?

https://twitter.com/theworldchess?re...ess-news.ru%2F

Recall the Spassky cocktail at the World Chess Club Moscow bar:

This is "Spassky", one of the most inventive cocktails.[it involves sprouts distillation, chilled purified tomato water, miniature onion as garnish]. Developed by World Chess Club Moscow in the very same building where Spassky lived! TimeOut called it best cocktail of the season.

If you are in Moscow:

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Restauran...al_Russia.html

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

September 29, 2019

Justification

Recently, on the death of Pal Benko, as a personal tribute, I purchased two booklets with the games of Pal Benko vs Mikhail Tal and Bobby Fischer vs Pal Benko. Both were copyright 2019.

The curious thing about them is that the games are given in English Descriptive Notation. Personally, I have nothing against that system – I am sure I have over a thousand chess books using it. But you would think, to be saleable world-wide in this era, that algebraic would be preferable.

On the back of each booklet is the justification for the use:

1. Literacy is knowledge, and knowledge is victory. I, (the author), have a sizeable library of old chess books in English Descriptive. It gives me great pleasure to travel through those old books, finding forgotten lines, giving them an update with some new analysis. It gives me even greater pleasure to surprise my opponents with these neglected gems, which they scorn in their algebraic-fueled ignorance. Ha!

2. The soullessness of the machine. Algebraic notation has all the virtues of a machine: simple, ruthless, efficient. It has all the vices of a machine: simple, ruthless, efficient. Descriptive notation is quirky, variable, and stylish. Which do you prefer?

3. Part of the Madding Crowd. Everyone uses algebraic! Is this you? Are you a member of the madding crowd? Or are you an individual, seeking to express yourself? You can give expression to your artistic nature with descriptive, but you can’t with algebraic.

4. Be amused, be very amused. Grandmaster Raymond Keene noted that you can find little word games in descriptive, for example, repetition: 18.BxP BxP, 18.BxP BxP. You can’t find that in algebraic.

5. It is natural not artificial. Emanuel Lasker, who came from Germany, favored descriptive over algebraic because, he said, descriptive follows the natural flow of the game. As each move is made it is written from the perspective of either White or Black, just as the game itself progresses. It is not all from White’s perspective, which is artificial.

6. It frustrates the ignorant. There is great pleasure in letting someone attempt to read your scoresheet when he is unlettered in descriptive.

[Erik Malmsten]

Great Chess Quotes

September 8, 2019

International Rating List

In the early 1960s, Arpad Elo was working on his rating system for the United States Chess Federation.

. . . . ..
It is of interest to look at that first international rating list. These from that:

Botvinnik 2736
Euwe 2553
Fischer 2713
Geller 2655
Korchnoi 2667
Petrosian 2674
Reshevsky 2597
Smyslov 2601
Spassky 2663
Tal 2706
Yanofsky 2460

June 1967

THE UNITED STATES CHESS FEDERATION INTERNATIONAL RATING LIST:

1 Spassky, Boris V. URS 2670
1= Fischer, Robert James USA 2670
3 Petrosian, Tigran URS 2660
4 Botvinnik, Mikhail URS 2650
4= Tal, Mikhail N. URS 2650
6 Stein, Leonid URS 2640
7 Geller, Efim P. URS 2630
8 Larsen, Bent DEN 2620
8= Portisch, Lajos HUN 2620
8= Korchnoi, Viktor URS 2620
8= Polugaevsky, Lev URS 2620

The list eventually became accepted by FIDE.

https://www.olimpbase.org/Elo/Elo196706e.html

And looking at historical EDO ratings:

Vienna International 1882
Name Edo Score / Games
Steinitz, Wilhelm 2686 22 / 32
Winawer, Szymon 2620 22 / 32
Mason, James 2615 21 / 32
Mackenzie, George 2593 20.5 / 32
Zukertort, Johannes 2650 19.5 / 31
Blackburne, Joseph 2601 19.5 / 32
Englisch, Berthold 2557 18.5 / 33
Paulsen, Louis 2523 16.5 / 32
Wittek, Alexander 2494 15 / 31
Weiss, Miksa 2493 13.5 / 31
Hrubý, Vincenz 2529 14 / 32
Schwarz, Adolf 2489 11 / 29
Chigorin, Mikhail 2514 12 / 32
Meitner, Philipp 2424 10 / 31
Bird, Henry 2497 11 / 28
Ware, Preston 2329 8 / 31
Noa, Josef 2458 9 / 17
Fleissig, Bernhard 2444 6 / 20

http://www.edochess.ca/tournaments/t247.html

[Erik Malmsten]

Great Chess Quotes

September 16, 2019

Chess and Rugby

From Ian Rogers’ Twitter Page:

Just came across a remarkable book, Homo Erudiens by Renato Tribuiani; a training manual for those wishing to master both chess and rugby, with diagrams showing similar combinations in both. Realising how rarely I hear chess commentators say: "It's a game of rugby out there."

https://twitter.com/GMIanRogers

____________

Amazon.it has the book for the low price of 8 euros (postage extra). But, could I get through 104 pages of rugby and chess in Italian?

Several chess problems from the book:

https://translate.google.com/transla...y/&prev=search

[Wayne Komer]

Great Chess Quotes

September 25, 2019

B.H. Wood and Gijon

The Gijon International Chess Tournaments 1944-1965 by the Castedos has recently been published by McFarland. Most players, I think, would say that there could not be enough for them in the 244 pages to warrant buying the book.

But there are many interesting aspects to the book – games from Alekhine’s victory in the first tournament in 1944, Rossolimo’s from 1949 and Larsen’s from 1956. The authors were able to interview Bent Larsen by telephone from Buenos Aires, shortly before his death, about his participation in and memories of that tournament.

Duncan Suttles played at Gijon in 1965.

Among the delightful surprises, is a long (6-page) biography of B.H. Wood. Barry Wood was the legendary founder and editor of CHESS magazine from Sutton Coldfield. Information was supplied by Wood’s four children and much of it I have not seen before.

Wood played in Gijon in 1947, 1948 and 1951. He wrote of the last tournament there:

“As ever, the tournament was marked above all by friendliness and hospitality which touched heights which only those who have experienced it can imagine.”

And now for the relevant quote about all this, from Stewart Reuben writing in the ECForum:

After the Second World War, the Soviet Union sought to have Spain barred from FIDE. Barry Wood was the BCF Delegate at the time. He got up and made a speech about Gens una Sumus. That was the last heard of the Soviet proposal. Thus Barry was always held in high esteem in Spain.

He would arrive at the border and 'our good friend, BH Wood’, would be ushered straight through.

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic...e85f5e93e232b0