Anti Chess II: Refuseniks and Dissidents

For today’s post, dear reader, I must ask you to cast your minds back a month. Back before we started calling the lobbing of beardy fellows out of helicopters a "burial at sea"; back before some bloke who looks a bit like our own T.C. got hitched to a common bird and the entire national news media lost their sense of proportion; back before that brace of double bank holiday weekends and all that chocolate. Back, indeed, to the 11th of April and my post Invisible Anti Chess – the story of how, although at the height of his fame, Viktor Korchnoi was inexplicably unable to find a British publisher for his book on the 1978 Baguio World Championship match.

The availability of Anti Chess - or lack thereof - is really rather curious.  The fact is, its author being a defector from the Soviet Union notwithstanding, back in the early 1980s you actually stood more of a chance of clapping eyes on a copy if you were a dissident in Moscow than if you were a citizen of Great Britain and living in what used to be called (apparently without irony) The Free West.

That it was possible to read Anti Chess inside the Soviet Union, even illicitly, is kind of interesting, but what makes this sub-plot in the book's story worthy of its own post is this: Anti Chess found its way behind the iron curtain only because of the efforts of our old friend Raymond Dennis Keene.

As extraordinary as it might seem, to an already wonderfully entertaining career, we can add the story of how RDK smuggled banned literature inside a totalitarian country. As if that wasn't enough, he did it while acting as a second an Interzonal tournament which, since his conduct at such events has not always met with universal approval, makes the story of Ray's visit to Moscow in 1982 impossible to ignore.

Gulko: received a pleasant surprise from Ray Keene

Image from chessdom.com

It was in September 1982 that Keene travelled to Moscow to act as a second for Larry Christiansen. If we take the American GM’s word for it, their working relationship was not an easy one,

“… he didn’t live up to expectations. He was paid $3,500 by the American Chess Foundation but he seemed more interested in making book deals than helping me. We were two weeks in Moscow. I had just one adjourned game ... a very complex rook ending and he showed up inebriated and collapsed. Why me, God? I thought.”

- Larry Christiansen, quoted by Kingpin

but nevertheless, perhaps glad of an opportunity to get away from the chess, the pair took advantage of one of the rest days to visit dissident Grandmaster Boris Gulko.

There years earlier Gulko and his wife, Anna Akhsharumova, had applied to emigrate to Israel, thereby instantly transforming themselves into pariahs in the eyes of the Communist authorities who were most unwillingly to let them go. The Gulkos were soon subjected to surveillance and harassment by the KGB and at times even banned from playing chess.

We now know that the pair were eventually allowed to leave in 1986, but when Keene and Christiansen visited them, of course, nobody could have known when, how, or even if their situation would ever be resolved. If one thing was clear, however, it was that the intransigence of state officials had not diminished in the slightest their determination to leave their homeland behind.

The Gulkos became desperate to draw attention to their cause. A hunger strike timed to coincide with the 1980 Olympiad proved ineffective so two years later they changed tack and planned a series of public protests outside the playing hall at the Moscow Interzonal. After the first, the displaying of a banner proclaiming “Let us go to Israel” opposite the entrance to the tournament hall, the pair were arrested and temporarily detained and during the second, an attempt to gain access to the building itself, Boris Gulko was physically assaulted by a member of the security services in full view of queuing chess fans.

That Keene and Christiansen were prepared to visit the Gulkos at home in such circumstances was both an acknowledgement of their plight and a clear statement of support for them. The trip would be noticed, not just by the KGB, but by the world’s chess media too, ensuring the Gulkos would not be forgotten. Indeed it is from reports in the BCM (Vol 10 #11, November 1982)* that I first learned that Keene and Gulko had hatched a scheme for Raymondo to deliver a letter to FIDE on Boris’ behalf and help him earn some money by having articles published in the Western chess press, but that their plans had been scuppered when customs officers confiscated the manuscripts during a search of RDK’s and Christiansen’s baggage prior to their departure from Moscow.

The story of Keene’s 1982 meeting with Gulko got another airing last year with the publication of The KGB Plays Chess (Russell Enterprises Inc. 2010). I wasn’t particularly surprised to see it there, but what really took me aback was the following passage from The Letter “Lahmed” Problem, Gulko’s own contribution to the book:-

“Refuseniks and dissidents were the natural channel through which banned books penetrated from the West into the Soviet Union. The tamizdat, as we called books published abroad, to distinguish them from the samizdat, arrived in the luggage of tourists and, apparently, also by diplomatic mail. Refuseniks were the channel mainly for Zionist and Jewish literature, dissidents for everything else. At one point, photocopies of Kortschnoi’s book Anti-Chess spread around Moscow with a dedication to me on the title page from the anti-hero of this book, Raymond Keene.”

Boris Gulko: The KGB Plays Chess (Gulko, Popov, Felshtinsky and Kortschnoi Russell Enterprises Inc. 2010)

How had it got there? A few pages later Gulko makes clear that he’d been given that copy of Anti Chess by the “anti-hero” himself. I wondered whether that really could have been true. It sounds like a rather dangerous enterprise, don't you think? What if Keene and Christiansen had attracted the Soviet border guards’ attention on the way in to the country as well as the way out?

