fb throws up more interesting content. It doesn’t look like I have got much better as the years have gone by.
M J M
Marcus the reprobate1 has nothing better to do early on a Sunday morning than look at a game in which, as I remember it, GM Carlsen looked more depressed in the postgame analysis than any other I’ve ever seen him comment on and play through. It was at the London Chess Classic 2010, which I had the good fortune to attend whilst completing my Master’s Degree. I’m such a lowlife I even messaged a friend about this game this morning, and as can be gleaned from the chat, I’ve become so hopeless at chess, as time has gone by, I am reliant on engines now to make sense of it all -what a life!2 Please note I cannot upload the voice messages shown below. Mark is very working class like me and they are full of swear words and lots of other foul language!3
On with the game. GM Luke Skywalker McShane plays 18. Nc6 here. I could not play this move. I would focus too much on the immediate tactics involved here, which do not seem to achieve very much in any of the lines I thought -and yes the engines seem to agree. What I cannot see is that 18.Nc6 allows white to reposition the knight to b4 and thus eye the d5 and a6 squares and how important that becomes, as it helps white to maintain a stranglehold on the queenside, which helps result in a decisive advantage soon enough.
The engines don’t seem too convinced by 18. Nc6 but I think it’s a good move. The evaluations in the positions to follow show that black is soon lost, admittedly however, some of his moves weren’t the best -so speak the engines!. You may find the game here.4
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1602060
M J M
- Marcus is my chess inspired namesake, which for well over a decade already I use in life more than my real name, which is Mark. It mostly comes from Marcus Misson. More about that can be found here. I am writing this post because I was supposed to go to Tashkent this morning but a change of plans by a colleague has left me with nothing much to do today instead of chat about games online with mates. ↩︎
- In the Autumn of 1989 I discovered who The Sex Pistols were and have liked punk ever since. London still has punk rockers in it today who look the same as they did back then but in the many documentaries and social media clips surfacing about them they are accused of clinging on to the past, and are often asked if the only reason they are still into punk is because they couldn’t find anything better. I cling onto chess for this very reason. I couldn’t find anything better to do ever and have got stuck with it. I love to write about it but have hardly played in well over a decade already. This has come about because I can’t find anything better to do in life for the most part but also because I can’t admit I’ve never achieved anything in chess and should have left it behind long ago. This is why I am such a down and out but also well suited to chess in some respects. ↩︎
- The foul language came about because whilst talking to Mark I became resigned to admitting I have nothing better to do with my life than look at old games I once remembered. The language worsened when I became sure the game is not as I remembered it, and didn’t quite go as I thought it did. The language worsened further when I realized I wanted to go out, get drunk and listen to music, as it suddenly became too difficult to reflect upon anything. It should added that whenever Mark and I chat about chess, it is usually very negative and often has lots of swear words anyway. This is because Mark and I know many criminals in the English chess scene, almost all of them in fact, and it’s quite normal for us to slag them off and throw insults about. It’s not just us. Many other chess players we chat to from England also do this (names withheld for the time being). ↩︎
- Please don’t comment on this post. I’ve been told all my life to stop taking the piss but I just can’t. I’ve been beaten up many times over it by kids at school, kids on my street, family members, members of my chess club, participants at tournaments and also arbiters. It won’t do again good to complain about this post! Just see it as a consequence of getting bored easily or something. ↩︎
Posted in Moves I could never play | Leave a Comment »
GM Mariotti, Italy’s first GM, was an interesting player and fellow. I’ve had an interest in him and his games for a long time as he played in my home county Bedfordshire in the 70-71 season whilst still an IM. I have spoken to him about that since, but alas he told me that ever since his heart operation he isn’t able to remember anything about his past life.
Here’s a game of his where he defeats Pal Benko with the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian Defence. White plays 26. Nxf5+ in the diagram below, a long term piece sacrifice which the engines are not critical of, given his position is assessed as already slightly inferior and does not worsen. I can’t see where the win is coming from exactly, so I couldn’t play it,
As mentioned, I did run it through the engines, well the analysis board on Lichess I should say.
It gave him an attack and then Benko cracked under pressure and blew it, allowing mate in 4. Here’s the game.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1785932
M J M
Posted in My daughter | Leave a Comment »
I met a colleague today for lunch. He told me that the Uzbekistan National Team could be seen on tv today, each receiving a check for 200,000$, a house and a car. Here is the evidence.
M J M
Posted in Chess | Leave a Comment »
After she had finished, she said ‘good’. This happened at the recent Olympiad in Uzbekistan. Please click on the link and view all of it.
M J M
Posted in My own endeavours | Leave a Comment »
I decided to spend a day or two there. It was truly wonderful. Here are the pics and videos.
