Thomas Edward Rendle was born on Monday, September 29th 1986. “Stuck with You” by Huey Lewis and the News was the UK’s number one single.
Tom was born in Hastings, East Sussex and his mother’s maiden name is Jefferies. Tom resides in Hastings.
Tom attended Bede’s School, Sussex and then St. Leonard’s College.
Tom Rendle aged 11 by David Crump
Tom studied physics at The University of Warwick and has two brothers, Tim and James and a sister Theresa.
Tom became a FIDE Master in 2004. In 2006 he became an International Master and achieved a peak rating (according to Felice) in July 2007 of 2416 at the age of 21. Tom has one Grandmaster norm.
Tom Rendle, sponsored by local printing company, FDM. Courtesy of Gary Lane
Tom has played for 4NCL Grantham Sharks, Hammersmith (in the London League), Drunken Knights (in the London League), West London and Sandhurst (in the Surrey Border and Berkshire Leagues).
His first ECF grade to appear on the grading web site was 82A in July 1994 (however it could be earlier than that) at the age of 7 :
ECF Grading Progress of Tom Rendle
Tom played in the World U12 Championship won by Teimour Radjabov and his first major success was scoring 7.5/10 in the 2001 Smith and Williamson Young Masters. He became Hampshire Champion in 2001 with 5/6 and won the 2004 Rosny Sous Bois tournament with 7/9 and a TPR of 2568. He was runner-up in the Paignton Open of 2005 followed by runner-up in the Coulsdon Christmas tournament of 2005.
With the white pieces Tom is almost exclusively an e4 player but he has flirted with Bird’s Opening many times. Having shared accommodation with Gawain Jones there are signs of influence in the choice of the Grand Prix Attack.
As the second player Tom plays both the Winawer and the Classical French and is a noted expert on the Classical Dutch and Dutch in general.
IM Tom Rendle at the King’s Place Rapidplay, 2013, Courtesy of John Upham Photography
From Wikipedia :
“Thomas Edward Rendle (born 29 September 1986) is a British FIDE International Master chess player and coach. Rendle became an International Master in June 2006 and is part way towards becoming a Grandmaster, with one GM Norm.
IM Tom Rendle
He gained an interest in chess at an early age, and soon entered chess tournaments, gaining success in his age categories (such as becoming Mini Squad Under 7s Champion, England Under 11 Champion).[citation needed] He was put on top board for the England under 11 team and won the Sussex Under 18 Championships, whilst still under 12.”
In 1998 Rendle played Garry Kasparov in the BT Wireplay Challenge 1998. In 2005 he was a coach for England’s team at the 1st FIDE World Schools Championship in Halkidiki, Greece and in 2006 he coached with the England Team at the European Youth Chess Championships in Montenegro.
Rendle currently works as a chess coach, both online and face-to-face. He is a regular coach of England Juniors.”
David Smerdon is an Australian chess grandmaster and behavioural economist. In 2015 he published the highly successful chess opening book Smerdon’s Scandinavian.
From the book’s rear cover :
“Chess is a cruel game. We all know that feeling when your position has gone awry and everything seems hopeless. You feel like resigning. But don’t give up! This is precisely the moment to switch to swindle mode. Master the art of provoking errors and you will be able to turn the tables and escape with a draw or sometimes even steal the full point!
Swindling is a skill that can be trained. In this book, David Smerdon shows how you can use tricks from psychology to marshal hidden resources and exploit your opponent’s biases. In a lost position, your best practical chance often lies not in what the computer recommends, but in playing your opponent.
With an abundance of eye-popping examples and training exercises, Smerdon identifies the four best friends of every chess swindler: your opponent’s impatience, their hubris, their fear, and their need to stay in control. Youll also learn about such cunning swindling motifs as the Trojan Horse, the decoy trap, the berserk attack, and ‘window-ledging’.
So, come and join the Swindlers’ Club, become a great escape artist and dramatically improve your results. In this instructive and wildly entertaining guide, Smerdon shows you how.”
As with every recent New in Chess publication high quality paper is used and the printing is clear. The book can easily be laid flat next to the board and does not require weights to prevent it from “self-closing” (a particular bugbear of ours !). Each diagram is clear and the instructional text is (mostly !) typeset in two column format, which, we find, enables the reader to maintain their place easily. Figurine algebraic notation is used throughout and the diagrams are placed adjacent to the relevant text.