RDK himself confirmed to me that the story is indeed true and, moreover, he rather modestly dismisses my post-dated concerns for his safety with a simple, “i dont think it was very risky-we were searched on the way out because we had met gulko!”.

Well maybe so. Raymondo was there and I was not, after all. Nevertheless, I think it’s worth reminding ourselves that we’re talking about a repressive totalitarian regime here and people were sometimes arrested for smuggling items into the Soviet Union. Five years earlier, for example, a number of reports appeared in the press [e.g. Briton Held by KGB is Charged, The Times 15th August 1977, page 1 ] concerning a British student, Andrei Klymchuk, who was imprisoned for six months after being caught entering the country with documents and some money hidden in his shoes.

Even if the RDK smuggling operation wasn’t a particularly hazardous activity, then, it certainly wasn’t without any risk at all. All the more so considering that all this happened at the fag end of the Brezhnev era – Comrade Leonid died just a a few weeks after Keene left Moscow – and oppressive authoritarian regimes are always at their most unstable and unpredictable at times of transitions of power.

Never let it be said that Raymondo's 45-year career in the chess world has been anything less than colourful. Sure, he's made more than a few off-the-board moves that might best be annotated with a "?!". That shouldn't prevent us from tipping our hats to him when he comes up with a good one, though, and smuggling a banned book into the Soviet Union to give to a man fighting for his freedom is most definitely worthy of a "!!" by anybody's standards.

That just leaves the question of why it was the British chess fans didn't get to enjoy Anti Chess too. That we come back to next Monday (hopefully) when this trilogy of posts concludes.








* A rare but pleasing example of something appearing in the BCM, but not CHESS (the October 1982 CHESS only mentioned Gulko's protests). It is no accident, I'm sure, that by this time Bernard Cafferty had taken over from Brian Reilly as editor of the BCM.




Ray Keene Index

Sing a Song of Chess IV

When the Pawn

When the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king
What he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight
And he'll win the whole thing 'fore he enters the ring

PREVIOUSLY:
Sing a Song of Chess III
Sing a Song of Chess II
Sing a Song of Chess

Once was enough IV : Eingorn Winawer

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3 6.bxc3 Ne7 7.Qg4 Kf8

Like the previous item in this series, this line belongs to the category of the slightly-eccentric rather than the asking-for-trouble. I think it may be the only time I have ever played, with the Black pieces at any rate, the Winawer, despite owning two editions of John Watson's Play The French, the third edition of which even includes a couple of references to my good self, following some analysis I sent to the author after reading the second edition.

Despite his recommendation, I've never much liked the Winawer, and the one time I did pursue it, I chose neither the Poisoned Pawn line which his second edition suggested, nor the 7...O-O variation favoured by his third. Instead, prior to the side tournament (the Harry Baines) that I played in during the British Championships in Scarborough in 1999, I discovered a line advocated by Eingorn, 7.Qg4 Kf8, and played it once, in a game I won easily. But after that, I never played it again.

WHY I PLAYED IT: This was towards the end of my period of maximum thrashing-about, my games over the the previous months including Scandinavians, Sicilians and Open Games. I was somewhere between trying to find an ideal Black opening - that I didn't yet accept didn't exist - and considering a portmanteau approach in which I'd select different openings against different strengths of opponent. A reasonable approach in principle, albeit one that ran the risk of overloading oneself horribly with Frenchs, Sicilians and Open Games, all of them the appropriate and theory-heavy choice at one time or another.

I can't say, in retrospect, exactly where the Eingorn Winawer fitted in with this scheme. I do know I have a liking for ...Kf8 in the French, it being the sort of eccentricity that's always pleased me and - perhaps with justice - that I've often thought opponents might find disconcerting and hard to play against. Such was certainly the case on this occasion, and why I didn't persist with it is a mystery which at this distance, I can't entirely resolve.

WHERE I FOUND IT: In keeping with the lapsed-memory theme of this piece, I'm not completely sure. (I was, as it happens, both quite unwell during this period, and in the process of changing life, career and the part of the country in which I lived, so it is not so surprising that much of the detail is lost to me.) I have a feeling that Ray, somewhere, devoted an article, or part of one, to the line, but that might be my imagination. I also wonder whether it may have featured in Wolfgang Heidenfeld's fine and undeservedly obscure Lacking The Master Touch, which was lent to me at the time and which comments on a number of eccentric lines in the French, e.g. 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.e5 Ng8, with which the author once drew with Unzicker.

But I am sure the major source was McDonald and Harley's Mastering The French, which I bought despite never having liked - or, as far as I can recall, played - the French before. It's a nice and useful introduction (though what in God's name is the "read and play" method - does it mean "has illustrative games rather than variations"?) and I've played the French intermittently ever since, sometimes as my main defence against 1.e4, rather more often because I felt like a rest from 1...e5.

