Jonathan Rowson
‘Life can be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’
Soren Kierkegaard
When illustrious accountant and closet Bryson fan (that’s Bill, not Dougie) GM James Howell was wondering, towards the end of his chess career, what kind of chess book to write, I couldn’t understand his reticence to give an [...]
Tags:
Tony Miles’ 1…a6 is not the worst insult Karpov has suffered during a game. Four years earlier Walter Browne showed his utter contempt for the World Champion by arriving at the board in a shirt he’d acquired working as an extra on US cop show Hawaii Five-O.
The suit won in [...]
Tags:
At the Phillips & Drew Kings tournament in April 1982 Karpov conceded only one game, to US Grandmaster Yasser Seirawan in just 31 moves. Shortly afterwards Seirawan gave a full account of his historic victory to Kingpin describing his pre-game preparation with Korchnoi and examining Karpov’s errors in both his preparation and play over the [...]
Tags:
Street chess thrives in US cities. Why not in the UK?
Tags:
Grandmaster James Plaskett
Complex games may demand intense scrutiny. Twenty-four years after this one was played in the penultimate round of the world’s most prestigious Open, I offer my final verdict. And that of Fritz9.
Plaskett v Miles
Lugano 1986
1 c4 e5 2 e3 d6 3 Nc3 g6 4 g3 Bg7 5 Bg2 Ne7 6 d4 0-0 7 [...]
Tags:
NTBCM was a funny spoof magazine edited by Murray Chandler. Borrowing the format of its venerable target, NTBCM published only one issue (in 1984), an entertaining mix of strange games, jokes and witty articles such as ‘How Weird Is Your Chess’ by Jon Speelman, ‘Do Vegetarians Lack the Killer Instinct? – A Statistical Analysis’ and [...]
Tags:
We are sure that readers will have come across humorist Stephen Fry. A few months ago, the star of Blackadder, Saturday Night Live, the Comic Strip and numerous radio programmes was interviewed on television. In the background on his bookshelves was a copy of Batsford Chess Openings; so Kingpin wrote to the great man to [...]
Tags:
First published in Kingpin 27 (Summer 1997)
Tags:
Chess scene from ‘The Wire’
‘The Buys’ (2002)
D’Angelo Barksdale: Yo, what was that?
Wallace: Hm?
D’Angelo Barksdale: Castle can’t move like that. Yo, castle move up and down and sideways like.
Preston ‘Bodie’ Broadus: Nah, we ain’t playing that.
Wallace: Yeah, look at the board. We playing checkers.
D’Angelo Barksdale: Checkers?
Wallace: Yeah, checkers.
D’Angelo Barksdale: Yo, why you playing checkers on a [...]
Tags: