Tuesday, December 04, 2018

(291) The ending of rook´s pawn and a bishop which does not control the corner square Vs the adjacent knight´s pawn

On the evening of November 17th 2018 I happened to think about a slightly unusual ending of  rook´s pawn and a bishop (which does not control the corner square on which the pawn promotes) Vs knight´s pawn.
Although the position is similar to one which arose in the game Timman Vs Mestel, London 1982, which Timman won and also to that which arose in the fifth game of the Korchnoi Vs Karpov, World Championship Match, Baguio City 1978, which Karpov clung on to draw, my machinations soon led me to realise that it was in fact also drawn.
Here, by the way, is a game from two men who would later contend The Times 1993 World Championship Match. In the ending that arose at move 93 the position is actually won for the man with the bishop as the doubled knight´s pawn means that, after the defender is compelled to give it away, the resultant position will not be a stalemate - https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070432

The following day I competed in a Rapids event in the town of Sumacárcer in the province of Valencia and, during my third round game as black against the Spanish Fide Master  Juan Llinares Tolledano the very set up arose at move 62 -
1. f4 g6 2. Nf3 Bg7 3. e3 d6 4. Be2 Nf6 5. d4 c5 6. dc5 Qa5 7. Nc3 Ne4 8. Bd2 Nc3 9. bc3 Qc5 10. Nd4 O-O 11. O-O Nd7 12. Bf3 Nb6 13. Rb1 d5 14. Kh1 Bd7 15. e4 de4 16. Be4 Rab8 17. Qf3 Nc4 18. Bc1 b6 19. Rd1 Rbd8 20. Be3 Ne3 21. Qe3 Bg4 22. Rd2 Rc8 23. h3 Bd7 24. Rd3 Rc7 25. Rbd1 Ba4 26. f5 Rfc8 27. fg6 hg6 28. Qf3 Be8 29. Ne2 Qe5 30. Rd8 Bf6 31. Bb7 Kg7 32. Bc8 Bc6 33. Qf2 e6 34. Ba6 Bd8 35. Rd8 Bd5 36. Qd4 Qd4 37. Nd4 Rc3 38. Bd3 Ba2 39. Rd7 a5 40. Rb7 Bd5 41. Rb6 a4 42. Ra6 e5 43. Nb5 Rc5 44. Ra4 e4 45. Bf1 Rc2 46. Kh2 e3 47. Nd4 Rf2 48. Kg1 Kf6 49. Ra3 Rd2 50. Ne2 Kg7 51. Re3 f5 52. Nc3 Bf7 53. Be2 Kf6 54. Bf3 g5 55. g4 Be6 56. gf5 Bf5 57. Ne4 Be4 58. Be4 Rb2 59. Bf3 Rd2 60. Bg4 Rb2 61. Re2 Re2 62. Be2 Kg7 63. Kf2



The game then concluded -
63...Kh8 64. Kg3 Kg7 65. Kg4 Kh8 66. Kh5 Kg7 67. Bc4 Kh8 68. Kg4 Kg7 69. Kf5 Kh8 70. Kf6 Kh7 71. Be6 Kh8 72. Kg6 g4 73. h4 g3 74. Bd5 g2 1/2-1/2 

Monday, June 25, 2018

(290) Neil Cannon, our mothers in the same Care Home, 30 Kimbolton Road and watching soccer on TV

On the afternoon of Saturday June 16th 2018 my mind wandered back to an afternoon in late 1991 when I and a schoolmate, Neil Cannon, had played backgammon together in a house owned by parents of a friend of his in Kimbolton Road, Bedford.

Within the hour I received an e mail from Cannon himself. It was only the second e mail he had ever sent me, the previous one being in January 2017 in which he had said he was back in Bedford to visit his aging mum. He now said that he had spoken with my mother the previous evening when watching the Spain Vs Portugal World Cup soccer match on TV in the Charter House home where she was resident. His mother, he informed me, was also a resident there and on the same ward. 
I had not known that.

I e mailed him back re what I had just been thinking about. He responded with their names -

´Chris & Jonny Potter.  We played chess & backgammon that afternoon.´

As I myself had left Charter House Care Home on one occasion, I too had seen their parents sitting in the front room of 30 Kimbolton Road. For Charter House was in the same street and more or less opposite. 
They too had football on their telly.

Friday, May 25, 2018

(289) Elton fails to shoot Rowan

Of an afternoon in 2012 I found a scene from an antiquated Secret Policeman´s Ball popped into my head in which Elton John held a pistol out towards Rowan Atkinson which did not go off so he had found himself forced to go “Bang!”.
The following afternoon Byron Jacobs mentioned this very scene to me when we communicated at a social media site.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl0HqlbX7dc

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

(288) Writer Not Fighter! Artist or Combatant!? Singer or S(e)argent!?

In Playing to Win, I wrote of Kasparov´s televised victory over Karpov in the final game from their 1985 Moscow match which made Gary World Champion.

Games like this show that what the board game may offer is a unique blend of science, sport and art. And if we have the pleasure of watching the moves come in live, rather than playing through them afterwards, we will also sense an unmistakable element of theatre.”


On the morning of February 6th 2018 I was listening to episodes of the Radio/TV show Just A Minute.
I then took a shower and found myself musing on some remarks made to me the previous year on my lack of committed professionalism. But I responded that I was not really a chess pro. I even said out loud whilst showering, 
"I´m a writer, not a chessplayer!" 
This I cribbed from a song of Gilbert O´Sullivan´s from the 1970s, although It had never been released as a single and I had not heard the track in many years: "I'm A Writer, Not A Fighter" It was also the title track of an album. I am pretty sure that I had never heard the entire album al the way through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4KxTD9l2yg
A grandmaster had once observed to me of a game of mine, "You play this game like ARTIST!"
I stepped out of the shower and found that the Youtube recordings of Just A Minute had moved on to an episode which had been uploaded in November 2017 and which I had not heard before.
At 8:01 I heard Sue Perkins make a remark to host, Nicholas Parsons re a fellow performer, John Sargent - 
"He´s a dancer. He´s a dancer, not a fighter."
https://www.
And, having noted that, I then logged on to Twitter and sent her a tweet -

@sueperkins Ms P: I have taken the liberty of appending a comment to something YOU said at this Just A Minute episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZziiuyN6HEs  Buttock-clenching stuff?! Not exactly... but all quite true!

(Sadly, the clip has now been removed.)

I then noted I had myself acquired, almost as I made the above post, a new Twitter follower: Mr Morgan Ferriter. His Twitter profile proclaims him to be "Visual artist based in Donegal. All paintings are my own."
When scrawling down previous tweets of Mr Ferriter I saw that one, from November 2017, was a portrait study by an artist of whom I had never heard: John Singer Sargent. My wife told me he was quite well known.
 -
Head study by John Singer Sargent, with colour breakdown showing combinations used to achieve different areas of tone, light and shade.

And at 20:20 that same day I was to see that Zoe Margolis had just retweeted something from someone whom, unlike Zoe, I had never followed -
 Retweeted
I'm a writer I'm a thinker Not a fighter Not a blinker
P