As I say, whether I intended it as my major defence or as an alternative against the lower-graded, I can no longer remember, though I suspect the latter. But I rolled out the French three times at Scarborough, the first time against 1.d4 which turned into an Exchange Variation, the third time being met with 2.b3 which turned into a Sicilian. But only on the second occasion, and only this once ever, did I get my Eingorn Winawer, which game was effectively over as soon as White had dropped a pawn with 11.Bd3?. (The fact that it continued until move 68 is presumably explicable only on the basis that I might have been in time-trouble. Unusually, the times aren't recorded in my scorebook, which suggests that I might have lost my scoresheet and had to borrow my opponent's to copy the game up. But the time control was at move 40 and only twenty minutes were then added to the clocks. So it's plausible enough.)

It was an easy win. Not just that, but one that came about pretty much as I'd planned, with an eccentric approach confusing my opponent. But I never tried it again.

WHY I STOPPED PLAYING IT: Who knows, for sure? But after the Harry Baines, my next six Blacks against 1.e4 were five Sicilians and a King's Gambit, and though the seventh was a French, it was a Classical. Changing my mind was what I did, at the time, so to ask what changed my mind is perhaps to miss the point.

But possibly I was never entirely convinced. Not by the Winawer generally, nor by the 7...Kf8 line. It's plausible that I didn't really want to adopt a defence on which no specialist book appeared to exist - though this didn't deter me from taking up the MacCutcheon a couple of years later - and I think that's a sound enough approach if you're looking to play something in the long term. It's also plausible that at the time, I was more or less inclined to adopt any defence on which I happened to find a new book.

Or, for that matter, a new article. I can remember seeing, about that time, an article by Mig Greengard on a game Polgar-Illescas, played in that year's Dos Hermanas tournament, in which Black crushed White by playing all around the knight on d5. That, too, was an idea I thought I could understand, there were books on it too (I have six) and I started playing it immediately. It didn't last, but it lasted longer than the Eingorn Winawer. Which was forgotten. Until now.

Or not, since on searching in Google for eingorn winawer the very first reference turns out to be to my own enquiry, from 2006, as to the present status of the line. Weird. That little nibble, too, I had completely forgotten.

CHANCES OF MY PLAYING IT AGAIN: As with the Czech Benoni, I can feel this twinge of fascination, and at the same time, a competing feeling of "better not". There's even some book coverage now, by Eingorn himself, though more in passing (according to Watson's review) than anything chunkier. And also, apparently, a chapter in Moskalenko's Wonderful Winawer. Perhaps that's not really enough, for the long-term. And perhaps the line itself isn't really convincing enough for the long-term.

And yet, perhaps, perhaps.

[Once was enough I,II, III]

[Thanks to Sean]

When we were Kings XIX

CHESS May/June 1975 (Vol 40 #721-25)

A friend of mine moved to St. Albans recently where, as it turns out, his new local pub is owned by Paul Littlewood. Not just a Paul Littlewood either, but the Paul Littlewood. International Master Paul Littlewood. Former British chess champion Paul Littlewood. That Paul Littlewood.

It is precisely thirty years ago this August that he - Paul Littlewood, not my friend - won the British title. No doubt the game was very different back then, but with the benefit of hindsight the opposition he overcame in 1981 - he scored wins against Gary Lane, Peter Wells, Robert Bellin (British Champion,1979), Murray Chandler and William Hartston (British Champion 1973 and 1975) alongside draws with Craig Pritchett, Nigel Short and Jon Speelman - looks pretty impressive don't you think?

CHESS August 1981 (volume 46 #859-60)

Anyhoo, in case you are wondering why this is appearing as part of a series of posts dedicated to chess in the 1970s I should say two things,

(a) as far as chess is concerned, the 1970s lasts from March 29th 1970 (the start of the USSR v World match in Belgrade) to November 19th 1981 (the end of the Karpov-Korchnoi World Championship contest in Merano) so the 1981 British Championship just sneaks in;

and,

(b) I went to St. Albans to meet Paul* because he had some 35-year-old chess magazines that he was looking to pass on.

Which brings me to the photograph at the head of today's blog. That's Paul on the right, six years before he became champion, but who are the other three?  Without the caption - which I've cunningly cropped out - I'd only have got one.  I'm sure our esteemed readership will be able to do better.






When we were Kings Index






* and pop in to see my friend

On grades and grading II

[Due yesterday, but postponed for Ray Tweets the Wedding]

Another quiet day at work, a bit more time on my hands and, hey presto, another post based on a session with the calculator emerges. This one starts with a story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin.

A month or two back I was talking with T.C. about how my season was progressing and I mentioned that while I was doing very badly everywhere else, I was at least scoring pretty well in the London League. Tom suggested that this could be something to do with Golden Lane - I feel comfortable there, so play better, so score more points - to which I replied that while it was true that I like playing at the London League's usual venue, I was also doing well against clubs like Athenaeum, Albany and Drunken Knights who play their home matches elsewhere.

