Chess matches even extended to the University Championships. One of these was in Birmingham (England), a concrete jungle but at least it had its own railway station. One night our team went out on the piss and we were very much the worse for wear after, in my case, much rum and blackcurrant and possibly a Vindaloo. Our chain-smoking top player, John Stephen (a geneticist who knew a guy called Michael Jackson - regrettably not the singer) was violently ill with such a diet but still got up the next day. I kept everything down and spent all the next day expecting vomit to emerge at any time. It was a shame really, because we were up against a Cambridge team - I was wasted by some lank-haired, limp-wristed individual and the team was soundly thrashed.
Even after University my chess ezploits continued. I got a postdoctoral position in Swansea making peptides, and lived on the Gower Peninsula. I played for a little village club called Pennard for three years (even against the University teams), where the standard was such that it hovered between the two top divisions of the West Wales league and I played on either board 1 or 2, depending on availbility and illness. I didn't learn from Birmingham that chess and drink really didn't mix, one night sitting up with our team captain (Adrian Davies) drinking Carling Black Label when his wife and son had sensibly gone to bed. I blacked out when I tried to stand up and don't remember how I got home. I won my first competition when I was there, however. Also, the British Championship came there one year. I got 4/11 in the Major Open section.
After Swansea, I went to Orpington in Kent where I worked at Coates Brothers. It wasn't a happy time for me, though I liked my landlady (Sheila Crouch). More of her another time. I played chess for the local club the eighteen months I was there, between learning to drive rather late in life (whatever you do, don't drive in Sidcup at lunchtime!). The form was similar to Pennard and I did briefly have to scale the heights when our top player was injured in the Cannon Street rail crash (he broke his arm). My last competitive over the board game was on April 17, 1990, against Sevenoaks.
For a long time during all this I did play postal chess, not to mention the big interest I had in chess playing computers, and I achieved a rating in this up to BCF200 (Elo2200)! I haven't played any chess seriously since sometime in 1991 (probably around the time I lost interest in the pop charts and Freddie Mercury died), but that was because the time consuming game had been overtaken by meeting my wife, Christine.
Jack Orchison
April 22, 2014.
Tuesday 22 April 2014
Sunday 13 April 2014
My biographical bit, part 11: Chess adventures 1
My chess adventures, which I promised last time, began when I was seven years old. I, and my dad (Albert), were taught by my mum (Jo) via my aunty Jane (who, sadly, is no longer with us). My dad (who has also passed away) was my first opponent and, for years, my only opponent, but I easily left him behind. When I was twelve (when I also learned to play Scrabble - more of that another time), I played Anatoly Karpov, then World Junior Champion, in a simultaneous display where the grandmaster plays many opponents at once. I lost of course, but it opened my eyes to a wider and much tougher world out there. It was also the year of the notorious Fischer-Spassky match (1972) where the American seized the title from the Russians who'd held it since the second world war. The book on the match by Svetozar Gligoric was my first chess book.
I joined Leicester chess club when I was 15 and started playing league games there. I won my first one as an unknown when old Harry Tharp left his queen en prise. I also played for my school, Wyggeston Boys' Grammar School, as it was then (It's now Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth College)back when it had strong players like Mark Hassall, James Essinger and Richard Pennington. I did all right, though not as well as two people I met during this period - Glenn Flear and Mark Hebden, both of whom became grandmasters and made a living out of the game!
I also attended chess competitions (called congresses) and never really sparkled. But at eighteen I went to university in Nottingham. At their height (when they had international masters John Emms and Jane Garfield playing for them) they had seven teams and I was in the second team. It was here that my solidity and endgame play improved and I started achieving a grade of about 150BCF (about 1800Elo). The matches were always something to look forward to, and the most vivid memory I have (apart from drawing with the team from Sutton in Ashfield when we turned up late a player short) was our teammate Phil Thomas having a post mortem on his game with the opponent at Grantham, who we beat, and him missing the last bus home. He walked the 26 miles back to university and arrived the following day at breakfast time! (Phil was a fellow PhD chemist, by the way).
