Bookshelf

Tweet your favourite #chess bookshelf! asked Jonathan Manley of Kingpin fame. What follows is not my favourite exactly. Just all my Pirc/Modern books.

The Modern Defence (Keene & Botterill, Batsford 1972), The Pirc Defence (Botterill & Keene, Batsford 1973), La Defense PIRC en 60 parties (Le Monnier, Bernard Grasset  1983), New Ideas in The Pirc Defence (Nunn, Batsford 1993), Winning with the Modern (Norwood, Batsford 1994)

we saw last week - all secondhand. Here are the rest.

Becoming a Grandmaster (Keene, Batsford 1976)
Not a specialist Pirc / Modern book, but worthy of inclusion here nevertheless.  "This is the first book to be written by a British Grandmaster" goes the back-cover blurb and very obviously a rushed out 'cut and paste' job to make sure that it was. It’s still an interesting read, though. Perhaps not quite as interesting as it might have been if Ray had really put his back into it.

Anyhoo, BaG has a section on the books that Ray had written and a part of that is on his Pirc and Modern work with George Botteril from the early 1970s.  I particularly rather like his games against Gligoric (Berlin 1971) and Hecht (Teeside, 1972).

An Opening Repertoire for Black (Marovic & Parma, Batsford 1987)

A book from the days when you could cover the Queens Gambit, the Benoni, The French Defence and the Pirc - not to mention all the sidelines - in a single tome. No idea why this didn’t go in The Great Terror that saw 100+ chess books flogged off (this sister book, RDK’s An Opening Repertoire for White, certainly did, as did John Nunn’s second book on the Pirc), but it’s still here.

AORfB dates from a brief dabble with the Pirc from my student days. That also happens to be the period when I happily bought any old shite. In the Austrian attack sub-section of the Pirc chapter there is no game quoted that was played after 1975 - more than a decade before the book was published.  Even allowing for the fact that theory developed much more slowly in those days, Batsford were really taking the piss with this book.

Trends Classical Pirc (Hodgson, Trends Publications 1989) & Trends Pirc without Classical (McNab, Trends Publications 1990)

Anybody else still have booklets from this series? 100 unannotated games with brief chapter introductions. Stuff like this became impossible to sell the very second that we all got our own databases.

Tiger’s Modern (Hillarp Persson, Quality Chess 2005)

A Christmas present from the first time I considered taking up the Modern which would be circa 2010. I’m still to get around to actually playing 1 ... g6 against 1 e4 or 1 d4 in a real game. I did give it a punt against 1 f4 at Golders Green in August, at least.

The Philidor Files (Bauer, Everyman Chess, 2006)

An impulse purchase inspired by the idea of developing a repertoire that would allow me the option to play the ending 1 e4 d6, 2 d4 Nf6, 3 Nc3 e5 4 dxe5 dxe5 5 Qxd8+ Kxd8 as well as 3 ... g6. Never played it as yet - although I did  have a go on the White side against Julien Shepley at Hampstead a couple of months ago. After the game Julien pointed out the downside of the system: it can be difficult to generate winning chances as Black. He kindly avoided mentioning that he had just rolled me over rather easily, nevertheless.

The Pirc in Black and White (Vigus, Batsford 2007)

The one that restarted it all. I’d been vaguely thinking of taking up the Pirc and borrowed a copy of this book from Angus. A swift flick through later, I decided that I didn’t much fancy the 4 Be3 variation.

Before I got to give TPiBW back, though, I suffered a leaky bottle catastrophe in my bag. One of the casualties was Angus’s book. Upshot one: Angus got a new copy and I ended up with the water damaged version. Upshot two: I had another look and decided I might be able to deal with the 150 Attack after all.

Dangerous Weapons: The Pirc and Modern (Palliser, McNab, Vigus Everyman Chess 2009)

Technically I bought this new. but it was much reduced - less than a fiver if memory serves. One of the lines recommended in this book is 1 e4 d6, 2 d4 Nf6, 3 Nc3 g6, 4 Be3 Bg7, 5 Qd2 0-0, 6 Bh6 Bxh6!? - That’s Vigus’ annotation. It's "The aggressive move" and "The 'dangerous' choice" according to him -  7 Qxh6 c5

7 ... c5

Whatever Vigus might tell you, this line is total junk. Not that I’ve let that stop me doing rather well with it.