That little exchange encapsulates the human condition pretty well, I think. We are built to create stories and to (try to) explain the world around us, but simplifying a complex set of circumstances into something more understandable is an error-prone activity because our perception processes are erratic - we pay attention to some things more than others - and we remember some of the things that we take in better than others.

Perhaps for that reason, the narrative that I'd constructed to explain my chess season was no more accurate than T.C.'s. I thought I was scoring well at Golden Lane, but when I crunched the numbers for last week's post I saw that my performance there was actually no better than par for the season. I only really did well in the London League at clubs that don't play at the central venue.

The +5 =1 -0 I scored at Albany, Drunken Knights, Athenaeum, Morley College, London Deaf and Civil Service highlights another major fault we have as storytellers: we tend to grossly underestimate chance as a determining factor. We like to believe that things happen for a reason so when events come together in a certain way we tend to think that 'x causes y' and totally overlook the fact that randomness is lumpy and not at all evenly spaced as we feel it should be.

After all, what possible reason could there be for my 90% score in non Golden Lane London League games this year? Two of the venues I actively dislike so it's certainly not anything to do with the playing conditions. No, much more probable is that it was just a slice of luck here, the absence of misfortune there and suddenly there I am with a 200+ grading performance over six games.

As the Gallagher brothers once observed, nobody ever mentions the weather can make or break your day. Games of chess can turn on similarly small points and sometimes, we would do well to remember, half-a-dozen good results just happen to come along all at once.

Goodluck Jonathan

So with all that in mind, it's worth taking another look at the figures that came out of last Monday's On grades and grading and the stories that they seem to tell. In terms of grading outcome it appears that I,

• perform much better when playing White than when playing Black;
• do hugely better playing Black against queen's pawn openings than when facing king's pawn openings;
• score well in the London League, but under-perform elsewhere (Surrey, Croydon, Thames Valley and Banks' Leagues)
• enjoy a small but appreciable increase in performance when facing higher-graded opposition compared to games against lower-graded opponents.
• do exceptionally badly in games that are concluded with a quickplay finish.

Is any of that really true though? The figures are fairly clear, but the sample sizes are generally pretty small - often only four or five games - and therefore vulnerable to chance factors skewing the outcomes.

I decided to find out if these stories were as true for the 2009/10 season as they were for 2010/11. To a fair extent they were, although with a bit more data it was possible to refine my chessplayer story somewhat:-

• Yes, I do play much better with White than Black. Presumably, though, everybody does. Unanswered question: What would be a 'normal' differential?
• Yes, I do better with Black against 1.d4 than 1.e4, although not as much as this season's games would suggest.
• Yes, I do under-perform in the Surrey and Croydon Leagues although last year my London League games were not exceptionally successful for me (I did much better in County games and a couple of tournaments)
• Yes, I do better grading-wise when I play higher strength opposition, but only when I'm White. When I'm Black, strength of opposition doesn't seem to be especially relevant.
• Yes, I do worse in games played to a finish compared to those that are adjourned, but this year's abysmal results are much much worse than 'normal'.

And the moral of today's story?  Well, aside from the reservation that even two years' results are still not totally immune from a chance swing here or there (in a 20-game sample a single loss turned into a win or vice versa leads to a 5 point difference in grading performance), it does seem that I have a few areas that are worth investigating as potential causes of lost grading points.

Playing Black against 1.e4, playing outside of the London League, quickplay finishes - improvement in any of these areas could lead to a healthy gain in playing strength overall.  All I need to do now is work out why they might be problem areas for me and then come up with a some solutions.  Not exactly a piece of cake, but, now I've looked at the numbers, at least I can be more confident that the story I'm telling myself is a reasonably accurate reflection of reality.

This, apparently

JMGB 2009/2010 and 2010/2011

Overall:
2009/10: 163.1 (35 games)*
2010/11: 166.8 (27 games)**
09 - 11: 164.7 (62 games)

Ron Harman Method (top and bottom 10% excluded):
2009/10: 165.6 (29)
2010/11: 166.1 (21)
09 - 11: 165.8 (50)

BY COLOUR

Playing White:
2009/10: 174.8 (20)
2010/11: 182.3 (12)
09 - 11: 177.6 (32)

Playing Black:
2009/10: 147.2 (15)
2010/11: 154.5 (15)
09 - 11: 150.9 (30)

Playing Black, King's pawn:
2009/10: 136.5 (8)
2010/11: 147.1 (9)
09 - 11: 142.1 (17)

Playing Black, Queen's pawn:
2009/10: 155.5 (6)
2010/11: 190.3 (4)
09 - 11: 169.4 (10)

BY LEAGUE

London League:
2009/10: 162.1 (10)
2010/11: 181.3 (16)
09 - 11: 173.9 (26)

non London League:
2009/10: 144.9 (9)
2010/11: 146.1 (11)
09 - 11: 145.6 (19)

