BCN wishes happy birthday to Barry Barnes (01-viii-1937)
Barry Peter Barnes was born in Brighton and his mother’s maiden name was Simpole. (Barry is a cousin of Julian Ivan Peter Simpole, who was a Brighton school teacher and who taught Edward Gerard Winter to play chess).
Barry now lives in Halling, Rochester, Kent with his wife Jean.
From The Encyclopedia of Chess (Robert Hale, 1970 & 1976) by Anne Sunnucks :
“International Master of FIDE for Chess Compositions (1967) and International Judge of FIDE for Chess Compositions (1967).
Born on 1st August 1937, Barnes works in transport advertising. He has composed about 250 two-move problems. With Lipton and Rice, he has contributed to the advance of the modern two-mover. Problem Editor of Two-Move and Twin sections of The Problemist. Co-author with M.Lipton and JM Rice of The Two-Move Chess Problem : Tradition and Development (Faber and Faber 1966).
“A promising career as a county chess player came to an end when I was given Brian Harley’s classic book Mate in Two Moves in the belief that it would help my chess, but it had quite the opposite effect. My interest in competitive chess waned, and I was on the road to an an International Master title for problems!
Early influences in my problem career were the weekly chess problem solving competition in The Observer (my first problem published there was in 1955), a teenage friendship with J. M. Rice and M. Lipton (both now lnternational Masters), Herbert Grasemann’s book Problem Schach / with its near revolutionary post-war German problem ideas, and the expert British problemist, A. R. Gooderson who had I but known it only a few years earlier was the officiating master when my Hove Grammar School played Steyning Grammar at chess.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the genuinely original problems I was making in cooperation and in competition with Rice and Lipton were being published mostly abroad in such specialist problem magazines as Die Schwatbe (with its inspired two-move editor, Hermann Albrecht) where I gained the epithet,the English prize-snatcher’! It was also written that the work of the avant_garde composers, Rice, Lipton and Barnes, was like a fresh two-move wind blowing from our island. It was sad but true at that time that the specialist magazine of the British Chess problem Society (founded 1918), The problemist, was unreceptive to change and our often bizarre ideas.
A milestone of sorts was reached when I won lst prize for problem I in 1958, a prize for the best new problem by a member of the British Commonwealth aged under 21. In 1966, I was invited by problemist Grandmaster Comins Mansfield, who was President of the FIDE Problem Commission, to act as Secretary at the Barcelona meeting. With Mr. Mansfield’s retirement, I became the British Member to the Commission, and at the Wiesbaden meeting, 1974, I was elected 2nd Vice-President. (1st Vice-President from 1982)
The FIDE Problem Commission meets annually to discuss matters relating to all branches of problem chess, to organize the World Chess Composing Tournament (WCCT), the World Chess Solving Competition (WCSC), and to publish FIDE Album anthologies of the best problems. It was on the strength of my success in these FIDE Albums that the Commission granted me the titles in 1967 of ‘lnternational Master of the FIDE for Chess Composition’ and ‘lnternational Judge of the FIDE for Chess Composition’. Since 1974, I have been Chairman of the Titles Sub-Committee of the Commission.
Since 1965, I have been the two-move editor of The Problemist and have served almost without break on the BCPS Committee. I have contributed to The Encyclopaedia of Chess by Anne Sunnucks (Robert Hale, 1970), I am co-author, with J. M. Rice and M. Lipton, of The Two-Move Chess Problem: Tradition & Development‘ (Faber A Faber, 1966), and I am the sole author of Comins Mansfield MBE: Chess Problems of a Grandmaster: (British Chess Problem Society, 1976) and Pick of the Best Chess Problems (Elliot Right Way Books, 1976)
To date I have made just over 300 two-movers and some helpmates.”
The Two Move Chess Problem : Tradition and DevelopmentPick of the best Chess ProblemsSource: The Problemist, May 1996. Photo taken March 1996 at the Mansfield Centenary Meeting at Paisley, when Barry Barnes delivered a lecture on Comins Mansfield. Left to right: Geoffrey Mansfield (son of Comins), Robert Gray and Barry Barnes, International Master of Chess Composition.