Video 1
I took a taxi to go to Samarkand, which took about 5 and a half hours, We stopped off a few times. Heres one clip.
Video 2
Taxis werent allowed to take you right up to the venue so some shuttle bus/golf cart thing did instead.
Video 3
Requiring a wristband.
Video 4
The Thai Chess Team
Video 5
The hall that felt like home. It was a hive of activity.
Video 6
This I found fascinating.
Video 7
The Thai Chess team just before round 10 starts. There’s more robot fun also.
Video 8
This I enjoyed seeing.
Video 9
Round 10. Long video which shows many of the world’s best players after about 3 mins 20 secs.
Video 10
The Kuwait team. I played much chess there.
Video 11
You can see many top players in this video. Interesting viewing. That”s GM Rapport and GM Leko in the thumbnail there.
Video 12
Yet more top players here, especially from the India team.
Video 13
I am having a nice time.
Video 14
I spent nearly 7 hours walking around that day and got tired a few times. So in this video I am sitting down and recovering.
Video 15
GM Peter Svidler in the distance. I didn’t want to disturb him.
Video 16
Autograph time for the kids and a little wander around.
Video 17
GM Nodirbek Abdusattorov and much security.
Video 18
On the shuttle bus after much walking around.
Video 19
A walk around Samarkand before play began on the final day.
Video 20
He was very polite to me when I asked for a picture.
M J M
Posted in Chess, My own endeavours | Leave a Comment »
Houghton Regis, Bedfordshire, is starting up a chess club. Details can be found in the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2005719213024749/permalink/4425807084349271
M J M
Posted in Bedfordshire Chess | Leave a Comment »
When I lived in Kuwait in 2008, I found online and befriended a certain Khalid Hashem, who introduced me to the chess scene there, and I would not stop playing. I entered many tournaments and won prizes in one of them. I have fond memories of that tournament and always remember I kept playing the Stonewall Attack as white, and the French Defence against 1. e4 and the Dutch defence against 1. d4. If you go to the 1.55 mark in the video linked below, you can see me tripping over a chair before, shaking many hands having my photo taken and collecting my prize.
M J M
Posted in My own endeavours | Leave a Comment »
A bit of draughts and backgammon also.
M J M
Posted in Chess | Leave a Comment »
Another slow Sunday -American Gambit it is. When I was young, I found this documentary to be uncomfortable viewing in places as some of Kasparov’s behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. I think we can all agree that lecturing your opponent during the game and disturbing everyone else in the process of a simul is rather arrogant and not very gentlemanly. I used to offset this with admiration for GM Patrick Wolff, and a general interest in how play unfolded but that’s all. I haven’t seen it in so long so I thought I would watch it again. What I find interesting about this today is that since Kasparov, no other world champion has tried a feat similar to this.
GM Wolff’s win against GM Kasparov can be found here.
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070358
M J M
Posted in Documentaries | Leave a Comment »
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A side note on how to read old Tom Sweby's columns
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Not perhaps, but quintessentially, Old Tom Sweby is best thought of as a passionate devotee to the newspapers he wrote for. He was well read and knowledgeable of the Bedfordshire chess scene and well beyond, given that he was the president of the S.C.C.U. once upon a time. He was generally well-respected and rubbed shoulders with many, if not all, of those eminent within British chess circles. It would, however, be a critical mistake to see his column is primary source material entirely. That it is not. You will also find secondary source material quoted too, and the reliability of that is not quite as Tom hoped. Given that he wrote for decades, this is to some degree inevitable, and after all we are all prone to error whether we realize it or not. Thankfully, with regards to old Tom Sweby, they are infrequent and for the most part old Tom continued to document events and developments in the Bedfordshire league from the get go as best he could but, of course, everything lies open to interpretation. Despite this, and generally speaking. this does indeed make him informative and thus worth reading. Dare I say his columns constitute a narrative describing the latest developments, match reports and changing nature of the Beds league...he knew his audience and wrote according. This manifested itself over decades but brevity was always in play courtesy of the restictions imposed by writing a column. Should you wish to read a in instrumental figure of the Beds' league post WW2, you are quite welcome to peruse what has been posted here... . :-) I should, however, point out that as the decades wore on he gradually moved on away from narratives concerning the Bedfordshire league towards affairs both historical and international. The reasons for this are multifarous, old age was a predominante factor presumably, however, the bottom line is with regards to how the Bedfordshire chess scene developed post WW2: old Tom Sweby is your go to guy. He wrote more about chess in Bedforshire than anyone else did but given he was a Lutonian and writing for a Luton newspaper there is both bias and greater coverage of his hometown than the rest of the county.
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- 1982, myself versus Brian from Sunderland.
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