BY COLOUR/LEAGUE

London League, White:
2009/10: 170.0 (7)
2010/11: 184.0 (7)
09 - 11: 177.0 (14)

London League, Black:
2009/10: 130.5 (2)
2010/11: 179.0 (9)
09 - 11: 170.2 (10)

non London League, White:
2009/10: 159.8 (4)
2010/11: 179.8 (5)
09 - 11: 170.9 (9)

non London League, Black:
2009/10: 133.8 (5)
2010/11: 117.8 (6)
09 - 11: 125.1 (11)

BY STRENGTH OF OPPOSITION

Higher-graded opposition:
2009/10: 170.1 (10)
2010/11: 168.9 (12)
09 - 11: 169.5 (22)

Opponents graded 0-9 points more:
2009/10: 170.4 (5)
2010/11: 168.8 (4)
09 - 11: 169.7 (9)

Opponents graded 10-19 points more:
2009/10: 169.8 (5)
2010/11: 168.0 (5)
09 - 11: 168.9 (10)

Opponents graded >= 20 points more:
2009/10: -
2010/11: 170.7 (3)
09 - 11: 170.7 (3)

Lower-graded opposition:
2009/10: 158.7 (15)
2010/11: 165.4 (15)
09 - 11: 162.0 (30)

Opponents graded 0-9 points less:
2009/10: 161.6 (11)
2010/11: 187.4 (5)
09 - 11: 169.7 (16)

Opponents graded 10-19 points less:
2009/10: 163.4 (10)
2010/11: 138.0 (4)
09 - 11: 156.1 (14)

Opponents graded >= 20 points less:
2009/10: 150.5 (4)
2010/11: 154.1 (6)
09 - 11: 152.7 (10)

Higher-graded opposition, White:
2009/10: 182.3 (6)
2010/11: 196.2 (5)
09 - 11: 188.9 (11)

Higher-graded opposition, Black:
2009/10: 151.0 (4)
2010/11: 149.4 (7)
09 - 11: 150.0 (11)

Lower-graded opposition, White:
2009/10: 171.4 (14)
2010/11: 172.3 (7)
09 - 11: 171.7 (21)

Lower-graded opposition, Black:
2009/10: 145.9 (11)
2010/11: 160.0 (8)
09 - 11: 151.8 (19)

BY FINISH

Quickplay:
2009/10: 154.3 (9)
2010/11: 118.2 (6)
09 - 11: 139.9 (15)

non Quickplay:
2009/10: 166.1 (26)
2010/11: 180.9 (21)
09 - 11: 172.7 (47)

* The ECF say I played 34 games last year.  I have included a win against a person who remains ungraded - presumably because he played too few games - estimating his grade based on those of the people who played on the boards around him.

**Today's figures for 2010/11 slightly different to last week's because I've had one more game since then.

Ray Tweets the Wedding

[Ray Keene index]

[Thanks to Jonathan and Morgan]

[Follow Ray on Twitter]

Every Picture Tells A Story: Hereford Ho Ho Ho!

Number 10 in a series of collaborative posts. This one by Martin Smith, with some minor tinkering by Richard Tillett.

In this episode we go back to Hereford for our third visit, as we continue our exploration of the life, works and milieu of Thomas Leeming. He was the painter of two versions of a tableau depicting various gentlemen of Hereford playing chess in 1815.

Or perhaps three versions; though the third one is partly, if not entirely, by another hand, or so we think. This version, which we haven’t shown for several blogs, could be an interpretation-cum-copy, and as copying is going to be the theme of this blog, here it is again:



While it may not do full justice to the original, it serves by showing the main features of the composition. You can compare the other versions here.

Readers of our previous blogs will know that we discovered, following our second visit to Hereford, that in 1817 Leeming was commissioned to copy an old master painting of Christ Carrying His Cross as an altarpiece for the Cathedral. It was thought in Leeming’s time that the original, in Magdalen College Oxford, was by the Spanish 16th Century artist Franciso Ribalta.

The imposing original in Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford.

But Mr Darwall-Smith of the Magdalen College Archive, whose advice we sought, referred us to an authoritative lecture delivered in 1955 by eminent art historian T.S.R.Boase which rejected the Ribalta attribution, proposing instead another Spaniard: Valdés Leal.

Irrespective of who painted the original in Oxford, the Leeming full-size copy was still, said the Cathedral Archive, with them in Hereford. So now, in March 2011, we are back, and this time with an appointment to see the whopping six by five foot chunk of Leeming in the flesh. It may only be a copy of a Spanish old master painting, we tell ourselves, but it is the next best thing to a Leeming original.

Before our visit to the Cathedral we renew our acquaintance with Catherine Willson in the Hereford Art Gallery; we meet for the first time the local historian David Whitehead, who has generously shared his thoughts with us about the members of the Hereford Chess Club in 1815, among other things; and we have another peep at the painting and the two lesser Leemings in the Gallery’s collection. Seeing the chess painting again we are struck by the skill and clarity in the portraiture and other details, including the chess position (which we analysed in our last episode), and the endearing pooch, who gazes at us so beguilingly.