Chess Developments The Pirc (Vigus, Everyman Chess 2012)

I actually bought this brand new.  My last new openings book ever I think. Vigus downgrades his assessment of the 6 ... Bh6, 7 Qxh6 variation to "rather risky" which is still more than a tad optimistic.

The Perfect Pirc-Modern (Moskalenko, New in Chess 2013)

A birthday present. This is the latest in Moskalenko's series of alliterated titles for New in Chess. Here’s hoping that The Bollocks Blackmar-Diemer and The Lachrymose London will follow.

Definitely Got Nothing to do with chess IV

You must be out of your Goddamn mind if you think
The President is gonna bring the nation to the brink
Of meddling in the middle of a military mess
A game of chess, where France is Queen and Kingless
We signed a treaty with a King whose head is now in a basket
Would you like to take it out and ask it?

Any hope of success is fleeting
How can I keep leading when the people I’m
Leading keep retreating?
We put a stop to the bleeding as the British take Brooklyn
Knight takes rook, but look! We are outgunned.

No one really knows how the
Parties get to yes
The pieces that are sacrificed in
Every game of chess
We just assume that it happens
But no one else is in
The room where it happens.

[Hamilton]
[...to do with chess index]

[Thanks to Richard McAleavey]

Contributory factor

Know Attila the Stockbroker? Course you do. Professional poet for most of his adult life, previously a stockbroker for rather less time than that, known for works like Contributory Negligence and his collaborations with John Otway.

Anyway just the other day I happened to contact him* on Twitter and he surprised me by saying this, presumably in response to my Twitter handle mentioning chess.

What is the gentleman's problem with this? Well apparently...

Well I never knew he played at all. But this is interesting, isn't it? I'd always thought that lots of older players found the change from descriptive to algebraic, which in the UK at least took place in the Seventies and Eighties, hard to handle, and even now I assume that some players never managed it and continue to write their moves using the older style. But I'd never heard previously that it was a problem for younger players, who aside from having the advantage of youth, when it is easier to adapt, would generally have seen literature in both styles from soon after having learned the moves - and hence had little difficulty.

Well all right, Attila is older than me - fifty-eight - and would have been fifteen, for instance, when Fischer beat Spassky. So that was old enough to have been made uncomfortable by the encroachment and eventual takeover of descriptive by algebraic. I'd not previously heard, though, of anybody from the Fischer-boom generation who was sufficiently discombobulated to stop studying the game. Are there any more examples, personal or anecdotal, of this syndrome?

[* it so happens that he went to a school where my father-in-law then taught and I wondered if they remembered one another - they don't.]

Death of a subscription

Congratulations! Well, self-congratulations. Anyway, this made me laugh.

What we're invited to believe here is that Nigel's defection to another federation (a perfectly reasonable move in itself and one I might make myself one day) has something to do with the personage of CJ de Mooi, or is in some way justified by that gentleman's autobiography - which, while it makes no mention at all of the English Chess Federation, does claim that its author once killed a man. Much like CJ's statements while President of the ECF, this is not believeable. The difference this time, perhaps, is that nobody can be found who is gullible enough to believe it.

Cobblers: if anybody was to be concerned about CJ's moral character, the time for that was when CJ was rampaging about Sheffield defaming other ECF officials, or making claims about money that changed every time he made them or, especially, when he saw fit to touch the Federation for a large sum of money which he then distributed to competitors with an absence of documentation.

Because if you were concerned about how an organisation is governed, absolutely the first and most important thing that would alarm you would be gross financial irresponsibility. Wouldn't it?

When You’re Mates With a Chesser

AZ: Strictly did a special chess dance routine J. You should watch it. I think it’s to get you on board. 

JB: What??? 

AZ: Watch it online. On i-player. 

JB: Are you having a turn? Are you sure this actually happened?

JB: The board’s the wrong way around. 

AZ: Really!!! That’s all you can say?

Sixty Memorable Annotations

#33: Honfi - Gurgenidze, Kislovodsk 1968

5 ... h5

While some of the players of the twenties might just have played Black’s first four moves I don’t think anyone but a modern - not even Nimzowitsch - would have played ... P-KR4 so early. Black is fixing his grip on KB4 for his knight and the blocked position means that the loss of time does not matter.

C. H. O’D. Alexander (The Modern Defence, Keene and Botterill 1972)

I think I’m over it now. The compulsive completely unnecessary purchasing of new openings books, I mean. It might have taken 25 years but I think I’ve moved on.

