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| Oct-26-07 | | CapAnson: <ray keene> Turing was given estrogen injections not so much to "cure" homosexuality, but to depress sexual drive (hence same sex activities) in general. But either way you slice it mucking about with hormones this way doesn't (and didn't) have a whole lot of scentific backing to support it. Estrogen had only been discovered in the 20's/30's and wasn't understood all that well at the time. So it was a bit of a faddish treatment. |
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Oct-26-07
 | | Shams: <ray keene><golombeks book on alexander is out of print and second hand copies are going for around $300 when i last saw one available.> here are two for less than half that price:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-list... |
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| Oct-27-07 | | Karpova: <On the broader topic of correspondence chess, we have before us a passage by C.H.O’D. Alexander from his Sunday Times column on, or around, 1 April 1973: ‘Punch-drunk at the moment from struggling with my games in the World Team Final I am incapable of annotating anyone else’s games; here, therefore, is one of my own [against Ulyanov] from a Cheltenham v Sochi friendly match. Friendly – yes I suppose so; but not conducted in any spirit of levity or undue haste. One of our team went round the world by sea in the middle and only got two moves behind the rest of us; and while I won this game in the comparatively short time of 2˝ years, in my other game against Ulyanov I have been on the defensive for four years – I hope to equalize any year now.’> http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... (scroll down to 5249) |
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Dec-25-07
 | | whiteshark: <Karpova: <Alexander: When he wrote down 1.c2-c4 against me, I felt like resigning.>> In picturesque notation it's <P-QB4> which could also mean Sicilian Defence. So maybe he was referring to this game C H Alexander vs Botvinnik, 1936, which was indeed a tough defeat. |
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| Apr-19-08 | | Resignation Trap: A recent article about Alexander (in Russian): http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2008... . |
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| Apr-29-08 | | wrap99: This is a very nice thread in general; the specific quote "alas, barely a tempo" I like especially and marks Alexander as a great wit. I imagine his questioner had not idea what this witticism meant... |
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| Sep-20-08 | | johnfagg: Was it true that "CHoD" was not permitted to play in Eastern Bloc Tournaments because of the nature of his expertise; or is this just another chess fable? I think the 1 c2-c4 comment was Donners, rather than Alexanders; but I may be (as all too often) wrong! |
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| Aug-25-09 | | offramp: The quote referred to is today's quote of the day.
"Slightly shortsighted, [Botvinnik] stoops over his score sheet and devotes his entire attention to recording the move in the most beautifully clear script; one feels that an explosion would not distract him and that examined through a microscope not an irregularity would appear. When he wrote down 1...c2-c4 against me, I felt like resigning." He means 1...c7-c5. A slip of the pen, I suppose. Alexander was probably much more fluent in descriptive than standard notation. His score sheet would have read 1...P-QB4. |
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| Mar-19-10 | | RonB52734: <jahhaj> <Turing also devised the first computer chess program. Since he didn't actually have a computer to program it was a pen and paper system. I have seen a score of a game it 'played', can't recall where however. It would be intersting to see it on chessgames.com, it's of historical interest after all.> As <jahhaj> is well aware, but others may not be, the game is here: A Turing vs A Glennie, 1952 |
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Mar-19-10
 | | Caissanist: I have the book that the above quote is taken from (1973's <A Book of Chess>), and he did indeed write it incorrectly as "1...c2-c4". Probably, as offramp says, it was because he was not as comfortable in algebraic; all the games in the book are in descriptive. |
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Apr-15-10
 | | alexrawlings: Leonard Barden used one of Alexander's games for his chess column today's in London Evening Standard: C H Alexander vs V Castaldi, 1947
He writes of Alexander: <Alexander was the best English player of his time, by profession a top class code-breaker who was influential at Blechley Park during World War Two and later transferred to Russian cyphers. The Foreign Office would not allow him to lead the England team at the Moscow Olympiad 1956 nor even at Helsinki 1952, which the mandarins deemed too near the Soviet border.On the chessboard Alexander specialised in giant-killing, defeated two world champions, and played in an imaginative, unorthodox style with fertile flair for new openings. He was a great teacher, too, and his primer Learn Chess, written 47 years ago, is still highly recommended for novices> . |
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Apr-19-10
 | | HeMateMe: One of the first chess books I owned: "Fischer v. Spassky 1972" by Alexander. In the intro to the book, he candidly says, paraphrasing, when you publish a book like this IMMEDIATELY after a match or tournament, its not a case of mabye making mistakes, its a certainty there will be errors. An interesting observation of his, in this book, is that "like Alekhine and Capablanca getting the best of Nimzovitch, so do Fischer and Spassky dominate the erratic Bent Larsen." |
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| Oct-16-10 | | EinZweiDrei: If my opponent moved my own piece on his first move, I might resign, too. |
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Nov-11-10
 | | GrahamClayton: Photo:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped... |
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Jul-15-11
 | | kingscrusher: Code breaker at Bletchley park
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14164529
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o... |
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Jul-16-11
| | kingscrusher: In Tribute to Hugh Alexander, I created this video for some of his notable games on Chessgames.com : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2iu...