The dog is in the detail

Catherine joins us in the visit to the Cathedral, and we meet Rosalind Caird of the Cathedral Archive, who is most helpful with her encyclopaedic knowledge of the Cathedral’s history. She takes us to the North transept where, hanging high some fifteen feet above us and gazing down humbly onto a workaday storage area, is Leeming’s copy of the Magdalen altarpiece.

Leeming's copy of Christ Carrying his Cross

[© Dean and Chapter of Hereford Cathedral]

But what is an altarpiece doing there, we wonder. Well, Ms Caird explains, it was indeed initially installed behind the Cathedral’s main altar, framed by panelling, or “wainscoting” as it was then called, but was relocated when the arrangement was changed in 1841.

Boase’s lecture also refers to Leeming’s copy having been removed in this 19th Century makeover. He says that none other than Gothic Revivalist Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (aka “God’s Architect” and one of the driving forces behind the design of the Palace of Westminster as we see it today) gave the full ensemble the thumbs down in 1836, contrasting it unfavourably with Durham Cathedral’s Gothic equivalent. Pugin made his point with this illustration, which shows Leeming’s copy in pride of place.

Pugin's 1836 Contrast of the Hereford Cathedral altar screen (left), showing Leeming's painting in its intended position, and Durham Cathedral's equivalent (right).

Whatever Pugin’s opinion of the wainscoting, the Institute of Thomas Leeming Studies invites readers to join with us in relishing Leeming’s contribution to the overall effect. Just imagine his magnum opus in its glory days standing tall as the focal point of a panelled screen filling the altar crossing at the end of the Cathedral nave. This is the vista it would serve:

The nave of Hereford Cathedral.

To round-off our third visit to Hereford we have just enough stamina left to meet Alan Leary and Ray Collett, the modern day gents of Hereford and Worcester chess, in the Cathedral tea room. We chew the chess fat, and ruminate on the significance of November 2012 – the bicentenary of the inauguration of the first edition of the Hereford Chess Club (as recorded on the original lining of Leeming’s canvas) and the 50th anniversary of its third edition. This happy co-incidence will call for a celebration!

Our next episode will be on 14 May, when we will take a look at some of the other characters in Leeming’s tableau.


Acknowledgements
Magdalen College photo: Ryan Harrison on Flickr
Hereford Cathedral photo: Mark Edwards


References
T.S.R. Boase. (1955) Christ bearing the Cross: attributed to Valdés Leal at Magdalen College, Oxford: a study in taste. OUP.
A.W.N.Pugin. (1836) Contrasts; or, A parallel between the noble edifices of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and similar buildings of the present day. Shewing the present decay of taste. Accompanied by appropriate text. London

Every Picture Tells A Story Index
Chess in Art Index

Did they mean compulsive?

As this is a day for unimportant things, for trivia, I thought I'd be a good day to mention this curious story which appeared on the BBC website earlier this week, noting that Armenia was making chess a compulsory subject on its school curriculum and wondering whether Britain should follow suit.

I can't have been entirely alone in shouting "no" as soon as the question was put, nor even in making a seasonal invocation of Our Lord immediately beforehand, an invocation I nearly repeated when the world's leading chess columnist was invited to favour us with his opinion. To his credit, Ray did stop short of approving the suggestion of making chess compulsory, though he did say that

if a child is good at six, they could be a grandmaster by the time they are twelve

which I'll file under "things Ray says that while highly misleading are not quite untrue", since so far in history it has happened precisely once.

Malcolm Pein, conversely, is apparently

a big supporter of chess being made compulsory at school

although as it happens the story doesn't quite seem to back up that claim, continuing

and recently made a submission to the government's National Curriculum review. It recommended that one class of chess - "or other thinking games like bingo" - is made mandatory every week for children in Year 2 (aged six) or 3 (aged seven).

Personally, I don't think I've played bingo since I was about that age, but I digress. I hope Malcolm doesn't seriously want to make chess compulsory in schools, since it would put him in the position of being the least sensible person in a group including Ray Keene and Chris Woodhead.

Well, Melanie Phillips likes him

Not that the question is any more than academic. Chess compulsory in schools? "And monkeys might fly out of my butt", as a noted American cultural commentator once put it, and indeed this story seems to have emerged from somewhere dark and obscure, since despite the present Government's liking for ridiculous ideas in education, I will obtain the Grandmaster title before any such thing occurs. And a good thing too.

Apart from the practical impossibility of the idea - where are all these chess teachers going to come from? - it baffles me that some people who love the game of chess manage to persuade themselves that the way to make the public love it, too, is to make them play it. I entertain similar thoughts about compulsory sport in schools: being somebody who loves football, I fail to see the value of giving people a lifelong hatred of the sport by forcing it on them as children. But at least they know what football is.

