Death Anniversary of FM Neil Leslie Carr (10-iii-1968 25-v-2015)
Here is his obituary from Stewart Reuben
Here is an article from Kingpin Magazine by Jon Manley
Here is an article from EssexChess
The Neil Carr Scholarship Prize
Here is a game courtesy of Kingpin & the Ilford Recorder
Here is a tribute from long time friend and London Central YMCA fellow club member, IM Andrew Martin :
Birthday of GM Jonathan Francis Parker (19-v-1976)
Birthday of IM Andrew Martin (18-v-1957)
From ChessBase :
Andrew David Martin (born 18th May 1957 in West Ham, London) is an English chess player with the title of international master. Martin has won various national and international tournaments. He has been playing for years in the Four Nations Chess League, at present (July 2009) for Wood Green Hilsmark Kingfisher, previously for the Camberley Chess Club. Martin received his title as international master in 1984. He earned his first grandmaster norm in the British Championship of 1997 in Brighton. Martin was a commentator on the chess world championship between Kasparov and Kramnik in 2000.
On the 21st February 2004 Martin set a new world record for simultaneous chess.He faced 321 chess players at the same time. His result was: 294 wins, 26 draws and only one loss. Martin is known as a professional chess teacher and head trainer of the English youth team. He trains eight schools (Yateley Manor, Aldro, Millfield, Sunningdale, Waverley School, St Michael’s Sandhurst, Wellington College, Salesian College). Martin is a chess columnist, an author of chess books and the author of various instructional videos. He was the publisher of the series Trends Publications. Martin lives in Sandhurst, England, is married and the father of two daughters and two sons. His present Elo rating is 2423 (as of July 2009).
The above is somewhat inaccurate and out of date. Andrew came from East Ham rather than West Ham. He was the editor rather than the publisher of Trends Publications and he lives in Bramley, Surrey with his partner Naomi.
On July 23rd 1981 a world record attempt of continuous blitz games was undertaken at the National Film Theatre in London with much support of the membership of London Central YMCA.
Andrew now plays for Camberley and Guildford clubs in the Berkshire and Surrey Border Leagues and is former member of London Central YMCA (CentYMCA), Wood Green and Barbican clubs.
Andrew has written many books starting as Editor of the “Trends Series” for Tournament Chess owned by Richard O’Brien (Not of The Crystal Maze). He has authored numerous DVDs for Foxy Videos and ChessBase and has a YouTube Channel focused on young and improving players called “Andrew Martin – Chess Explorations“.
Andrew’s first book as author was this one :
Here is one his favourite games :
Here is a second memorable game :
Remembering Andrew Rowland Benedick Thomas (11-x-1904 16-v-1985)
See http://www.chessdevon.org.uk/HTML/Pioneers/arb/base.htm
Birthday of TWIC founder, Mark Crowther (16-v-1966)
From Wikipedia :
The Week in Chess (TWIC) is one of the first, if not the first, Internet-based chess news services. It is based in the United Kingdom.
TWIC has been edited by Mark Crowther since its inception in 1994.[1] It began as a weekly Usenet posting, with “TWIC 1” being posted to Usenet group rec.games.chess on 17 September 1994.[2] Later it moved to Crowther’s personal web site, then to chesscenter.com in 1997,[3] and in 2012 it moved to theweekinchess.com.[4]
It contains both chess news, and all the game scores from major events.
TWIC quickly became popular with professional chess players, because it allowed them to quickly get results and game scores, where previously they had relied on print publications.[5]
TWIC still exists as a weekly newsletter, although for important events the TWIC website is updated daily. It remains a popular site for up-to-date chess news.[6]
Birthday of IM Jack Rudd (13-v-1979)
Birthday of IM Neil H Bradbury (09-v-1964)
Birthday of Timothy David Harding (06-v-1948)
Death Anniversary of David Vincent Hooper (03-v-1998)
Ken Whyld wrote an obituary which appeared in British Chess Magazine, Volume 118 (1998), Number 6, page 326 as follows :
DAVID VINCENT HOOPER died on 3rd May this year in a nursing home in Taunton. He had been in declining health for some months. Born in Reigate, 31st August 1915, his early chess years were with the Battersea CC and Surrey.
He won the County Championship three times, and the London Championship in 1948. His generation was at its chess peak in the years when war curtailed opportunities, but he won the British Correspondence Championship in 1944. His games from that event are to be found in Chess for Rank and File by Roche and Battersby. Also at that time, he won the 1944 tournament at Blackpool, defeating veteran Grandmaster Jacques Mieses.
David was most active in the decade that followed, playing five times in the British Championship. His highest place there was at Nottingham 1954, when, after leading in the early stages, he finished half a point behind the joint champions. David was in the British Olympic team at
Helsinki 1952, and in the same year accidentally played top board for England in one of the then traditional weekend matches against the Netherlands. British Champion Klein took offence at a Sunday Times report of his draw with former World Champion Dr. Euwe on the Saturday and refused to play on Sunday. Thus David was drafted in to meet Euwe, and acquitted himself admirably. Even though he lost, the game took pride of place in that month’s
BCM.
In the following game, played in the Hastings Premier l95l-2, he found an improvement on Botvinnik’s play against Bronstein in game 17 of their 1951 match, when 7.Ng3 was played because it was thought that after 7.Nf4 d5 it was necessary to play 8 Qb3.
Here is his brief Wikipedia entry
Death Anniversary of Michael John Haygarth (11-x-1934 27-iv-2016)