More chess adventures next time.
Jack Orchison
April 13, 2014.
I joined Leicester chess club when I was 15 and started playing league games there. I won my first one as an unknown when old Harry Tharp left his queen en prise. I also played for my school, Wyggeston Boys' Grammar School, as it was then (It's now Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth College)back when it had strong players like Mark Hassall, James Essinger and Richard Pennington. I did all right, though not as well as two people I met during this period - Glenn Flear and Mark Hebden, both of whom became grandmasters and made a living out of the game!
I also attended chess competitions (called congresses) and never really sparkled. But at eighteen I went to university in Nottingham. At their height (when they had international masters John Emms and Jane Garfield playing for them) they had seven teams and I was in the second team. It was here that my solidity and endgame play improved and I started achieving a grade of about 150BCF (about 1800Elo). The matches were always something to look forward to, and the most vivid memory I have (apart from drawing with the team from Sutton in Ashfield when we turned up late a player short) was our teammate Phil Thomas having a post mortem on his game with the opponent at Grantham, who we beat, and him missing the last bus home. He walked the 26 miles back to university and arrived the following day at breakfast time! (Phil was a fellow PhD chemist, by the way).
More chess adventures next time.
Jack Orchison
April 13, 2014.
Saturday 5 April 2014
Being a writer, part 9: Tense and point of view
We're almost ready to start writing but we need to decide on two things.
The first is what tense to write in. To me, this is simple: past tense. Stories have happened. However, the present tense does lend immediacy to the text and some writers, like Hilary Mantel, do write in the present tense. I find it annoying, though, rather like it's an illiterate ramble of some bloke down the pub.
Having disposed of the first point, the second is not so simple. Who is telling the story? Whose mind(s) are we in? If there is only one viewpoint character we have the choice between 'I' (first person) and 'He/She' (third person). I find that first person often doesn't ring true because it gives the impression the writer (rather than the reader, which is what we aim for) really was there and knows everything happened, when mostly we know this cannot true. There are exceptions, like Clive Cussler - I can well believe him. The first person can get very close to the character, but a reader can only see what the character sees. Third person has the advantage here because we can have more than one viewpoint character (hero/villain, hero/sidekick, lover/lover etc) and see more facets of a story and know what more than one person is thinking. But be careful - many viewpoints get confusing unless you have the skill of someone like the late James Herbert. And neither should you want to write from an omniscient (God-like) viewpoint where we know what everyone is thinking - that is not realistic, either, and leads to a dull 'telling' narrative.
Next time is writng time...
Jack Orchison
April 5, 2014
The first is what tense to write in. To me, this is simple: past tense. Stories have happened. However, the present tense does lend immediacy to the text and some writers, like Hilary Mantel, do write in the present tense. I find it annoying, though, rather like it's an illiterate ramble of some bloke down the pub.
Having disposed of the first point, the second is not so simple. Who is telling the story? Whose mind(s) are we in? If there is only one viewpoint character we have the choice between 'I' (first person) and 'He/She' (third person). I find that first person often doesn't ring true because it gives the impression the writer (rather than the reader, which is what we aim for) really was there and knows everything happened, when mostly we know this cannot true. There are exceptions, like Clive Cussler - I can well believe him. The first person can get very close to the character, but a reader can only see what the character sees. Third person has the advantage here because we can have more than one viewpoint character (hero/villain, hero/sidekick, lover/lover etc) and see more facets of a story and know what more than one person is thinking. But be careful - many viewpoints get confusing unless you have the skill of someone like the late James Herbert. And neither should you want to write from an omniscient (God-like) viewpoint where we know what everyone is thinking - that is not realistic, either, and leads to a dull 'telling' narrative.
Next time is writng time...
Jack Orchison
April 5, 2014
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)