Either I’ve gone up in the world by being given administrative control over my home town club so that I can organize tournaments online or I’ve gone down in the world by giving into a request to resume the role of club tournament organizer, a role I relinquished many moons ago…
Whatever the case may be, the first in a series of tournaments went down well. We had 10 participants and some old friends were there. I managed to come joint first with 4/5 but board count put me in 4th overall as my loss came earlier than the losses by those also joint first.
Overall I am quite happy with my performance and have included two games, one constituting a loss where I missed a clear win, and the other showing my cut-throat style in full force against an old friend and playing partner.
For the first time last night I represented England. A match against Finland was held. Of the 81 participants, around 30 were titled, of course there were Grandmasters playing. The time frame was 1h 20m, games were set at 3m, 2s increment. I won almost every game I played, held firm in joint 11th for the most part then slipped up in my final game to someone rated 2227. I finished 16th out of 81 even though those finishing both above and below me were on average 300-500 points above me. I punched well above my weight and feel proud of myself for stepping up to the mark against very strong opposition. England gave Finland a sound beating and I did my country proud by sticking in earbuds and bopping away with my favourite 80’s band (A Flock of Seagulls) as I blitzed my way up the leaderboard. All music video images in the screenshots below are of A Flock of Seagulls, the first one being from the song ‘The More you Live The More you Love’. I don’t know about you but the more I live the more I love playing chess.
The match was commentated upon. Rather amusingly it begins with comments of mine where I boast about drinking beer when I studied The Philosophy of Science in Finland as an undergrad back in Autumn 96; when I once beat a Finnish FM with 1.f4 down the pub named The Three Beers in Turun Yliopisto.
Meretricious and mangled.
Super-silly stuff.
There’s two videos from me and now two videos I will bop away to quite happily if given the chance.
Got to Number 8 in the US charts.
I cannot stop myself from singing this every time I hear it, and it’s been like that most of the year.
All too often, I appear to be playing people that lose as soon as I start concentrating and it’s becoming a bit annoying…
I do love the St. George’s defence and know it inside out now, having played it hundreds of times. Here’s two typical October wins: my opponent’s play is uncoordinated, whilst mine is harmonious, and what happens in the middle game is I win instantly as per usual…and this with the most passive of all defences. Given that I play the English Opening, The grand Prix Attack, and The St.George’s Defence I do indeed play Very English Chess.
I can’t say I ever was an admirer of Steiniz tbh. In fact with Morphy no longer on the scene, it wasn’t until Alekhine imperially rose to the throne, that chess became worth looking at in close detail.
I always thought his wandering king was just dubious conceptually, and likely to be his downfall eventually. So what am I doing playing the opening theory in fashion during his reign, and drawing inspiration from his antics? Having fun, that’s what, as the video shows. An amusing victory both antiquated in its approach but highly effective nonetheless.
“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us even in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavour. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” ― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Through submission to and admission of how the entrails of normality have been garroted in the months gone by, owing to a pandemic that Chomsky describes as ‘a colossal market failure’, a slow subterranean maneuver has been made.
I’ve followed suit and forgot about chess over the board because it just isn’t happening. Well it is. I mean should I saunter off to Bangkok Chess Club, I can play in a blitz tournament each Friday evening. But at the end of a working week, a tournament with a time control of 3m 2s, just isn’t worth it. I don’t consider that time control as conducive to ability and love of the game but rather a game of he who moves fastest wins. That’s just silly to me, invariably I lose on time and if I win it is at best a pyrrhic victory…it’s not worth the effort frankly. Blitz, to me, is a rather childish way to play chess, I don’t see what there is to be gained from it…
So I transgressed from OTB to on-line via whichever server is up and running. In having abandoned chess theory altogether and relying solely in what I learn from my own games, I would appear to be on the up. And then all of a sudden I realized I love playing on-line, despite it being a depersonalized alternative to what I am used to. I’ve begun to take it seriously and play some very good chess at times.
I went and joined my home town club, which is now established on-line. I went and played for my county and rejoined The English Chess Federation. They’ve invited me to represent ‘the south’ of England in a match against ‘the north. I admit I played for my town, my county and my region as a promising junior but never the part of the country I am from. That’s a first for sure.
I’m told it’s a resumption of a match that was last played 126 years ago (details to follow). In those days you only played OTB, by cable or by correspondence, an example of the latter can be seen below.
Things have moved on from 1908 but on this sceptred isle an undying love of chess beats with the hearts and minds of men who play on, and on. One of whom is myself. And the consequence of which is? I had better continue getting my act together because pride and honour are at stake. Details of the invite can be found here: https://www.chess.com/news/view/north-v-south-match-5-september-2020
To give a sense of where I am at, here’s two games. I make mistakes in both but are not beaten in either.
A draw by repetition through fear of a back rank weakness in an endgame with a position I thought was unclear.
After being outplayed in the middlegame, shoring up my defences allowed me to exploit my opponent’s uncertainty and win quickly.
…on what this site has become…on what this site is becoming…on what this site cannot become…
On what this site has become
…here, the chess-related musings of an adrift academic are bound playfully and electronically, in this online journal of sorts. It has grown and grown in the decade I have kept it going and above all you must understand I write through a love of writing AND NOT to be read. Content is often personal and that alone should tell you I am writing for myself. Most importantly of all, I am proud of my own originality (as you won’t find content like this anywhere else) and believe in what I do…
On what this site is becoming
…this site is becoming a sanitized archive of chess in Bedfordshire both past and present. I am a post-modern historian by heart, and largely by practice too. I chronicle as much as I can about the history of chess in Bedfordshire but I am only human, fallible, and not a trained historian as my qualifications are in Philosophy. Friends and former playing partners back home describe me as the go to guy for the history of chess in Bedfordshire. That may well be true and so I have created three categories: ‘Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘History of Bedfordshire Chess’ and ‘Luton Chess Club’. This website is moving in those directions steadily and away from challenging the conservatism chess is dominated by…
On what this site cannot become
…I am both creative and amusing, and I like subterfuge too! Remove posts that angle towards the aforementioned is something I cannot do. This site cannot only be about chess in Bedfordshire and nor should it be. It is titled McCreadyandChess for a reason and I cannot remove my own thoughts and experiences of chess from its content. Everything is open to interpretation. All you have are: ‘Some thoughts on the beautiful game’. Nothing more, nothing less…
McCreadyandChess 