Coincidentally or otherwise, I seem to have developed a raging 'purchasing of secondhand openings books' habit of late. Methadone to my previously preferred heroin perhaps. If nothing else, it is at least cheaper.

At the moment I"m mostly collecting old books devoted to the Pirc/Modern complex. John Nunn’s New Ideas in the Pirc (1993), for instance. Ray and Botters’ books from the early 70s, of course. La defines PIRC en 60 parties by Jacques Le Monnier ("un theoricien francais de reputation internationale" allegedly) even.

My latest addition, David Norwood’s Winning with the Modern, I picked up just last week.

Nozzer's book is rather interesting in its own quirky, somewhat ramshackle kind of a way. Much like the opening itself, I suppose. Anyhoo, while WWtM contains lots of fascinating games, many of which are by the author himself - as positive a sign in the 90s as it is today - it has to be said that the book hasn’t been put together with quite as much thought as might be hoped for.

On page 58 Nozz writes,

One possible idea that has just crossed my mind is to try 8 ... d5!?

Any reader who has worked his or her way through 1 to 57 might reasonably suspect that this is not just be an expression but could be literally true. The notion of advancing the queen’s pawn a second time popping into Norwood’s head as he was in the middle of typing out the page.

"If this idea is codswallop, then Black needs some new ideas against 8 Be3" is Norwood’s conclusion. Other than 8 ... e5 (which is assessed as better for White), Winning with the Modern doesn’t supply them, though. So if the speculative pawn push doesn’t stand-up the book’s suggested line against the Classical becomes unplayable and you can’t switch to ... Bg4 systems instead because WWtM has Black committed to a very early ... c6 to give an extra option against the Austrian Attack.

It is by no means an exaggeration that the entire book hangs on a move which has just come off of the top of Norwood’s head and which he analyses for less than half a sentence.

Loot

Talking of the Austrian Attack, WWtM's suggestion there is the Gurgenidze system. It’s an interesting choice that that has Black rejecting the usual Pirc-Modern strategy of a dark-square counterattack in favour of a light-square blockade. Dodgy or otherwise (my guess is the former) it does at least have the merit of being something that Norwood was prepared to play himself. The chess world would be a whole lot better place, I feel, if somebody passed a law banning authors from recommending lines that they had not punted in rated games

Not that Winning With ...  was the first book to take a close look at The Gurg*. Keene and Botterill had an entire chapter on it. It’s where I found the Alexander quote at the top of today’s blog.

There’s something rather lovely about somebody discussing modernity whilst using descriptive notation. It’s as anachronistic as K&B’s choice of

Divers Blockading Attempts

as their title for the section of their book that describes a range of different systems that are related to, but subtly different from, the Gugendize proper.

Don’t let an overdose of quaint blind you to the fact that the game that Alexander is annotating - Honfi against Gurgenidze from 1968 - is great fun. Black pretty much bashes in White’s head using just minor pieces and pawns. At the moment the decisive blow is delivered on move 26 Gurgenidze's king is still in the centre, his rooks lie untouched on their original squares and his queen has only made it as far as e7.

Superb stuff. Just the sort of thing that inspires me to take a closer look at Norwood’s analysis, in fact. If I don’t get distracted by some new old book purchase, that is.

* Copyright John Hickman

"There is no sexism in chess"

Times, October 27. Not sure what Dominic is trying to say here, but has he asked Nigel Short?

[Dominic Lawson index]

Played on Squares 5: Strachey

In this final episode of our investigation into chess in Bloomsbury (sparked by the BBC TV docudrama Life in Squares) we turn for our subject to a well-known name at the heart of the Bloomsbury project: Strachey. After earlier episodes examining men (John Neville Keynes, Roger Fry, and Leonard Woolf), this time it is refreshing to be able to ignore the seemingly inevitable Lytton and focus on a woman: his sister Marjorie (1882-1962 - but see comments box). As we follow her story we will encounter two more feisty female characters who are also of considerable interest, each in their own right.

Marjorie Colville Strachey is rather under-represented in Bloomsbury literature. The fullest account of her wandering, and maybe ultimately unfulfilled, life is given in Barbara Caine's remarkable in Bombay to Bloomsbury: A biography of the Strachey Family (2005), to which this blog is indebted. Yet, even Professor Caine omits all reference - bar one - to Marjorie's chess. If there is a Bloomsbury biography that merits further research it is Marjorie Strachey's: not because of any contributions to the public good, or works of genius, of which hers would count only as minor, but because she was a rich amalgam of talent, flamboyance, attention-seeking and vulnerability - and she played chess.          

