These are strange days indeed, with sights we’d never thought we’d see in our lifetime: pandemics, lock-downs, Doctor Kirby winning the Lightning – an unlikely string of hard-to-believe occurrences.
Now, the old chess joke has been used before in these pages: ‘If the nuclear holocaust hits on Monday, the chess club meets on Tuesday at 6.30’. Except it won’t. The Club is shut, all chess fixtures cancelled, and the NLC Chess Circle gropes its way to a new (and thankfully temporary) computational existence.
All are disheartened, undoubtedly so. The NLC Chess Circle makes no pretense of being anything other than an elaborate excuse for a series of very agreeable dinners, and this newfangled ‘online’ chess variant offers only an impersonal and disembodied game with a sore lack of club claret. It is very much not Clubland Chess.
But Liberal chess players are a tough bunch, made of stern stuff, and are determined to make the best of it. The online match against the Roehampton is all set to go, with other encounters being prepared by Captain Chamberlain. We continue.
In difficult times, history and tradition can be a comfort. Upon hearing that the NLC Chess Circle would be playing distance chess for the foreseeble future the NLC’s team of dedicated chess historians threw themselves into the archives to uncover they past glories of NLC distance chess.
Whilst a record of an NLC chess circle team engaging in distance chess has not yet been uncovered, the NLC itself has a proud history of distance chess. And more than that, the NLC is the only Club in London to have hosted a Chess Olympiad.
That’s right. An Olympiad. The year was 1977. FIDE had decided to make use of cutting edge Telex technology to hold that year’s Olympiad remotely, and the England chess team decided to fight their fight in the premier chess venue in all of London: 1 Whitehall Place.
Thirteen teams played, including the mighty Soviets, all based in their home countries and sending moves over the telex system. The time control was 45 moves in mere 8 hours; a time control Mister Widdicombe is thoroughly in favour of.
Some cracking players were involved, including Tal, Polugaevsky, Hubner and Gulko. The format was a knockout, in four rounds (R16, QF, SF and final). Teams had to comprise eight boards: five men, one women, one junior and one correspondence player.
England fielded a strong team and hoped to have a decent run. They were drawn against Iceland in the first round.
Things didn’t go well. Iceland put up stiff resistance and Hartston on 1, Nunn on 3, Mestel on 4 and Webb on 6 could only manage draws. Stean lost on board 2. Whiteley and Goodman went off to adjudication, eight hours seemingly being insufficient to produce a result.
The only highpoint of the first day was Sheila Jackson’s gem:
In the adjudications, Whiteley was adjudged lost, whereas Goodman was awarded the point. That put the score at 4-4 but with the tie-break system in favour the Icelandic team the English crashed out in the first round. The end of the nation’s 1977 Tele-Olympiad adventure.
West Germany stumbled in the first round too, and the Australians gave the Soviets a scare in the quarter-finals. The USSR managed to sneak through and went on to win out after a final against East Germany.
(For those wishing to know more about the unique 1977 Tele-Olympiad, GM Ian Rogers wrote an excellent two part account of the Australian team’s near victory over the mighty USSR team. Well worth a read – especially for the anecdotes about Ray Keene in part 2. Full teams, results, cross-table and games available here.)
A footnote. The Tele-olympiad was remarkable for a victory by a 14 year-old Azerbaijanian named ‘Garry Kasparov’.
The young lad clearly showed promise. I wonder what happened to him?
So, the England team failed to match up to the quality of their surroundings. Yet even if the England team lost, NLC chess most certainly won. The only London Club to host an Olympiad. Surely the only one that ever will? That, truly, shows class.
These are difficult days, but chess and companionship can help get us through. The NLC Chess Circle has history dripping from every pore, and the next chapter of the story begins against the Roehampton on 25 March. See you there.
My guess is that’s Sidney Hope in the Smoking Room (is it in the alcove next to the door to the bar?) – a bit like Cluedo, isn’t it.
This is (another) brilliant piece. Thank you Mister Widdicombe.
But maybe historically inaccurate so far as it implies that Libs have only been playing distance chess for a mere 43 years. I reckon I can produce a pre-First World War example, but need to check my research.
Meanwhile, another prize for anyone who can guess which of the players in the photo has a record of 5.5 out of 6 in games against Mister Giffin.
Extra marks if you’ve correctly named the chap, Giffin!
A pre-First World War example would be excellent. A cable match perhaps? There were plenty of those going on at the time (Mister Trenchard played for GB v US) but I haven’t found any NLC activity. Let me know what you have and I’ll see if I can dig anything else up.
As to your 5.5/6…that’s got me stumped…given it was 40 years ago, and I suspect it was on the youth(ish) circuit, I’d say it was one of the younger chaps – Nunn, or Goodman?
Wan’t there a Mr Whiteley involved? Any relation?
I have no idea whether he was related to our very own Mister Whiteley (James – any connection?), but the Whiteley in the England team photo is Andrew of that ilk, sadly no longer with us, who was one of the leading English players in the generation just before Miles, Nunn etc came along. I met him a couple of times when I was still at school (same place where Doctor Saldanha is now a governor) and organising the match against the Old Boys, of whom he was one. As I recall, he was a gentle, slightly eccentric man who smoked an absolutely enormous pipe whilst at the board. It may be my imagination, but I think the pipe may even have been in the shape of a knight.
Quiz clue – the 5.5 out of 6 is a bit of a trick question which overstates my actual ability by 0.5 points.