Who doesn’t love a good swindle? Well, if you’ve just been swindled in the final of your online club championship I guess you might not, but, in truth, as long as we’re not the victim we all love a good swindle.
So it’s surprising, then, that it’s a subject which hasn’t been covered much in chess books. Australian GM David Smerdon’s new book promises to fill that gap in your library.
Here’s Smerdon’s description of a swindle:
1) The Swindler starts from an objectively lost position.
2) The Swindler consciously provokes the victim into blundering, usually by taking advantage of some psychological trait.
3) The victim squanders the advantage, allowing the swindler to escape with a draw or even the full point.
He also offers three questions to help you find swindles.
1) What does my opponent want?
2) How is he planning to do it?
3) What’s good about my position?
Let’s look at an example.
This is Shirov-Kramnik (Groningen 1993). White launched a manic attack right from the opening, but Black defended calmly.
Now Shirov had to make a choice. He saw 18. Qh4 Nxg3 19. Bxe7 Nxf1 20. Bxd8 Qxe5 21. Bf1 Qe3+ 22. Kb1 Bc6 which he assessed as favourable to Black due to White’s uncoordinated forces.
Instead he went for the spectacular 18. Bxh6!?! when the game concluded 18… Nxf4 19. Bxg7+ Kh7 20. Rxf4 Rg8 21. Rfg4 Rxg7 22. Rxg7+ Kh6 23. Rg8 Kh7 24. R8g7+ with a draw.
However, as Smerdon points out, Kramnik could have won with the beautiful counter queen sacrifice 21… Qxc3!!, when 22, Rxc3 Rxg7 leaves Black a piece up, while 22. bxc3 Ba3+ is a pretty standard mate. (Smerdon’s ‘exquisite’ seems a bit hyperbolic to me.)
Smerdon might have mentioned that 20… Qxc3!! would also have worked, and that Black could equally well have played 19… Kg8 20. Rxf4 Qxc3!!.
All very interesting, but was it really a swindle?
It depends. Did Shirov see Qxc3 at move 18. at move 21, or not until after the game? If he’d decided 18. Qh4 would lose, had seen the Qxc3 defence and played Bxh6 anyway, hoping Kramnik would miss it, then, yes, it was a swindle. But if he’d seen the game conclusion in advance and played it, thinking he was forcing a draw, then it was something arguably more interesting: a mutual blunder by two of the strongest players in the world.
Why, then, did Kramnik, a future world champion rated 2710 at the time of the game, miss, on two occasions, what was essentially a fairly simple two move tactic. A psychological flaw? A cognitive bias? Perhaps he was only looking at the king side, where all the action was, so missed a tactic on the other side of the board. You could say that looking at the wrong side of the board is a cognitive bias of sorts, but it’s not what Smerdon has in mind.
There are all sorts of reasons why we make the type of mistake we really shouldn’t make. Cognitive bias, yes, but also, for example, time trouble or fatigue. It’s always interesting to hear a great player explain how he made a simple oversight. Take this example.
This is Petrosian-Kortchnoi (1963) with Black to make his 32nd move. White has an overwhelming advantage in this rook ending, but he’s facing a resourceful defender.
Smerdon quotes Petrosian. “For a long time I had regarded my position as a winning one. Thus the whole opening phase of the struggle, when Kortchnoi was unable to get out of trouble, had psychologically attuned me to the idea that the ending would be favourable to me.”
Kortchnoi tried 32… Rf8 (sheer bluff: 33. Rxh6 or Re6 both win easily) 33. d6 Rh8 34. Kg4 Rf8 when the world champion fell straight into the cunning trap: 35. Rxh6?? f3!!.
Petrosian again. “I did not even see the threat f4-f3, possibly because it was in contrast to Black’s hopeless position. Personally, I am of the view that if a strong master does not see such a threat at one he will not notice it, even if he analyses the position for twenty or thirty minutes.”
This, then, unlike the Shirov-Kramnik position, is an excellent example of where Smerdon’s theory works. Petrosian was swindled because he was overconfident, convinced that nothing could possibly go wrong.
Smerdon identifies two pairs of psychological flaws which, in his view, are usually the cause of a player being swindled. Two, impatience and hubris, are caused by overconfidence, while two more, fear and kontrollzwang (the need to keep the position under control) are caused by lack of confidence.