Followers of the S&B Blog have already encountered Marjorie - probably, like me, without realising it. She was playing chess when we met her before, in the photograph below; and this picture is in fact the solitary chess reference in Barbara Caine's book, and even that passes without textual comment.

Marjorie and Lytton Strachey
Monk's House Album 1930s
Now held by Harvard University

On the previous occasion when we saw the photo, we had come down to Monk's House in Rodmell (about which we heard so much in the last episode) because of Lytton, famous for his radical biographies. We didn't give Marjorie a second thought. We didn't imagine that it was she who was the one who could really play. Now, on the S&B Chess Blog, her time has come. But not before going back a bit to someone else who we have also met before on the blog, someone who will point us toward Marjorie, and give us some interesting images on the way.

DG XXXVI: The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence versus Joe Verghese

Today’s post is going to involve a trip back to the future.

It’s a post in which we’ll see that when it comes to claims about the impact of playing chess on dementia, the age of the people playing the chess matters. By the time I’m done, I’ll  have suggested a path that the English Chess Federation - DG XXVII: The ECF vs Mrs Sally Williams; DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express; DG XXXI: "many scientists", many claims; DG XXXII: Election Day - might follow if it's serious about being involved in the chess and dementia business.

First, though, we have a conundrum to solve.

Chess has changed

In contemporary chess there exists a polarity between the movement towards deep investigation of theoretical lines, based on forced tactical variations and a quest for unusual, untheoretical ideas (often a revival of forgotten lines from the past) capable of generating positions which are not susceptible to clearly defined analysis.

The other day Vladimir Kramnik played a game as White which began 1 d4 Nf6, 2 Nf3 e6, 3 Bf4. The day before he'd met his old enemy Veselin Topalov and their encounter kicked off with 1 d4 Nf6, 2 Nf3 e6, 3 e3.

That’s how it goes with top-level international chess these days. Sometimes it’s three-dozen moves of theory (after a Marshall, a King’s Indian or whatever), but sometimes it’s a London System or a Colle or some other 120 ECF chesser's favourite.

Chess has changed, indeed.

Gusti

I’m not sure exactly when it started. When did the world’s best chessers start playing - in terms of style if not specific openings - like they were playing an away match at Ashtead in one of the middling divisions of the Surrey League? With the benefit of hindsight, Vlad’s adoption of the Berlin in 2000 does rather look like a harbinger of much more than the end of the Gazza era, but one event that really does stand out for me is the Anand - Gelfand World Championship of 2012. Commonly held to be dull as shite in terms of what happened over the board, the match is nevertheless a significant milestone in the development of contemporary chess opening play.

For most of my chess life (i.e. from the mid-80s onwards), if you played the Grunfeld or the Sveshnikov Sicilian as Black it was because you were trying to secure a full point. You were prepared to take risks in the sharp, unbalanced positions that resulted. In 2012, though, Gelfand didn’t adopt these defences because he wanted to win games. He wanted to kill them dead.

What Boris wanted - or so it seemed to me, at least - was to play as little chess at the board as possible when he was Black. He wanted to get positions that he (and his seconds and their computers) had analysed out to something defendable for Black or, failing that, force Anand to play something that left some play on the board but which was theoretically harmless. With that match strategy he needed forcing variations, and what better than the Grunfeld and the Sveshnikov?

Anand had one 'proper' go at each of Gelfand’s defences. An Exchange Grunfeld in game 1 (albeit down the relative sideline of 8 Bb5+) and an Open Sicilian in game 5. After achieving bugger all with traditional methods he resorted to f3 set-ups against the Grunfeld (game 3, game 8) and the Bb5 system against Boris' Sicilian (game 10, game 12).

As we now know, Anand would come out ahead in the end. That probably had more to do with Gelfand tossing in his queen for no readily apparent reason in game 8 and blowing a winning rook ending in the play-offs than it was the result of choice of match strategy per se. Still, if the idea that playing what had previously been considered to be second(ish) rate openings might be the practical way to go wasn't firmly established before the match, it had certainly become so.

And then of course there’s Magnus. The Norwegian lad who learned that he could - mostly - get away with any old rubbish even against top 10 opponents. The Stonewall Dutch against Anand at GRENKE in February, for example.

So now as well as the long forcing variations we also have 'untheoretical ideas' and the 'revival of forgotten lines’. Forgotten, at least, at the very top level.

I’m sure Gustafsson’s right. Chess is different now.