We send best wishes to GM Nigel Davies on his birthday, this day (July 31st) in 1960.
Nigel Rodney Davies was born in Southport, Merseyside.
He lived in the Wirral, Merseyside, moved to Sidcup and then to Kidderminster, Worcestershire where he resides with his chess playing son, Sam who is 165A currently.
Nigel Davies (centre) at a Lloyds Bank event
He became an FIDE Master in 1980, an International Master in 1982 and a Grandmaster in 1993.
Nigel Davies
He won the British Under-21 Championship in 1979 (Chester) and the British Rapidplay Championship in 1987.
Nigel receives a much welcome prize (in Manchester) from Miss Benedictine in 198?
He won The Regency Ramsgate Masters 1980, Wrexham 1994, Katrineholm 1995 and the Blackpool Hilton Premier in 2003.
In 2015 Nigel transferred his international allegiance from England (the English Chess Federation) to Wales (Welsh Chess Union). He maintains an ECF standard play grading of 236C.
William Watson, Jonny Hector, Alexander Khalifman, Jonathan Tisdall and Nigel Davies at the 1991 Watson, Farley, Williams tournament in London.
His peak FIDE rating was 2530 in January 1995 at the age of 35.
Nigel’s repertoire with White is wide including Queen’s Gambit, King’s Indian Attack, English/Reti and the Ruy Lopez.
As black Nigel’s repertoire is also varied and difficult to pin down. The Modern Defence is a favourite and is the Nimzo-Indian Defence.
Nigel has had many books and DVDs published :
The Chess Player’s Battle Manual. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-7043-7The Power Chess Program. Batsford. ISBN 0-7134-8415-2.The Grünfeld Defence. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-239-3.The Veresov. Everyman Chess. ISBN 9781857443356.The Dynamic Reti. Everyman Chess. ISBN 9781857443523.The Trompowsky. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1857443764.King’s Indian Attack. Hamburg: ChessBase. ISBN 978-3-86681-071-6.Starting Out: The Modern. Everyman Chess. ISBN 9781857445664.Play the Catalan. Gloucester Publishers plc (formerly Everyman Publishers plc). ISBN 9781857445916.
Birthday of GM Julian Michael Hodgson on his birthday, this day July 25th) in 1963.
Julian Hodgson
Streatham & Brixton becoming BCF National Club Champions in 1989. The team was Tony Kosten, Mark Hedben, Daniel King, Nigel Povah (Captain), Joe Gallagher and Julian Hodgson : quite a strong team
This is what was written about Julian prior to the 1979 Spassky vs the BCF Junior Squad simultaneous display : “St Paul’s and Shepherds Bush. Rating 210. Standard London Amateur Champion at age 12, 1975.
Standard London under-18r champion, 1976. British under-21 co-champion, 1977. Youngest ever to beat two grandmasters in successive games, 1978.”
Aside from more formal achievements, he developed a sharp, relentless, attacking style of play and against lesser opponents this frequently resulted in devastating quick wins, earning him the epithet “Grandmaster of Disaster”.
Hodgson’s greatest legacy as a chess player may however lie in his resurrection of an almost forgotten opening system. The Trompowsky Attack (1.d4 Nf6 2.Bg5) had floundered in the doldrums for many years, prior to his adoption and development of the opening. In interviews, he reveals that this was born out of laziness and a reluctance to learn established chess opening theory. It soon became his weapon of choice with the white pieces, leading to a surprising popularisation of the system, the spawning of a whole generation of devotees and ironically, a number of theoretical guides, containing a high quota of Hodgson’s own games and analysis. Indeed, his expert treatment of the system once prompted fellow grandmaster Joe Gallagher to write that it should be renamed the Hodgson–Trompowsky Attack, a view shared by many other masters. A chess journalist once wrote that Hodgson put the ‘romp’ into Trompowsky.
A related, but more obscure version of the system (1.d4 d5 2.Bg5), has been dubbed by some the Hodgson Attack and by others the Pseudo-Trompowsky or Queen’s Bishop Attack.
BCN remembers much loved Ken Whyld who passed away on July 11th 2003 in Lincolnshire.