He goes on to suggest that, if you know your opponent is impatient, you should look for a Trojan Horse: a move which seemingly offers your opponent a quicker or easier way to win, but instead sets a trap. If he’s overconfident, consider a Decoy Trap: a move which creates two threats: with any luck he’ll meet the minor threat while missing the major threat.
On the other hand, if your opponent is looking fearful, play a Berserk Attack, which will make him even more scared than he is already. If he’s a player who likes to keep control, adopt a window-ledging strategy: randomise the position so that neither player really knows what’s happening.
This is all very interesting, and great fun as well. Along the way, we meet characters such as Aussie swindling expert Junta Ikeda, and ever-optimistic German FM Olaf Steffens: in one game here we witness him window-ledging Richmond IM Gavin Wall.
But, I wonder how often you have a choice of swindles to set. In the real world, once we’re in swindling mode we’re just trying to find moves to stay in the game and pose problems for our opponent. We’re not really going to stop and take our opponent’s mindset into consideration before deciding which swindle to set up.
Understanding your cognitive biases is important, and, I’d suggest, this is rather more useful in helping to avoid being swindled yourself than in swindling your opponent. But is it really true that swindles usually exploit psychological flaws? I’m not entirely convinced.
By now we’ve reached Part IV, where the mood changes. We now look at the Core Skills swindlers need. The corollary is, of course, that if you want to avoid being swindled you also require these skills.
You can try to swindle your opponent by heading for an ending which might be difficult or impossible to win despite a large material advantage. For instance, KQ v KR is, generally speaking, a win, but notoriously difficult in practice. Knowing the defensive techniques to give your opponent the most trouble is helpful, as is knowing how to win against best defence. KRB v KR, on the other hand, is, generally speaking, a draw, but not so easy over the board (especially if you’re playing Keith Arkell). Knowing the correct technique is again useful – for both sides.
The next two chapters cover Fortresses and Stalemate, both familiar in the rarefied world of endgame studies but not often discussed in relation to competitive chess. We then continue with Perpetual Check, a very frequent guest in Swindleland.
We also look at Creativity. Here, for example, is the conclusion of the remarkable game between Detlev Birnbaum (2190) and Eloi Relange (2420) played at Cappelle-la-Grande in 1995. You’ll have to buy the book to find out what was really happening here.
Part V demonstrates some complete games from both master and amateur chess, including Smerdon’s favourite swindle. Finally, Part VI presents 110 quiz questions, in which you have to find, or avoid, a swindle.
This is a unique book which covers a number of important topics not usually mentioned in text books, and does so in highly entertaining fashion. Smerdon’s writing style is lively, if sometimes loose, and he presents a lot of fascinating material. You’ll find a lot of creative and resourceful ideas here which should inspire all readers to look for ways to convert their potential losses into draws, or even wins. I would guess that, in terms of chess improvement, players in the 1800-2200 range would benefit most, but I really can’t imagine any reader not falling in love with this book. There is a lot of helpful advice – most importantly perhaps, not to give up in a lost position but to look for ways to provoke your opponent into making a mistake. Not only will it help you to find swindles in your own games: it will also help you to avoid being swindled yourself.
I do have a couple of reservations: as mentioned earlier I think Smerdon overstates the importance of cognitive bias in swindles when there are many other factors involved. What looks like a swindle might, on occasion, just be a mutual blunder: to be certain we need to know the swindler’s motive. As a behavioural economist by profession, he is naturally interested in why and how decisions are made, and this is something not very often mentioned in chess literature. Cognitive bias and psychological flaws undoubtedly affect how we study chess as well as our performance at all stages of the game. Given his academic background, Smerdon would, I think, be the ideal author for a book of this nature.
I would also have preferred a broader historical perspective, but then Smerdon, unlike some other authors, is sceptical about the value of studying the classics. Mention might also have been made of endgame studies, which frequently use many of the ideas discussed in this book: you might, at one level, see all endgame studies as the result of a swindle, and I suspect that solving studies, as recommended by a number of esteemed chess coaches, might be very beneficial in helping you to find, or avoid, swindles.
In spite of these reservations, I have no hesitation in recommending The Complete Chess Swindler to all readers. There have been some exceptionally interesting chess books published this year, and this is certainly one to add to the list.