That quote at the top of today’s blog, though? It’s the first paragraph of Ray’s "The Openings in modern theory and practice", a book published thirty-five years ago.

What’s the German for plus ca change?

Boris via Chess-News

Vishy via Deccan Chronicle

DG XXXV: The ECF vs the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

What is this guideline about?
...

The aim is to delay the onset of dementia, disability and frailty, increasing the amount of time that people can be independent, healthy and active in later life (successful ageing) by:

• helping people stop smoking, be more active, reduce alcohol consumption, improve their diet and, if necessary, lose weight and maintain a healthy weight
• reducing the incidence of other non-communicable chronic conditions that can contribute to onset of dementia, disability and frailty
• increasing people's resilience, for example by improving their social and emotional wellbeing.

Dementia, disability and frailty in later life – mid-life approaches to delay or prevent onset [NG16], National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 20 October 2015, page 4

That’s fairly clear I think. No mention of chess. No mention of mind sports. No mention, even, of cognitively stimulating activities.

What are the NICE recommendations for what those of us in "mid-life" (defined as aged 40 to 64 in the guidelines) can do to help minimise our risk of developing dementia in later life or to delay its onset? They are as you see above.

The agenda - DG XXVII: The ECF vs Mrs Sally Wiliams; DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express; DG XXXI: "many scientists", many claims; DG XXXII: Election Day - that the English Chess Federation has been pushing of late? It simply doesn’t feature. At all.

But why?

Chess Not Found

How to account for the discrepancy between the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s conclusions and those statements from the ECF?

There is an emerging awareness of the effectiveness of chess in delaying the onset of Alzheimers (sic)

John Foley (see DG XXVII)

Although further studies are required for definitive proof, many scientists believe that mind sports activity, such as chess, may delay the onset of Alzheimers (sic)

Mike Gunn and Phil Ehr (see DG XXXII)

I can think of two possibilities.

Either,

we consider the ECF’s statements to be ill-considered and under-researched (where they were researched at all).

Or,

we explore the possibility that NICE is merely masquerading as a public health body with a remit to provide "national guidance and advice to improve health and social care". Are they actually a front organisation for the shadowy nexus that turned two-thirds of the ECF officials cited above into former ECF officials? Like the International Longevity Centre, perhaps, which published a report in July 2014 - Preventing Dementia: a provocation - that also failed to bother with chess, mind sports or cognitively stimulating activities.

Not sure which one it is. Best be vigilant and keep an eye out for that nexus just in case.

The Knowledge Pile

Chess and Dementia Index

DG XXXIV: A message to the English Chess Federation

Dementia, disability and frailty in later life – mid-life approaches to delay or prevent onset
NICE guidelines [NG16]
Published date: 20 October 2015

The Knowledge Pile

Chess and Dementia Index

The Worst Move On The Board XXIV

No fewer than three for you today!

Stetsko-Dolzhikova, Bossa Nova v Oslo Schakselskap, European Club Cup, 24 October 2015.

Position after 72. Qc3-c4+.

I don't think there's any way of winning this for Black, but there's at least one way of trying to win. Also one way of losing, which happens to be the same way...

Bartholomew-Huschenbeth, Chess24.com Banter Blitz, 24 October 2015, position after 34. Rc8-c5+.

With this one, there might be some ways to lose slowly, but there's definitely one way to lose quickly. Spectacularly quickly.

Anon-David Blower, 2015.

I don't have full details for this, which is from the English Chess Forum, but before you click, take the trouble to find the one, and only one, way White has of not winning this. It's not so hard to work out. Harder perhaps to work out that everything else keeps the win on the board. Or to work out how White missed this.

[Thanks to Matt Fletcher, Chess24.com and Jack Rudd]
[Worst move index]

Chess goes to the Movies: Spectre

Well it has got some chess in it. I doubt Spectre will be as good as the (no chess at all) Sicario, though.

Chess Goes to the Movies Index

Who'd have thought it?

I've been trying to trace the origin of the 605 million chessplayers nonsense, recently regurgitated by Adam Palin in the Financial Times. Have a go yourself: you can Google search for useful terms such as 605, million and chess and see how you get on. Or try 600 since the 605 appears to be a cunning variant on a slightly older, equally specious claim.

Andrew Paulson started putting the more, ah, exact figure about in 2012 although his claim was that it was neither new, or his originally:

that 605 million number is actually the number that FIDE gave to the International Olympic Committee several years ago.

