Nearly fifty years ago CHESS published this irate letter: CHESS (October 1973) It provoked a lively response: CHESS (November 1973) One reader sprang to Mr Lorley’s defence with knowing verve: CHESS (December 1973) Having made his point, Mr Lorley kept a dignified silence. No…
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The chess boom triggered by the 1972 Fischer–Spassky match enthused many talented youngsters, especially in Britain. Boris Spassky became an early casualty of the fallout from the ‘English chess explosion’ when he took on a schoolboy squad over 30 boards in 1979. The event was…
Read MorePoignant news from thirty years ago. Poignant because this month marks the sixteenth anniversary of Tony Miles’ premature death. The reasons for his defection became clearer four years after this story appeared when the Sunday Times published Nick Pitt’s investigation. Sharing the front page of a…
Read MoreThe Grandmaster scowled at the autograph hunter and dutifully scribbled on the ticket. He had just blundered a game away, losing horribly in under 25 moves. That he, a World Championship candidate no less, had crushed his young English opponent in a simultaneous display the…
Read MoreA landmark in chess magazine publishing passed unnoticed this week – and it wasn’t the relaunch of the BCM (that’s next week). After 56 years in print, Dragon, the bulletin of the Cambridge University Chess Club, finally entered the digital age with its 100th issue….
Read More‘To show the progress Chess had made of recent years, Mr. Staunton observed “that many now living could remember when there was but one Chess club in the kingdom, and the only allusion ever made to the game in our public prints was when Philidor or…
Read MoreAndrew Whiteley, who has died aged 67, belonged to the generation of players who ushered in the ‘English Chess Explosion’ of the late 1970s. Most of them cut their teeth as students at either Oxford (Botterill, Lee, Markland, Whiteley) or Cambridge (Hartston, Keene, Stean, Williams)….
Read MoreStuart Conquest By my watch it is now some seven months since Tony Miles died. I was playing with the England team in Leon when the news came through. I remember coming down to breakfast that morning, picking out the usual assorted items from the…
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