Ken Whyld from CHESS magazine, January 1950. courtesy of the Ken Whyld Association
From Chess : The Records :
“Ken Whyld was the editor of Chess Students Quarterly in the early 1950s and from 1955-63, Chess Reader, in which he reviewed more than 500 chess books. He has written seven tournament books and one match book.
Ken Whyld (06-iii-1926 11-vii-2003)
With J. Gilchrist he wrote a three-volume anthology of Lasker’s games, and with David Hooper, The Oxford Companion to Chess.
Ken at the gravestone of “William” Steinitz
For the book World Chess Champions he wrote the chapters on Lasker and Smyslov. In his playing days he was champion of his county (Nottinghamshire) many times and played in the British Championship as well as international tournaments.”
Ken Whyld (06-iii-1926 11-vii-2003)
Possibly the best tribute to Ken was written by John Saunders and Bernard Cafferty in the August 2003 issue of British Chess Magazine, pages 398 – 402.
Editorial from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 395 by Editor, John SaundersKen Whyld Remembered from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 398 by Editor, John Saunders and Bernard CaffertyKen Whyld Remembered from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 399 by Editor, John Saunders and Bernard CaffertyKen Whyld Remembered from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 400 by Editor, John Saunders and Bernard CaffertyKen Whyld Remembered from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 401 by Editor, John Saunders and Bernard CaffertyKen Whyld Remembered from British Chess Magazine, Volume CXXIII (123), Number 8 (August), page 402 by Editor, John Saunders and Bernard CaffertyKen Whyld
The Collected Games of Emanuel LaskerThe Oxford Companion to ChessChess : The Records, Guinness, 1986, SBN 10: 0851124550ISBN 13: 9780851124551Learn Chess in a WeekendChess Columns : A ListChess ReaderChess Stalker QuarterlyThe Oxford Companion to Chess, 1st EditionCurse of Kirsan by Sarah Hurst, Ken wrote the Foreword.
Alan Phillips (riight) receives his prize from television celebrity and magician David Nixon for his equal second placing at the 1973 Islington Open, photographer unknown
BCN remembers Alan Phillips (28-x-1923 24-vi-2009)
“Alan Phillips, joint British Champion in 1954, was born in England in 1923. He was the author of Chess: 60 Years on with Caissa and Friends (Caissa Editions, 2003) and The Chess Teacher (Cadogan, 1995).”
Here is an item from the Shropshire Chess web site
Here is Alan Phillips autobiography from his own book, Chess: Sixty years on with Caissa & Friends
“Born in Stockport in 1923,I was playing pontoon in an air-raid shelter in the autumn of 1940 with a friend from our school, Stockport Grammar, when he suddenly announced that he knew a better game, being the school chess champion. Ostensibly studying for a Cambridge Scholarship with a view to reading Classics, I played about 200 games with Norman Stephens, emerging the victor perhaps because I studied Alekhine’s and Euwe’s games, obtained from the Public Library, whence I had been borrowing difficult piano works for the previous two years. When I got up to Magdalene in 1941, I found standing next to me in the University Chess Club Wykehamist James Lighthill, destined to become, arguably, our greatest applied mathematician of the second half of the last century; I played chess with him one evening a week and piano duets another, and as Match Captain and Hon.Sec. in my second year – shared top board, while now supposedly reading Italian, as a War Office scheme, and French, languages I unfortunately then considered beneath contempt, compared with the glory that was Greek.
Alan Phillips plays David Hooper on August 20th 1954 in round five of the British Championships in Nottingham, photographer unknown
Enrolled but not commissioned – the War Office having ratted on its promise to a large bunch of first-class linguists – in the Army Intelligence Corps from August 1943 to October 1946,I spent nearly three years abroad in Sicily and Palestine, riding a motor-bike – our American equivalents in the CIC were mostly majors or colonels and rode in Cadillacs – and playing, when stationary, much music with singers and violinists, especially in Palestine, and chess with the Captain of the Harbour in Sicily, a charming moustached Neapolitan who got about three draws in 300 games, and then in Haifa, Hadera and Jerusalem chess clubs, beating the youth champion of Palestine and Aloni when he played simultaneously, but losing to Porath, and enjoying ‘skittles’ in cafes with many other players of near-master rank. Demobilised and put, like the Goons, on the Z-reserve in autumn 1946, I went back to Cambridge to read Classics Pt II and found Peter Swinnerton-Dyer, as far as I know our best number theorist of the past fifty years, waiting for me – we tied for the University Championship having begun a series of trips to Hastings with Alan Truscott, and later continued to Birmingham for the Midland Championship, which I won in 1951. I usually won prizes in increasingly strong sections at Hastings except in two Premiers, 1950-1 and 1954-5, when my emotions were otherwise engaged, as happened in the British Championship in 1952, when, after I had beaten all the best players and scored 7/8 with three rounds to go, a girl-friend turned up and I lost my last three games, refusing a draw in round nine in a not superior position, not out of arrogance, but in order to clinch the title.