This claim is echoed in a 2013 piece in the Christian Science Monitor in which one Lisa Suhay writes:

The Chess in the Olympics Campaign says that there are at least 605 to 700 million people worldwide who play chess — that's more than the entire population of US, Russia, Mexico, and Japan combined, or 8.6 percent of all humans inhabiting the Earth.

You might think that the second part of the sentence would give you reason to be sceptical about the first part, but then again you might be a more sceptical individual than Ms Suhay, whose CV reveals her to have authored "an audio tape on the power of storytelling with Dr. Deepak Chopra". That's the Dr Deepak Chopra featured here and described here as a peddler of "scientifically-sounding psychobabble".

So farewell then

So farewell then
Phil Ehr
The man who came out of nowhere
And lost an election to Nobody.
Perhaps the Strategic Advisor
Didn't have a very good strategy
And gave even worse advice.

EJ Horton (age 50 1/2)

DG XXXIII: Rex

So the Late/Afternoon/Early Evening of the Long Knives has been and gone. One lot of people for whom we weren't allowed to vote has been replaced - a few gaps not withstanding - by another lot of people for whom we were not allowed to vote. Shall we give a heartfelt Yay For ECF Democracy! and get on with our lives?

Jump to 1 hour 37 minutes for the bit that’s relevant to us today

Back to chess and dementia it is. Enough with the absence of evidence - DG XXXII: Election Day; DG XXXI: 'many scientists’, many claims - for the moment. Let’s talk about a positive development for a change: the announcement during the Sinquefield Cup live stream back in August that Rex Sinquefield is sponsoring a research proposal

to look at the effects of chess and its ability to forestall Alzheimer’s and dementia.*

A person closely associated with x is funding a study to find out whether x has a particular health benefit? Do we have a conflict of interest here? Yes, obviously. Is it a problem? No, not necessarily.

It all depends on whether / how you handle your conflicting interests - DG XXVI: Disclosure. To borrow once again from Tracey Brown’s Sense About Science lecture,

… it doesn’t matter that people who want to promote evidence have motives. It doesn’t matter until those things - evidence and motives - pull in opposite directions …

see DG XXX: The Ugly Truth or DG XXXII: Election Day for the full speech

There are many interesting questions that spring to mind about this research proposal. What exactly is the hypothesis? How exactly will they test it? What long will the project run? How will they report the results?

What there isn’t, I feel, is any reason at all to assume that the conflicts of interest involved won’t be handled appropriately. No reason to think that the Sinquefield research project isn’t a hugely positive development.

Despite Rex’s statement from May 2013?

“I love chess because it’s so beautiful,” he says. “It’s stimulating and so demanding. And the fact that it is one of four things that stave of dementia — chess, bridge, foreign language, and playing music – it’s good for me, too!”

No, precisely because of it.

Evidence is always better than unsubstantiated assertion. Even when that assertion comes from a billionaire who funds stuff that we quite like.

The Knowledge Pile

Chess and Dementia Index

* I’m grateful to Paul Cooksey (via the possibly not much longer for this world ECF Forum) and Phille from in the comments box on DG XXVI: Disclosure for bringing this to my attention.
I was reminded that I hadn’t yet mentioned the Sinquefield project by Paul’s mention of it on the second ECF Forum chess and dementia thread.

The Worst Move On The Board XXIII

Domínguez Pérez-Perunovic, World Blitz Championship, round ten, 13 October 2015.

Position after 64. Qa7-e3+.

Good effort on Perunovic's part. Having already in the same position chosen to retreat the king to f7, he rejects the opportunity to take the draw by repetition, not to mention more than one win (including the one that would start with ...Kf7) and picks out The Worst Move On The Board instead.

See - and for that matter, hear - him do it here. (Blitz Day 1: Rounds 1-11, start at 5:05:56.)

[Thanks to John Cox]
[Worst move index]

DG XXXII: Election Day

 

Except yours because you haven’t got one

Election day. That day when we get to decide what kind of national chess federation the English Chess Federation is going to be.

I say "decide". 10,000 members notwithstanding, it seems that only a few dozen people will actually get to vote today. "Discover" would be the better word, I suppose.

Whoever gets to cast a ballot, whatever they decide, one thing that I’m pretty certain won’t be discussed at Euston Square this afternoon is the claims that the ECF has been making of late regarding chess and dementia (see DG XXVII The ECF vs Mrs Sally Williams,  DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express and just this week DG XXXI: "many scientists", many claims). A niche subject, perhaps, and yet one which tells us a lot about how the English Chess Federation operates as a collective body, I think.