We wish IM Richard Palliser all the very best on his birthday
Richard Julian David Palliser was born September 18th in 1981 in Birmingham, West Midlands. His mother’s maiden name was Hyde.
He became a FIDE Master in 2000 and an International Master in 2001.
Richard Palliser
His peak FIDE rating (according to Felice and Megabase 2020) was 2482 in July 2012 at the age of 31.
In 1995 Richard was joint British U13 Champion together with David Hodge and Richard S. Jones.
Palliser was joint (with Danny Gormally) British Rapidplay Chess Champion in 2006. He writes regularly for ChessMoves and “Everyman Chess” who also employ him as an editor and advisor.
In recent times Richard has become the editor of “Popular Chess” and of CHESS Monthly.
Richard represents in matches 4NCL White Rose, York RI, Yorkshire CA, and ‘Eagle and Child’
According to “Play 1.d4!” :
“is an international master and recipient of a special British Chess Federation young player’s award for achievement. In addition to being a very active tournament and match player he also writes regularly for CHESS magazine and other periodicals and is noted for his theoretical knowledge and analytical ability.”
IM Richard Palliser at the King’s Place Rapidplay, 2013.
According to “tango!” :
“His debut book Play 1.d4! was very well received by critics and the chess public alike”
His handle on the Internet Chess Club is “worcester”.
IM Richard Palliser
With the White pieces Richard plays 1.d4(!) and the Queen’ Gambit, Exchange Variation is the main weapon of choice.
As the second player Richard plays the Sicilian Najdorf and the King’s Indian Defence.
IM Richard Palliser and IM Jovanka Houska, British Championships, 2019
Richard is Editor of “CHESS” and has authored a number of publications :
Play 1.d4 !, Batsford, 2003
Palliser, Richard (2005). Tango! A Dynamic Answer to 1 d4. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-388-8.
Tango! A Dynamic Answer to 1 d4
Palliser, Richard (2006). Beating Unusual Chess Openings. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-429-9.
Beating Unusual Chess Openings
Palliser, Richard (2006). Starting Out: Closed Sicilian. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-414-8.
Starting Out: Closed Sicilian
Palliser, Richard (2007). Starting Out: Scilian Najdorf. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-601-2.
Starting Out: Scilian Najdorf
Palliser, Richard (2007). Starting out: the Colle. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-527-5.
Starting out: the ColleThe Complete Chess Workout, Everyman, 2007
Palliser, Richard; Kosten, Tony; Vigus, James (2008). Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-583-1.
Dangerous Weapons: Flank Openings
Palliser, Richard (2008). Starting out: d-pawn attacks. The Colle-Zukertort, Barry and 150 Attacks. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-578-7.
Starting out: d-pawn attacks
Palliser, Richard (2009). Starting Out: the Trompowsky Attack. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-562-6.
Starting Out: the Trompowsky Attack
Palliser, Richard; Williams, Simon; Vigus, James (2010). Dangerous Weapons: The Dutch. Everyman Chess. ISBN 978-1-85744-624-1.
Dangerous Weapons: The DutchDangerous Weapons : The Caro-Kann, Everyman, 2010The Complete Chess Workout II, Everyman, 2012The Iron English, Richard Palliser & Simon Williams, Everyman Chess, 2020, ISBN-13 : 978-1781945803IM Richard Palliser
‘The Rise and Fall of David Bronstein’ – Genna Sosonko.
20 chapters, 17 black and white photos. Foreword by Garry Kasparov which states ‘Bronstein was the first player to propose changing the starting position of the pieces’. Now, is that really correct? But the former World No.1 gives the book the thumbs-up adding: ‘Soviet reality was so complicated’. Now, that I do agree with!
First published in 2014 in Russian, this is a more recent translation of rather a sad book. In what way ‘sad’? Well, Davy B (1924-2006) was obviously a top chesser but the stress of World Championship matches – he drew a match for the crown with Botvinnik in 1951 – meant that the remainder of his life was spent trying to explain, regroup and, above all, recover. None of the games of the match are given; in fact, no games are given at all.
It all began sadly. Dad was seven years in the Gulag. Davy narrowly escaped the Holocaust. The author is at some pains to explain his subject and I believe Sosonko has succeeded. Bronstein blamed his baldness (“I gave my hair” he told me) on the life he was obliged to live.