Alan Phillips and Leonard Barden are joint British Champions of 1954 in Nottingham, photographer unknown
Otherwise, with one or two exceptions, I only lost to the strongest players in the British Championships I played in, i.e. 1949-55 and 1961, tying for first place at Nottingham 1954 and coming third equal in a very strong Championship at Aberystwyth 1955, which earned me a place as Board 6 on the English team at the Moscow Olympiad in 1956, where I only drew against Luxembourg, and lost to Geller, but drew in two cases from bad positions with Johner, Sanguinetti and Ghitescu.
David Hooper (left) in conversation with Alan Phillips. Location and photographer unknown.
In l96l I moved up to Derbyshire, where – though playing top board for Manchester as well as the county – having switched to Maths teaching after several years part-time study at Birkbeck and acquired offspring as well as promotion, I also started annual visits to Dartington Summer School of Music, now totalling 38 out of a possible 40, all of which made it virtually impossible for me to play in tournaments, apart from the odd visit to Hastings or fairly strong week-end tournaments, e.g. Ilford, which I won for the second time in 1973, beating Basman. My responsibilities on my return to London as Head of Charlton School in 1967, where I got Bob Wade to teach chess as part of mathematics in the Lower School, and then of Forest Hill School, where we organised many tournaments, although I played generally as top board for Kent, whom I led twice to victory in the County Championship in 1975 and 1976, meant that I had even less time for tournament chess, except at Islington and in the Challengers, so that my real heyday ended there, with a final move to a ‘quiet’ county, Shropshire – as far as chess was concerned – as Adviser for Secondary Education and Area Adviser, 1976-82, in which capacity I avoided as much paper-work as I could and taught chess in the lunch-hour to all the primary and handicapped pupils I visited. I should say most of my successes at chess have been at County Level, where I played top board for Cambridgeshire and London University, as well as the counties mentioned, and in the very strong London League, as far as I can estimate I had a success rate of some 70% in those contests. In general the games in this book, with one or two exceptions for historical or anecdotal reasons, were played at high levels, and won by the right player, not suddenly lost by a blunder, like some games published nowadays because the blunder is perpetrated by a famous player.
Photograph taken in Hastings on 28 December 1950. Lord Dunsany (standing on the right) is watching the first-round game between Alan Phillips and Weaver Adams, source : http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/
With regard to the general assessment of players and tournaments, I have only one comment “Look at the games!” When even, or especially, David Bronstein wails “They give me a number”, I think it time to end a spuriously precise system and revert to the earlier English practice or the traditional Soviet one of putting players in classes, preferably according to a sufficiently large number of results in tournaments or strong club or county matches. And when players are inhibited, when the match is won, from offering an opponent, who has played well, a draw, that is a diminution of sportsmanship, so a draw, even with Kasparov, should not count in grading. Finally the use of seconds or computers once a game is started should be
regarded as totally unsporting, and players should be put on their honour, as bridge-players are in matters of cheating, not to use them.
I should like to dedicate this book to the memory of my good friends, David Hooper, Stuart Milner-Barry, and A.R.B.Thomas, men of integrity, humour, and many other talents, who brought to their chess the same qualities of courage and sportsmanship they showed in the rest of their lives.
