Happy New Year! CHESS (January 1936)

"I turned down the OBE because it's not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who've got it." Ken Loach #honourslist 📷Mark Huba

This was our bestseller when I worked in the foreign languages dept at Foyle’s in the mid-1980s.

This will not end well. FT, 6-7 Dec 2025

Founded in 1867, A History of the Dublin Chess Club for #ChessTuesday with a group pic of members in its centenary year. DYK women players were admitted to the club in 1919. From the @englishchess.bsky.social Library. #chesshistory #chessliterature @richardjameschess.bsky.social

Kramnik's empty armoury. www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra...

'For Kramnik, withdrawal of his legal action against Navara could be seen as a sign of strength, not weakness.' www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra...

Fred Yates (1884-1932), six-times British Chess Champion, died on this day. The Yorkshireman beat most of the great masters of his time and was in the world's top 20. He scraped a living as a player and journalist and was killed by a leak from a faulty gas fitting while asleep.

FIDE's bad language. www.chesshistory.com/winter/index...

#ChessTuesday insight: Krogius reminds us it’s far more valuable to reflect on our own play than to just study the board and others 🧠♟️ 1976. #ChessPsychology from the @englishchess.bsky.social Library. @richardjameschess.bsky.social ecfchess Library. #chesshistory #chessliterature #garylanechess

The Story of the Dundee Chess Club (1984) for #ChessTuesday from its foundation in 1847, to its win of the Richardson Cup and a visit from Alekhine and beyond. Plus a gorge cover! From the @englishchess.bsky.social [email protected] #chesshistory #chessliterature @garylanechess

‘After 70 years, 14 prime ministers, and nearly 4,000 articles, Leonard Barden is still going strong. In all that time he has never missed a week – rain or shine, in sickness and in health. And now, officially, he is a record-breaker.’ By @seaningle.bsky.social

Paganini’s chess set. #Genoa

Happy birthday to Leonard Barden (96) whose Guardian chess column is 69.

Young chess star Shambavi Hariharan sparkles at the English Championships. oxfordcitychessclub.com/news/

Sir George Thomas on chess obsession and Rubinstein's deathwish. www.kingpinchess.net/2025/07/a-cr...

Chess and the Nazis www.kingpinchess.net/2025/07/ches...

A call from Leonard Barden saves the world championship match. The Field, 13 July 1972

Sir George Thomas won the mixed doubles at #QueensClub with Dorothy Chambers in 1908. As well as excelling in tennis, he was Britain's most successful badminton player and won the British chess championship twice. He was one of Britain's greatest sportsmen.

Pisa, Italy

Remembering Tony Miles (1955-2001), Britain's first grandmaster, who would have turned 70 today.

Asprey leather Hanover chess set. £5,750. @financialtimes.com

Hanging out with Hungarian chess chums.

Republican soldiers playing chess behind the front line in Madrid, Nov/Dec 1936. Photo by Robert Capa, who preferred poker. capacenter.hu/en/

From @privateeyenews.bsky.social

Splendid day at #YAE2025 as a guest of the ever affable Geoff Hinder. The marvellous Mairs won again for @badmintonengland.bsky.social Would have pleased Sir George.

These books are superb.

'My life did not pan out properly', an interview with Boris Spassky when he was 60. www.kingpinchess.net/2007/11/no-r...

It’s official, well done Shambavi! @englishchess.bsky.social

First record.

From the latest @privateeyenews.bsky.social

[smoker's cough] "I believe it all starts with the love for wood" www.youtube.com/watch?v=E48r...

The wrong trousers: how sporting dress codes can create an image problem | Emma John

Happy New Year! CHESS (January 1936)

Sweden's Man of Steel, from the January issue of CHESS www.kingpinchess.net/2024/12/swed...

"I turned down the OBE because it's not a club you want to join when you look at the villains who've got it." Ken Loach #honourslist 📷Mark Huba

'I am not disappointed ... I had very big obligations for chess' #BorisSpassky's candour in defeat t.co/pSXxN1kjHl

Merry Christmas from Sir George Thomas. 📷 @badmintonengland.bsky.social

H6 = Michael Basman

Games so wild the pages crackle with static. Happy birthday Rashid Nezhmetdinov (1912-1974)

Thom Yorke lives just round the corner from me. Never calls.

Not convinced this took place qedcon.org

One game seems to be missing 🤔

#Chess is cinematic shorthand for scheming. #Conclave

Met John Prescott while working at Foyle’s in 1986. He was looking for books about Swedish prime minister Olaf Palme. Very polite.

Irish-American chess master James Mason was born on this day in 1849. I once spent a soggy Sunday afternoon seeking his grave in an Essex churchyard. "Not one of my better dates," recalls my then girlfriend.

Anybody can now read my new article on the history of de la Bourdonnais and McDonnell’s great chess match in the nineteenth century - ‘Still and dark assemblies’: the narrativised chess-player in urban & literary culture, 1834–1864 #chess #history t.co/EQgWqMAIkR

Bamber Gascoigne - the first published photo. The Bystander, 27 March 1935 #UniversityChallenge

Heavy reading. #chess #echecs

Selfridges