What kind of ECF do we want? One that accepts, as per Tracey Brown’s recent Sense about Science Lecture (DG XXX: The Ugly Truth), that

some decisions that have to be taken on the basis of uncertain, unsatisfying and conflicting evidence.

perhaps? One that avoids

The temptation is to simplify [or] flatten out the uncertainties [and does not] stay silent while others do that …

maybe.


Or will we opt for a federation consisting of

people who don’t care about the evidence [and who] say what they like.

instead?

It’s a straight choice and I"m afraid I’m going to have get all fundamentalist on yo asses and say outright that there is no middle ground here. You’re either for evidence-based decision making and honesty about uncertainty and the need for caveats, or you're for unsubstantiated assertion and bombastic claims - whether that's because you promote them yourself or because you "stay silent while others do so" doesn’t really matter.

That’s the choice for the ECF today. It’s not one that our - yes, it’s still ours even though we don’t get to vote - national body will make actively. It will do so passively, by quietly sleepwalking along the path of bullshit.

The only question is what do the rest of us do about it from tomorrow.

Chess and Dementia Index

Played on Squares 4: Woolf

So far this account of chess and the Bloomsbury Group has looked (in episode 1) at a proper chesser who played seriously at university and who appeared to continue to do so for the rest of his life: John Neville Keynes, Maynard's father. In episodes 2 and 3, we looked at Roger Fry who also took his chess rather seriously, albeit at a less exalted level than Keynes Senior. In fact, so seriously did Fry take his chess that he felt it necessary to cheat to win. Perhaps we could call him an improper chesser.

Now, in episode 4, we move on to examine the chess life and times of Leonard Woolf (1880-1969).

Bust by Charlotte Hewer at Monk's House
From here

Although the evidence for his chess playing is regrettably slight, there is, nevertheless, a telling anecdote from 1921 that shows that he had a golden opportunity to make a breakthrough chess-wise: not though, it should be said, into the dizzying heights, but at a rather more modest level.

Stenden joke

What's everybody's favourite fraud up to today?

Yes, it's Buzan bullshit time again.

There's our man in the hexagon on the left.

Anderton emerges

As the English Chess Federation holds its AGM on Saturday, this might be an appropriate time to ruminate on the long service given to that organisation by David Anderton, as president, national team captain, FIDE DElegate, long-term pro bono legal adviser and so on. A tribute from Stewart Reuben is here and I am sure readers would echo his sentiments. His services will undoubtedly be missed.

Stewart adds:

I am surprised that Stewart has forgotten the actions performed by Anderton after the financial fiasco of the 1986 world championship match: as the classic account reminds us

and according to Mohammed Amin's recollection:

DG XXXI: "many scientists", many claims

APPENDIX
DCMS consultation: “A new strategy for sport”:
Response from the English Chess Federation 

... 

Improved individual health 

... 

b) Although further studies are required for definitive proof, many scientists believe that mind sports activity, such as chess, may delay the onset of Alzheimers (sic)

ECF Annual General Meeting 17 October 2015

Report from Sports and Recreation Alliance Representative (Mike Gunn)

And we’re back. Last night - less than 12 hours or so after DG XXX: The Ugly Truth was published - I was sent an email which contained a link to Mike Gunn’s "Report from Sport and Recreation Alliance Representative". A report for the forthcoming ECF AGM, that is.

When I queried the English Chess Federation’s first claim about chess and dementia - see DG XXVII: The ECF vs Mrs Sally Williams; DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express - the response was that statements made were just the author's - i.e. John Foley's - "own view". Further,

No current ECF Council or Board policy statement asserts any benefit of chess whatsoever

Phil Ehr, ECF Forum 25th August

I have to say, I never found that position convincing, but anyhoo, Mike Gunn’s report obviously changes everything. The appendix is dated 2nd October 2015 and is attributed to Phil Ehr and Mike Gunn, "On behalf of the English Chess Federation".

So, I ask Phil, Mike and the English Chess Federation as a whole,

What evidence do you have to support the claim that, "... many scientists believe that mind sports activity, such as chess, may delay the onset of Alzheimers (sic)"?

Specifically,

Who are these "many scientists"?

How do you know that they believe what you say they believe?

You say that "... further studies are required for definitive proof ...." which implies that studies already exist which support your claim. Can you supply specific references to these studies?