Alan Phillips (28-x-1923 24-vi-2009) : Source : https://www.shropshirechess.org/History/1970s.htm
Alan Phillips
British Master, Joint British Champion 1954
Thorn Cottage, Appleton Thorn, Warrington, Cheshire
September 2003″
Obituary of Alan Phillips by John Saunders from British Chess Magazine, 2009. Part OneObituary of Alan Phillips by John Saunders from British Chess Magazine, 2009. Part Two
GM Paul Motwani has just played a brutal double check in the 1990 Scottish Lightning Championship. Photograph by Alistair MulhearnPaul Motwani plays Bent Larsen at the 1990 Watson, Farley and Williams International Chess Challenge. The game was a 3.Lb5 sicilian which was drawnPaul Motwani during a simultaneous displayGM Paul Motwani demonstrates one of his games
Colin McNab and Paul Motwani in post mortem analysisC.O.O.L. ChessH.O.T. ChessS*T*A*R* ChessThe Most Instructive Games of the Young GrandmastersChess Under the Microscope
WIM Natasha Regan, courtesy of John Upham Photography, King’s Place Rapidplay, 2013
Birthday of WIM Natasha K Regan (12-vi-1971)
From Amazon :
“Natasha Regan was born in 1971 in London, the elder daughter of two Australian doctors. She studied Maths at Cambridge University, earned a half blue for chess, and edited the chess magazine “Dragon”. She debuted in the English Women’s chess Olympiad team in Manila, 1992.”
From Gambit Publications :
“Natasha Regan is a Women’s International Master from England who achieved a degree in mathematics from Cambridge University. While pursuing a successful career as an actuary in the insurance industry, she has raised a family and maintained a strong interest in chess and other board games, including Go.”
WIM Natasha Regan, photographer unknownWIM Natasha Regan, courtesy of John Upham Photography, King’s Place Rapidplay, 2013
Natasha Regan, Lloyds bank Open, Unknown photographerChess For Life. Gambit. ISBN 978-1910093832.Game Changer. New In Chess. ISBN 978-9056918187.WIM Natasha Regan, courtesy of John Upham Photography at the Keith Richardson Memorial, 2017
Jonathan Levitt , Jon, (born in 1963) is a British chess player . In 1984 he became a FIDE International Master and in 1994 a FIDE Grand Master.
GM Jonathan Levitt, photograph by Cathy Rogers
Levitt wrote chess anecdotes on the (no longer existing) chess portal kasparovchess.com . He also has a chess column in “Oxford Today”. Levitt is also known for his talent tests and he is also a chess teacher. Moreover, he is a master in endgame studies. He takes chess photos, some of which can be seen in Wikipedia.
Jonathan Levitt in play with Michael Adams, Lloyds Bank, 1990, Philidor, 1/2-1/2
Levitt is also the author of several chess books: “Secrets of Spectacular Chess”, “Genius in Chess”, “Advice on Improving Your Game”. He also makes chess videos for the internet.
“Jonathan Paul Levitt was born in Southwark (London), England. Awarded the IM title in 1984, he is now a GM (1991) and a composer of problems. Winner of the Staunton Memorial in 2005. His notable works as an author include “Secrets of Spectacular Chess” and “Genius in Chess”.”
Jonathan achieved a peak rating of 2495 in January 1989 at the age of 26 and lives in Ipswich.
He shared 1st place the GLC Masters in 1986 with 10.5/15 with Neil McDonald :
Jonathan Levitt, ? and Neil McDonald at the 1986 GLC Masters
GLC Masters crosstable, 1986
and was first equal with Jonathan Speelman in the Third Staunton Memorial in 2005 :
Third Staunton Memorial, 2005GM Jonathan Levitt, photographer unknown
Here is a game courtesy of Kingpin & the Ilford Recorder
Neil Carr (far right) at Paul Buswell’s house
Here is a tribute from long time friend and London Central YMCA fellow club member, IM Andrew Martin :
Neil Carr (front right)Neil Carr (right) with Neil Fox, Stuart Conquest, Paul Buswell and ?Neil Carr (rear right) at a BCF National Club Final (1992)Neil Carr, (foreground, right) at London’s South Bank, Peter Sowray in the background.. Photo by Clive Field, London Chess AssociationFM Neil Carr, London Chess Classic 2013, courtesy pf John Upham Photography
We focus on the British Chess Scene Past & Present !
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