Ridiculously overpriced – the cover price is £24.15 – the book, one of a series, tells the tale of a gentleman sent mad by a board game whilst war raged. His writings are given generous praise but his riches lay in his games and wonderful annotations. Here we get none of this.
I met David a couple of times, in London and then Hastings, just after the second Fischer-Spassky match. We got on well. I had always dreamt of meeting the Soviet GM so this was a treat that nothing could spoil beyond everyday comparison. I wrote about it – twice, I think – so repeating much of it here about 30 years later is not going to happen.
The Sosonko text contains dozens of classical references to foreign authors chessers are not going to have heard of. Much is delivered verbatim. Bronstein, a born raconteur, told stories far into his old age when much of chess was lost to him. Having heard one or two, I can assert Sosonko has the patience, background and great love of the game; in short an excellent amanuensis. And you won’t get far into the book without encountering irrelevance heaped upon irrelevance.
The publishers website contains a 12 page PDF which I hope you’ll find revealing. I did not like this book. I doubt David Bronstein would have liked it either.
The author is a Dutch, formerly Soviet, Grandmaster.
(Also see ‘American Chess Magazine’ No.7, p.122 and Richard James’s review of same penned on this site last May).
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Limited Liability Company Elk and Ruby Publishing House (10 Aug. 2017)
We wish happy birthday to WGM Anya Sun Corke on her birthday.
Anya Sun Corke was born in California, USA on Wednesday, September 12th 1990.
In 2013, Anya graduated from Wellesley College summa cum laude with a B.A. in Russian and Philosophy
She became a woman’s Grandmaster in 2004.
Her peak FIDE rating (according to Felice) was 2301 in October 2008.
FIDE rating profile of WGM Anya Sun Corke
With the white pieces Anya played the Queen’s Gambit and Trompowski Attack
As the second player Anya played the Sicilian Kan, French Rozentalis (3.Nc3 Nc6) and the Grünfeld Defence.
Anya won outright the 2007 Budapest First Saturday FM tournament :
Budapest First Saturday FM Tournament, 2007
She gave up competitive chess in 2014.
An almost miniature from the 2006 British Championship :
From Wikipedia :
“Anya Sun Corke (born 12 September 1990 in California, USA) is an English chess player holding the title of Woman Grandmaster (WGM). She played for Hong Kong, where she was the top ranked chess player, until 2009.[1]
Corke earned the WGM title with her performance in the 36th Chess Olympiad, playing for the Hong Kong men’s team.[2][3]
She was the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008 Hong Kong National Champion (for men and women), one of the youngest national champions ever at the age of 13 years and 9 months.
She was the British Junior Under-11 Champion in 2002[4] and the Under-12 Champion in 2003,[5] the first girl to win either of these age groups. In 2004, she became joint British U-14 Champion.[6]
In December 2004, she won the Asian Youth Girls U-14 Championship in Singapore.[7]
In August 2005, she jointly won with Alisa Melekhina and Abby Marshall the second annual Susan Polgar National Invitational for Girls under-19.[8]
Corke represented the England Women’s team at the 2012 Chess Olympiad in Istanbul, Turkey,[9][10] and the 2013 European Team Championship in Warsaw, Poland.[11]
In 2013, she graduated from Wellesley College summa cum laude with a B.A. in Russian and Philosophy.[12][13]
In 2014, she started a Ph.D. program in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Yale University.”
FM William Claridge-Hansen, British Championships 2019, courtesy of John Upham Photography
We wish FM William Claridge-Hansen all the best on his birthday.
William Joseph Claridge-Hansen was born on Saturday, September 11th in 1999 in Chesham in the registration district of Chiltern, Buckinghamshire.
“Mambo No 5 (A Little Bit of …)” by Lou Bega was top of the UK singles chart.
William learnt chess at the age of 5 and his father Hans-Peter, is a strong county player having been over 200ECF for a number of years.
William is a keen table-tennis player as is his chess playing brother, Douglas. His father Hans-Peter is also a strong chess player.
Whilst living in Chartridge William attended Great Missenden Church of England School and whilst there was selected for England:
William Claridge-Hansen. Source : Bucks Free Press
William attends The University of Exeter and resides in London.
William plays for Exeter University, Buckinghamshire CCA and 4NCL Oxfordshire and has a current ECF grading for 230B and a FIDE rating of 2290 for standard play.