Sense About Science
Ask for Evidence

The Knowledge Pile

Chess and Dementia Index

DG XXX: The Ugly Truth

This year’s Sense about Science lecture focuses on the need encourage accountability in the deployment of evidence in public life. Tracey Brown looks at how the truth can be an amorphous concept in science, with scientists more likely to hedge claims with caveats whilst more bombastic statements are made in other disciplines. 

[Sense about Science] wants to encourage the research community to trust the public with the uncertainty in their work. To support scrutiny and the asking of searching questions. To create a culture where organisations outside of science feel obliged to explain their reasoning in the light of evidence.

The Guardian: Science Weekly Podcast

The English Chess Federation - DG XXVII: The ECF vs Mrs Sally Williams; DG XXVIII: The ECF vs The Daily Express - elections will be held this coming Saturday. A good time to stop and have a think about accountability, perhaps.

Here are a few snippets of Tracey Brown’s Sense about Science lecture at the British Library a week or two ago. Have a read. See if you think the podcast might have something to do with chess and decide whether for yourselves whether it’s worth a visit to the Guardian’s website and 40 minutes of your time.

I’m talking about critical scrutiny. Questioning new and old wisdom. Challenging misrepresentations or oversimplification. Not going along with a partial picture.  

  

Sometimes, though, unjustified claims about what is true are not what we would call lies, not when lawyers are around anyway, but an obscuring of the truth with innuendo and misleading statements - which we find no less wrong.  

  

The truth is hard. It can be socially awkward. It can be legally awkward.  

  

There’s another reason that diminishes the appetite for truthfulness and that’s liking the outcome … people often stay silent about facts and figures where their pet projects and their social convictions are concerned. 

… it doesn’t matter that people who want to promote evidence have motives. It doesn’t matter until those things - evidence and motives - pull in opposite directions … we’re sucked into the Good Lie. Promoting or just going along with dubious evidence for the sake of a social good. Staying silent because talking about the gaps and flaws would mess up a message you like. 

If we want the bodies that influence life to be accountable for the evidence they use - to reckon with reality rather than to make it up to suit themselves - then the only way to achieve that is through public scrutiny not private words.
  

Politicians, public bodies, companies, NGOs, news organisations will only feel obliged to explain their reasoning and refer to evidence if that’s what they think is expected of them, not just by researchers but by citizens, voters, customers, supporters and readers. 

The demand for evidence is part of creating public accountability in those authorities. 

Where there’s no scrutiny there’s no accountability. 

There are some decisions that have to be taken on the basis of uncertain, unsatisfying and conflicting evidence. This is the ugly truth and we should face it honestly ….

The Knowledge Pile

Chess and Dementia Index

No consolation

Steve is annoyed. Oh very dear.

He is annoyed at Stewart Reuben.

What letter? This one.

Palin in comparison

On Wednesday the Financial Times ran a number of pieces on chess, one of them, by Adam Palin, being on the search for business sponsorship.

It starts OK.

Next bit's a little worrying though, with that much-abused YouGov survey getting a mention.

So it's no great surprise when....oh dear.

Chess also attracts an estimated 600m regular players worldwide

No it doesn't.

How many? I wouldn't bet on "hundreds of millions" either. Not everybody agrees with me.

Congratulations to Malcolm for his second appearance in this series.

[Thanks to Jon Manley]
[605 million index]

War Game 8 (and Some More Dzama)

Saint Louis may not be on your doorstep, but you can get a decent look at the Saint Louis Chess Campus exhibition Battle on the Board: Chess during World War II (on show until January 17 2016) on-line here.

The comprehensive curator's note and overview, with an introduction by IM John Donaldson, is linked above. This how they describe the exhibition: "it includes prisoner of war chess sets from the collections of the National Museum of the Marine Corps and National Museum of the United States Air Force, archival material from the John G. White Chess Collection at the Cleveland Public Library, and highlights from the collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame." 

But the exhibition is not just about chess sets. It is also about the role of the game in maintaining the morale of American WW2 combatants (and others) on the battlefield, in R&R, and in POW camps. It is a nice complement to our own series War Game (accessible via our History Index).    

They are also showing another exhibition of Marcel Dzama's chess themed art: until 18 October 2015 (we checked out a show of Dzama's chess art in London in 2013). There are fulsome notes about Dzama and his exhibition on the Chess Campus website.

If you should come to this post after the close of the exhibitions you should find the notes in their exhibition archive.

History Index