The NLC has always been the place to come for chess afficionados. Grandmaster Meises came ashore in 1938 and headed straight to the NLC. Capablanca came by for the odd simul. And Lasker haunted the dining room.
No surprise then, that when a travelling band of American chessers from the Cosmos Club in Washington arrived in the Metropolis, they only had one thought on their mind: playing Chess at 1 Whitehall Place.
And the NLC Chess Circle was glad to host them. The team had arranged a series of warm up matches at lesser venues across Clubland, playing first at the Cercle in Paris, then at the Reform, then the RAC, then onto East India, and finally the RAG.
But all were as naught next to the chess-playing majesty of the NLC. Our visitors had finally ascended to the pinnacle.
It was a social and relaxed affair. Our cousins from across the Atlantic fielded four players, with the Lib fielding five, so a series of short games saw some player rotation. More Cosmosians joined for dinner.
The games
First up, a brace from Doctor Widdicombe who had the pleasure of taking on husband and wife team Cyril and Christine. First up, Christine, who got the worse of a London System/KID, but caused Doctor Widdicombe some difficulties by aggressively posting her rooks in the heart of Black’s camp.
Next up came Cyril. A King’s Gambit from White led to a typically fast paced and tactical game.
Mister Ioannou scored a nice brace of wins too. Here are his games, first as Black – demonstrating how dangerous his Scandanavian defence is, and the second as White, where he finished up nicely.
And this from Doctor Saldanha, with a lovely underpromotion finish.
Said the Doctor: “I stopped scoring around move 41 as I was running short on time. I think the moves are fairly accurate (perhaps not perfectly remembered) from then on and I do recall under promoting to a rook to avoid stalemate”. And a nice finish it was. That f8=Q is almost a reflex, so well done him for resisting!
Dinner
No team visit the NLC for chess without the Chess Circle stuffing a dinner into them. And this was no different. So with chess hostilities drawn to a close, the hungry players duly marched off to see what the dining room had in store.
