Dates for your Diary

February is such a smaller month than the rest, already it's time to start planning what, er, chess talks you'll be attending in March. Here are two you won't want to miss:-

1. Our very own Chess in Art Bloggers Richard Tillett & Martin Smith will be giving a talk to Hereford local history society The Woolhope Club on Saturday 3rd March at 2.15pm, in the Shirehall, Hereford. Regular readers should certainly be able to guess their subject.

2. And back in London the day before, Friday 2nd March, from 5.45 pm, The Royal Institute of Philosophy will see Professor Paul Coates give a talk called Chess, Imagination and Perceptual Understanding. Here's a copy and paste of the blurb:

Like many physical sports, chess can be highly competitive. To play chess effectively requires mastery of a number of different skills. In particular it requires a special kind of imaginative ability, one that is allied to perception. In this talk I examine the role of the imagination in the way that human chess players (as contrasted with computers) exercise their understanding of both tactics and strategy. I conclude by showing why there are important parallels between our grasp of the possibilities latent in a chess position, and our perceptual understanding of the nature of physical objects.

I think that means if you're no good at meccano, don't bother with chess. If only somebody had told me that a quarter of a century ago.

PS. Photo of meccano chess game via starman. Note white is not only on the right, but the position is a theoretical one reached either via the four knights or Ruy Lopez.