Some people like both

As it's not going to happen, it's probably not worth the time it would take to expound in depth what a bad idea this is - please feel free to use the comments box should you wish to do so, or for that matter to dissent. (I shall be working in a school all day, so my response may be somewhat tardy in arriving.) What struck me as odd about the story - apart from its implicit implausibility - was that while a decently-researched and written piece, it was yet another BBC story about chess without any actual chess in it.

It's as if they were to write about football - about football in culture, about football in schools, about interesting and amusing things that had happened in football - without ever mentioning the football results or having any match reports. The BBC - online at any rate - doesn't report the national championship or the national league, barely reports the world chess championship and to my knowledge hasn't reported on a single game played between two human players, in the UK, for a number of years.

Which is its privilege. There are other priorities. But it does mean that among the reasons why it would be absurd to make chess compulsory in schools, might be this: that when they see it on the timetable, the kids may well say "Chess? What's that?"

[Woodhead image: EducationNews]

[Aronian image: Chessbase]

[Ray Keene index]

The Interesting Sacrificed Exchange IV

Did you ever watch The Prisoner? Initially broadcast in the 1960s, I first saw this fine, if rather mystifying, programme when it was repeated some time in the late '80s. How incomprehensible was it? Suffice to say that it was a couple of months before anybody noticed that the episodes were being shown in the wrong order.

I mention this because all my posts seem to be coming out all higgledy-piggledy just now. Multiple double bank holiday weekends have already put a spanner in the works of what was supposed to be a trilogy of Anti Chess posts and now here I am jiggering about with TISE.

Today's post was originally planned as TISE VII, but I've moved it forward to today because I'm standing in for T.C. and I thought he would appreciate a game which features no fewer than five exchange sacrifices. I say five, although Browne-Timman from the 1980 Wijk aan Zee tournament only actually saw two. There were three near misses, though. Three exchange sacs that could have happened, but didn't quite appear on the board. Curiously, or perhaps I should say interestingly, despite four of these five examples being opportunities for Black, it was White who took his chance first and it was also White who went on to win the game.

I suppose the moral of this story is pretty clear: (a)if you want to win games of chess sacrifice the exchange as soon a possible; and (b) if you want to make TV programmes (or write chess blogs) don't worry about running order. You can always jiggle things around a bit and hope that your audience won't mind too much.

So, Browne-Timman, 1980. The game started off in fairly standard fashion,

1 d4 Nf6, 2 Nf3 g6, 3 c4 Bg7, 4 g3 O-O, 5 Bg2 d6, 6 Nc3 c5, 7 O-O Nc6, 8 d5 Na5, 9 Nd2 a6, 10 Qc2 Rb8, 11 b3 b5, 12 Bb2 bxc4, 13 bxc4 Bh6

A year later at Tilburg, Timman found himself playing the White side of this position against a young Garry Kasparov and chose a different course at move 14. After

14 Ncb1 e5, 15 Bc3 Bd7, 16 Na3 Gazza tried 16 ... Rb4

Apparently this is a well-known idea, and considered to be a fully viable, but Timman nevertheless went on to win the game. Anyhoo, back to his game with Walter Browne.

14 f4 e5, 15 dxe5 Bxe6, 16 Nd5

Still well within the realms of established theory even back when the game was played. Subsequently, 16 ... Rxb2

would become the main line. Indeed, Aagaard would later write,

"Practice has broken down the reliable possibilities here to include only this positional sacrifice."

(my emphasis) Excelling at Chess, Everyman Chess 2001

16 ... Rxb2 was known back in 1980, but Timman had already won a game against a strong opponent using ... Bxd5 (Portisch-Timman, Bugojno 1978) so I suppose he didn't see the need to change.

16 ... exd5, 17 cxd5 Ng4, 18 Nb3

You probably don’t really want to be giving Black a chance to exchange a knight that’s stuck out on the edge of the board, but since 18 … Ne3 doesn’t work White seizes the opportunity to prevent any malarkey on b2.

18 … Nxb3, 19 axb3 Qb6, 20 Qc3 c4+, 21 Kh1 f6, 22 Bh3 Nf2+

Black decides it's White's turn to decide whether or not to give up an exchange. Admittedly, it was a much easier choice for Browne at move 23 than it was for Timman at move 16.

23 Rxf2 Qxf2 Be6+ Kh8, 25 Qxc4 Qb6, 26 Bd4 Qxb3, 27 Qxb3 Rxb3, 28 Rxa6 g5

"?" according to Bellin and Ponzetto (Mastering the King's Indian, Batsford 1990), who suggest

28 ... Rb4 intending 29 e3 Rxd4

instead. The game concluded,

29 fxg5 Bxg5, 30 Rxd6 h5, 31 Rc6 h4, 32 d6 Rb1+, 33 Kg2 Rd1, 34 e3 hxg3, 35 hxg3 Rxd4,

"Too late" - Bellin and Ponzetto.

36 exd4 f5, 37 Bxf5 Rxf5, 38 Rc5 Rxc5, 39 dxc5 Kg7, 40 c6 1-0

What's the record for the number of exchange sacrifices or potential sacs in a single game, I wonder? Five's not a bad number to be going on with, I suppose ... and hopefully back in order from next week too.