His first BCF / ECF grading was 63D in July 2008 aged 8.
William Claridge-Hansen, Southern Gigafinal, 2012, courtesy of John Upham Photography
His first title was to win the West of England Junior (U12 Challengers) in 2008 with 5.5/6 and followed by sharing the British U8 title with Mark Kenyon & Rohan Shiatis. In the following year William shared the British U10 title with future IM Matthew Wadsworth
He was rapidly recruited to the AMCA (Andrew Martin Chess Academy) 4NCL squad and quickly climbed the board order within the squad. The AMCA squad morphed into the BCM (British Chess Magazine) squad.
FIDE rating profile for FM William Claridge-Hansen
In 2013 William won (with 6/7) the British U-13 Championship in Torquay.
In 2015 William became a FIDE Master.
In 2016 William was British U-18 Champion and now had an ECF grading of 220. He scored 7/11 in the British Championship.
By now William was playing for Oxford in the Four Nations Chess League.
With the white pieces William plays the English Opening with an early king side fianchetto.
As the second player William plays the Hyper Accelerated Dragon and the Queen’s Indian Defence so clearly a student of the Hypermodern School of the 1920s!
In December 2021 William competed in the 2nd EJCOA Forest Hall Invitational event and gained his first FIDE International Master norm with a score of 6/9 and TPR of 2472.
FM William Claridge-Hansen, British Championships 2019, courtesy of John Upham Photography
‘Openings for Amateurs – Next Steps’ – Pete Tamburro (Mongoose Press 2020). 5 sections. Amusing cartoon cover. Rabars.
This is the sequel to Openings For Amateurs ~ see below ~ which was written by the same author and published by the same publisher in 2014.
Openings for Amateurs
Since that time British Chess Magazine has published many monthly columns by Pete Tamburro, a US writer of vast experience and understanding with, I might add, a reference library as large as any ocean. He is a brilliant teacher, respectful of his material, his many students and of the past, in which he revels. The book has been favourably reviewed on Amazon.
Pete Tamburro
He divides his material according to openings:
Open Games, Semi-Open Games, Closed Games, Isolated Queen’s Pawn games and Queen’s Pawn Majority Openings. Some (random) examples: Smith-Morra Gambit, Missed opportunities to play … d5, the Two Knights Defense (“Let’s look at the Ng5 matter first”), Petroff’s (” .. equal positions do not mean drawn positions .. “), the Wormald and Worrall Attack with George Thomas at the controls and so on.
He asks ‘How many games have you played when you made the right move one or two turns too late?.’ So there is philosophy here too and humour is not forgotten: though never intrudes.
Sixty-nine games are presented featuring encounters from almost every available decade including several visitors from the Nineteenth Century: Blackburne, Anderssen, Steinitz, Paulsen, Kieseritzky prowl these pages along with, for example, Adams, McShane and Hawkins. Is anybody forgotten? Not that I spotted. Is it necessary to have studied the first (2014) volume beforehand? For the stronger – Elo 1850+ – player, I would think not. Clearly it wouldn’t hurt, especially for the inexperienced or junior player. A pleasant checklist, a mere closing page, offers 20 tips to improve your rating by 100 points. Useful, useful.
A closing chapter, ‘Final Thoughts’ sees the author lapsing into autobiography, his lessons from Gulko, his bucket list and colleagues and so on. In sum, a sympathetic book. I hope it sells well.
The author is a veteran American chess man like no other. And he has written for the Kasparov Chess Foundation.
James Pratt
James Pratt, Basingstoke, Hampshire, September 10th, 2020
Paperback 280 pages
Publisher Mongoose Press, 1005 Boylston St., Suite 324, Newton Highlands, MA 02461, USA. (04/20)
We send best wishes to IM Yang-Fan Zhou on his birthday.
Yang-Fan George Zhou was born on Thursday, September 8th, 1994 in Wandsworth, London. His mother’s maiden name was Yang. “Parklife” by Blur was number one in the UK Singles chart.
His brother, Yangjian Zhou, is also a strong player.
Yang-Fan attended Whitgift School, Croydon (founded by John Whitgift in 1596) and then Churchill College, The University of Cambridge where he studied Chemical Engineering (same subject as Malcolm Pein)
Yang-Fan works for The Hut Group and resides in Manchester.
