Culcheth Chess Club Blog

I hope you are all keeping safe and well in these curious times. The impact of the COVID pandemic on club and league chess shows no sign of easing as the traditional start date of the season approaches. I am sure that you have already worked out that face to face chess is one of the most difficult sports to adapt to social distancing and all the other preventive measures designed to stop the transmission and spread of infection.

Our playing venue, Culcheth Sports Club (CSC), was in financial difficulties prior to the pandemic and the lockdown and subsequent restrictions have only made that situation worse. We were recently faced with a demand to pay our full annual subscription even though we could not use the venue for chess. Tom, Andy and I decided that we would not pay until we had greater certainty about the resumption of league fixtures and whether the venue met health and safety standards. Initially the CSC reacted by asking us to remove our equipment from the storage cupboard, but following a spot of negotiating they withdrew their request – at least for the time being.

I am sorry about the lack of positive news but rest assured that as soon as I get any you will be informed without delay.

Best wishes

Nick

*Below are a few games played recently online by club members for your enjoyment*

On the other end of the time control scale, Keith Maudsley sent in this nice win played at 3 mins each time controls I am told. From a quiet looking opening position Keith develops a strong kingside attack which ends in a nice checkmate.

Finally Damian had a couple of interesting correspondence games with Steven Jones. Both games ended up as drawn. The London system game was most interesting which followed a similar pattern to a game I played against Mike Rotchell in the league season, Steven however captured upon c5 early which led to a more unbalanced game:

Considered by most to be the strongest player of all time Kasporov’s dynamic style was a refreshing throwback to the days of Alekhine. Which gave a tremendous boost to chess which had previously been dominated by the Karpovian Soviet style for the previous decade.

Kasparov’s long reign as World Champion ran between the years of 1985 to 2000, when he was finally defeated by compatriot Vladimir Kramnik, whose Berlin Wall defence in that match proved too strong to break down.

In terms of UK chess, Kasparov had his biggest impact in 1993 when he was to defend his title against Britain’s Nigel Short. I won’t go into the controversies surrounding the match itself, however I will say it gave UK chess a huge boost being billed as “The strongest British chess player of all time” V “The strongest player the world has ever seen,”

Sadly Short was to lose the match despite achieving many promising attacking positions. The matches were shown live on channel 4 which I eagerly followed after school. Not much footage remains of the match sadly but there are a few surviving snippits online;

In 1989 Kasparov whilst on a visit to the uk hosted a simultaneous exhibition organized by Richard Furness, in which some of our local players took part.

Simon Myles (from Winwick) was one of these, as well as Rob Furness whom has very kindly provided pictures and an annotation of his game below.

A win against a World Champion! That is certainly something you can always be very proud of.

Kasparov is now semi retired from the game of chess, however in recent years he has made the odd appearence in rapid chess, he has shown in these matches that he is still more then capable of mixing it up with the worlds best. Below is a full game I recorded from last year (2018) where he demonstrates his deep understanding of a Sicilian structure from start to finish.

I hope you are all managing to keep well in these most unusual times.

Chess activity has ground to a halt in Warrington along with everything else due to the virus, some however are still managing to play plenty of chess of the online variety while others may be casting their minds back to yesteryear playing through games of the greats.

During the 1970’s all the way through to the early 90’s chess was pretty much dominated by three players, the three K’s as they were known;

Korchnoi, Karpov and then Kasparov.

Firstly Viktor Korchnoi, widely considered to be the strongest ever player not to become world champion. A feat he would no doubt have achieved but for the long reign of Karpov.

Born in Leningrad USSR he learned chess at the age of seven and won the Soviet Championships four times.

In 1968 he reached the Candidates final but failed to beat Spassky in the final. Then in 1971 he lost in the semi final to another Soviet legend Petrosian.

He challenged again in the Candidates final in 1974, this time against his long time rival Karpov but again lost the match.

In 1976 Korchnoi defected from the USSR and soon took up residency in Switzerland.

In 1978 Korchnoi finally challenged for the World Chess Championship again against Karpov. In a thrilling match Karpov took an early 5 – 2 lead (they didnt count draws in those days) but Korchnoi staged a thrilling comeback! Winning three games to tie the match at 5-5! Karpov however was to win the final game and retain the title. This was to be the closest Viktor would come to winning the title.

In 1981 Viktor again met Karpov in the World title rematch however this time Karpov came out a convincing 6 – 2 winner.

After this with the emergence of a young Kasparov, Korchnoi never challenged for the world title again. However he continued to play at a very high level well into his 80’s.

Remarkably in 2011 aged 79! Viktor pulled off a win against a young up and coming Fabiano Caruana, at the time this was widely talked about as a great win however now looking back at what Caruana has gone on to do becoming the worlds number 2 and 2019 World title challenger this seems even more remarkable. That game can be viewed in the video below.

Sadly in 2012 Viktor suffered a small stroke, however even this did not stop him playing chess!

Visiting the London Chess Classic which has now become one of the preeminent tournaments on the world chess tour he gave a number of simuls which again showed his amazing stamina. He played our own Nick Burriss in one of these and this game with Nick’s comments can be viewed here: