Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Things fall apart

A few bits and pieces for your amusement, here on this miserable-looking Wednesday.
  • Dead-rock-legend to-be Pete Doherty played chess at school, according this report. The headline of the article has already inflated the revelation from a former classmate, saying Doherty was a "chess champ". The way news reporting goes in this country, he'll be a Grandmaster by the weekend. The way FIDE is going, he might be anyway.

  • It's always worth keeping an eye on our comments, here at S&BCC. Like yesterday's find by David of this curiosity where by move 18 (see diagram) white had managed to achieve eight isolated pawns, maintaining them until move 22 no less. It doesn't get any better than that. Or worse.

  • Finally, sports fans amongst the readership will no doubt know that Portsmouth took a 6-0 battering the weekend gone in the Premiership. And lo, this coming weekend sees the Portsmouth Congress - a six rounder spread over three days, offering you the chance to repeat that scoreline. I'm playing in the Open where I'll probably be on the receiving end of it. See you there?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I fancied playing at Portsmouth, but I wanted Byes on Friday and Saturday night. I could have asked
for 2 Byes I suppose.


Alan

Jonathan B said...

"Dead-rock-legend-to-be"

That's a rather cynical description isn't it Tom?

Jonathan B said...

:-)

Anonymous said...

The Friday game makes it an extra tough weekend, especcially if one is losing and working Monday

George

Tom Chivers said...

I'm not sure if you'd get two half-point byes, but you could probably get one half-point bye and one (zero-point) default. It might be worth asking anyhow.

Cynical! Moi?

transformation said...

'TFA... the center does not hold'
WB Yates! you keep testing me!

Anonymous said...

Alan said: "I fancied playing at Portsmouth, but I wanted Byes on Friday and Saturday night. I could have asked for 2 Byes I suppose."

Alan, just the Saturday afternoon is all I need.

Harry.

ejh said...

I fancied playing at Portsmouth, but I wanted Byes on Friday and Saturday night

Presumably not in order to go out on the town.

Alexey Hurricane said...

i'll try to visit the venue , possibly on saturday!

Chris Morgan said...

You should be playing Alexey. Or is the student rock 'n' roll lifestyle luring you away from chess - a la Pete Doherty.
Actually I didn't play much chess when I was a student.

ejh said...

No, me neither. I played a few games for my college but other than that, I didn't really play at all: in fact between 1983 and about 1990 I think those few games were the only OTB chess I ever played.

Presumably cost me x rating points in lost years of improvements.

Anonymous said...

29 of the 67 names so far entered at Portsmouth have requested a bye,with probably a few more wishing they had, takes it to half the players.

Even for keen chess players,6 rounds seems too much for workers, students etc.

ejh said...

It should be said that you're not actually obliged to play to the finish if it's too many. It's perfectly in order to withdraw from a congress and I've done so a number of times.