He may well have saved potentially thousands of lives for helping shorten World War II. |
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| Jul-16-11 | | bartonlaos: <kingscrusher> Bill Wall and his brothers publish The White Knight Review, a beautiful free-monthly on chess-potpourri and extras. It has an extended article on Bletchley Park and its chess-playing codebreakers, that include: Harry Golombek , Alan Turing , James Macrae Aitken , Philip Stuart Milner-Barry , and Reuben Fine . Spies and Code-Breakers - White Knight Review
http://issuu.com/visualdesigngraphi... Free Subscription - http://www.offthewallchess.com/ |
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Jul-16-11
 | | Benzol: It's pleasing to see that the code breakers at Bletchley are getting acknowledgement. However, is there or has there been any recognition of the contribution that the Polish code breakers made in the first place? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography) for more on this. |
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| Jul-16-11 | | bartonlaos: <Benzol> Good point. This article <"How the young Polish mathematicians broke the unbreakable Enigma and gave the Allies a priceless gift"> contains some of the 'schematics' used in Rejewski's bombas and Zygalski's sheets, with an interactive enigma machine hidden within: Polish Codebreakers
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/v... |
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Jul-16-11
| | HeMateMe: All that, but no one nailed Kate Winslet. |
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| Aug-09-11 | | Antiochus: 381 games of Alexander are here:
http://www.phileo.demon.co.uk/uk_br... |
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| Nov-12-11 | | Karpova: C.N. 5458 cites from Alexander's foreword to 'King, Queen and Knight' by N. Knight and W. Guy (London, 1975): <‘... I should like to add one remark addressed especially to the stronger players. When we are soaked in chess, completely involved in its technicalities, we lose something; we forget what it was like when we first learnt this mysterious, inexhaustible, implacable art/game/science. Seeing chess – both in itself and in its numerous usages as an analogue of larger things – through the eyes of those who may be inexpert players but are highly articulate and intelligent men and women, we can perhaps regain some of the freshness of feeling that we once had.’> Link: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... |
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| Feb-17-12 | | Penguincw: Quote of the Day
< "Slightly shortsighted, [Botvinnik] stoops over his score sheet and devotes his entire attention to recording the move in the most beautifully clear script; one feels that an explosion would not distract him and that examined through a microscope not an irregularity would appear. When he wrote down 1...c2-c4 against me, I felt like resigning." > --- C.H.O'D. Alexander |
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Apr-16-12
| | GrahamClayton: Here is an Alexander victory that I have just uploaded to the database: [Event "Warsawl ol (Men) 1935"]
[Site "Warsaw"]
[Date "1935.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Thomas George Cranston"]
[Black "Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander"]
[Result "0-1"]
1. d4  f6 2. c4 g6 3. c3  g7 4. f3 d6 5. e4 bd7 6. e2 O-O 7. O-O e5 8. dxe5 dxe5 9. g5 h6 10. xf6  xf6 11. d5 d8 12. c2 c6 13. e3 e7 14.
 ad1 c5 15. d2 e6 16. g3 d4 17. xd4 exd4 18. g2 b6 19. f4 c5 20. f3 b7 21. d3 ab8 22. e1 d7 23. b3 fe8 24. e3 f5 25. d5 xd5 26. cxd5 fxe4 27. xe4 b5 28. de2  h8 29. g2 bc8 30. f3 xe2+ 31. xe2 
click for larger view31...c4 32. xg6 d3 33. e6 f8 34. f5 d8 35. bxc4 bxc4 36. e4 d2 37. h5 d1= 38. xd1 xe6 39. a1+ g7 40. xg7+ xg7 41. dxe6 d2+ 42. f3 c3 43. e3 xh2 0-1 Source: "CHESS", Vol 1, No 1, 14th September 1935. |
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| Apr-19-13 | | brainzugzwang: << HeMateMe: One of the first chess books I owned: "Fischer v. Spassky 1972" by Alexander.>> One of my first, too -- Actually, my third, for 50 cents from a rummage sale, and still one of my favorites. For someone fairly new to the game, and not living in anything even close to resembling a metropolitan area, the introductory section about the world of professional chess was revelatory, and C.H. o'D. also kept us patzers in mind when annotating the games. Very underrated book for its time, I think. |
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