Here is an article from the Guardian which included
“The Whitgift 13-year-old recently won the Coulsdon Premier with 8.5/9, gaining nearly 100 world rating points which will make him England’s highest ranked under-18 after Howell in the July FIDE list.”
He became a FIDE Master in 2009 and an International Master in 2011.
Yang-Fan claimed the title of UK Chess Challenge “Strat” in 2011 for winning the Terafinal outright. Only Mike Basman knows what “Strat” means.
IM Yang-Fan Zhou at a Wellington College Training Event in 2014, courtesy of John Upham Photography
He scored 9/9 in the 2011 e2e4 Brighton Masters Closed tournament, including beating the two grandmasters (Keith Arkell and Alexander Cherniaev) in the tournament.
His peak FIDE rating was 2486 in October 2013 at the age of 19.
FIDE Rating Profile of IM Yang-Fan Zhou
In 2014 Yang-Fan Zhou represented Cambridge in the annual Varsity match (the 132nd) and played on top board drawing with David Zakarian.
Yang-Fan Zhou plays board one in the 2014 Varsity Match, courtesy of John Upham Photography
With the White pieces Yang-Fan is exclusively an e4 player using the Scotch Game as his main weapon playing open Sicilians and championing 6.h3 versus the Najdorf.
As the second player he employs the Sicilian Dragon and King’s Indian Defences.
Lorin Alexander R D’Costa was born on Wednesday, September 5th 1984. “What’s Love Got To Do With It” by Tina Turner was number one in the UK singles chart. His mother’s maiden name was Antheunis. He studied Dutch and Management at University College, London. See here for an interview.
According to Wikipedia : “Lorin is a masculine given name. The meaning of Lorin derives from a bay or laurel plant; of Laurentum (wreathed/crowned with laurel). Laurentum, in turn is from laurus (laurel), from the place of laurel trees, laurel branch, laurel wreath. Laurentum was also a city in ancient Italy.”
Lorin was born in Lambeth, London and became a FIDE Master in 2004 and an International Master in 2008.
His first ever BCF/ECF grading was 36D in July 1994 aged 10 but his grading very quickly improved :
BCF/ECF Grading Profile
His peak FIDE rating was 2485 in April 2009.
Lorin’s FIDE Rating Profile
Lorin has the unique distinction of gaining the title of “Strat” four times for winning the UK Chess Challenge Terafinal in 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003. Only four other players have won the title more than once : Peter Poobalasingam, Félix José Ynojosa Aponte, Marcus Harvey and Koby Kalavannan.
Lorin plays for Hendon in the London League and 4NCL Barbican in the Four Nations Chess League.
IM Lorin D’Costa at the 2017 Michael Uriely Memorial Tournament
Lorin became a Director of Lorinchess Ltd in March 2020 and currently resides in Wembley, Middlesex. This has since been replaced by Eagleide Chess Consulting.
In April 2020 Lorin founded “She Plays to Win” which is dedicated to the furtherment of girls, women’s and ladies chess in England.
Lorin started his 4NCL career in 1999 with Barbican and has been loyal all the way to 2019.
With the white pieces Lorin prefers the Queen’s Gambit but does also play 1.e4, 1.c4 and 1.Nf3 so a fairly wide repertoire.
As the second player Lorin prefers the Sicilian Kan and the Nimzo-Indian Defence.
Here is a convincing win against Ian Nepomniachtchi from Budva, 2009 :
IM Lorin D’Costa at the 2013 King’s Place Rapidplay, courtesy of John Upham Photography
In 2012 Lorin and Nick Murphy created Chess on Toast and published a series of introductory DVDs including :
Chess On Toast
Lorin has authored several chess books and DVDs including :
Who Dares Wins!, Everyman, 2010The Sicilian Scheveningen, Move by Move, Everyman, 2012The Panov-Botvinnik Attack, Move by Move, Everyman, 2013The Queen’s Indian, Move by Move, Everyman, 2016
and several Chessbase DVDs including :
The Giuoco Piano, Chessbase, 2013Fritz Trainer : A Repertoire Against the Sicilian, 2015IM Lorin D’Costa at GM Matthew Sadler at the 2017 Michael Uriely Memorial Tournament, courtesy of John Upham Photography
We focus on the British Chess Scene Past & Present!
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