Previously:-
TISE
TISE II
TISE III

Street Party?

Anybody having a street party this week? Not that we at the S&BC Blog give a toss, you understand, but we felt we might ask on behalf of the EC Forum's 'Chris J Greatorix'.

Still, though we're not big on Royal Weddings hereabouts, not big on royalty in any shape or form for that matter, it must be admitted that Marina Hyde is quite correct when she writes in The Guardian that,

Say what you like about weddings, they do offer the chance to reconnect with loved ones from whom, for whatever reason, we have drifted apart

And so say all of us, Marina. Those of us who scroll down to the tenth comment after your article, anyway.

On grades and grading

Yes, I did say that this week would see the second instalment of the Anti Chess trilogy [April 11th's Invisible Anti Chess being part one], but I'd forgotten that today would be Easter Monday. Since next Monday will be a bank holiday too, let's agree that the series will continue on Monday 9th May.

Easter: a four day weekend we get every year which ensures that we have plenty of time to celebrate some bloke being nailed to a piece of wood a couple of thousand years ago/scoff chocolate/work out our grading performance for the chess season which is all but over/choose which of the above is most to our personal taste.

Since I had my calculator handy, and a quiet day at work prior to the bank holiday break, this year I thought I'd go beyond the usual general assessment of how well/badly I'd done and break things down into as many different sub-categories as I could think of. The results of this endeavour appear below.

The point to it all? Well, there's a little bit more grist to the Ron Harman mill in that I've performed better against higher-graded opposition and the EC Forum's Robert Stokes might be interested in the difference in my performance when playing White and Black.

Evidence, then, that a bit of tinkering with the grading system is warranted? Actually, I rather think the opposite. Certainly, in principle, an estimate of playing strength would be more accurate if it took account of the players' colour in games played and wasn't influenced by strength of opposition faced. In practice, though, these factors aren't the most significant cause of variance in my grading performance so it hardly seems worth introducing extra complexity into the system to correct them.

There is value in conducting this sort of exercise, I think, but it's got more to do with what you can learn about yourself rather than what you might find out about the grading system as a whole. That's subject I might come back to at some later date. In the meantime, have a look and see if you can spot any areas where I might be either doing particularly well or badly under-performing.

Whatever happened to Statto?

JMGB 2010/11
(12th October 2010 to 14th April 2011)

ECF Grade 2009/10: 163

Overall performance 2010/11:
26 games @ 165.4

Ron Harman method (top and bottom 10% excluded):
20 games @ 166.1

BY COLOUR

White:
12 games @ 182.3

Black:
14 games @ 151

Black against 1. e4:
8 games @ 140

Black against 1. d4:
4 games @ 190.3

Black against flank openings:
2 games @ 119

BY LEAGUE

London League:
15 games @ 179.7

S&BCC LL I:
2 games @ 158.5

S&BCC LL II:
9 games @ 184.9

S&BCC LL III:
4 games @ 179.8

All non-London League:
11 games @ 146.1

Surrey League:
6 games @ 154.5

Croydon League:
3 games @ 135.7

Thames Valley League:
1 game @ 141

Banks' League:
1 game @ 131

BY COLOUR/LEAGUE

White, London League:
7 games @ 184

Black, London League:
8 games @ 175.9

Black, LL, 1. e4:
4 games @ 162.8

White, non-London League:
5 games @ 179.8

Black, non-London League:
6 games @ 117.8

Black, non-LL, 1. e4:
4 games @ 117.3

BY FINISH

Quickplay:
6 games @ 118.2

non-Quickplay:
20 games @ 179.6

BY MONTH

October:
4 games @ 148.8

November:
4 games @ 175

December/January
3 games @ 170.1

February:
4 games @ 170.8

March:
5 games @ 153.6

April:
6 games @ 173.8

BY STRENGTH OF OPPOSITION

Higher-graded opponents:
12 games @ 168.9

Opponents graded 0-9 points more:
4 games @ 168.8

Opponents graded 10-19 points more:
5 games @ 168

Opponents graded >=20 points more:
3 games at 170.7


All higher-graded opponents, White:
5 games @ 196.2

All higher-graded opponents, Black:
7 games @ 149.4

Lower-graded opponents:
14 games @ 162.4

Opponents graded 0-9 points less:
4 games @ 183.3

Opponents graded 10-19 points less:
4 games @ 138

Opponents graded >=20 points less:
6 games @ 166.5


All lower-graded opponents, White:
7 games @ 172.3

All lower-graded opponents, Black:
7 games @ 153.3

BY VENUE

London League

Golden Lane:
9 games @ 165.8

LL Other¹:
6 games @ 201.3

Non-London League

S&BCC Home:
5 games @ 155.8

not S&BCC²:
6 games @ 137.8

Footnotes:
¹ Albany, Drunken Knights, Athenaeum, Civil Service, Morley College, London Deaf
² Coulsdon (twice), Redhill, Banks League, Hammersmith, West Wickham