ICCF's table (http://tables.iccf.com/world/wcfin/...) gives Wood-Madsen as 1-0, not as a draw. I have a game score:

[Event "Wch1 Final 5053"]
[Site "corr ICCF"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Wood, Gabriel (ENG)"]
[Black "Madsen, Sverre (NOR)"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "D37"]
[EventDate "1950.??.??"]
[PlyCount "57"]
[EventType "tourn (corr)"]
[Source "Chess Mail Ltd"]
[SourceDate "2008.09.12"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Be7 5.e3 Nbd7 6.b3 c6 7.Bd3 dxc4 8.bxc4 e5 9.O-O Bd6 10.Bb2 Qe7 11.Qc2 O-O 12.Ne4 Nxe4 13.Bxe4 g6 14.c5 Bc7 15.Nxe5 Nxe5 16.dxe5 Bxe5 17.Bxe5 Qxe5 18.Rab1 Re8 19.Rb4 Re7 20.Rfb1 a5 21.Rd4 a4 22.h4 Kg7 23.f4 Qf6 24.Rd6 Qxh4 25.Qc3+ Kh6 26.Bf3 Bf5 27.e4 Bxe4 28.Bxe4 Rxe4 29.Rd3 1-0

I also have a <probable> game score for Adam-Madsen, although it is listed as Madsen-Adam:

[Event "Wch1 Final 5053"]
[Site "corr ICCF"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Madsen, Sverre (NOR)"]
[Black "Adam, Edmund (GER)"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B50"]
[EventDate "1950.??.??"]
[PlyCount "74"]
[EventType "tourn (corr)"]
[Source "Chess Mail Ltd"]
[SourceDate "2008.09.12"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.b4 cxb4 4.d4 Nf6 5.Bd3 g6 6.Bb2 Bg7 7.c3 bxc3 8.Nxc3 O-O 9.h3 Nc6 10.O-O Nb4 11.Bc4 Nd7 12.Ng5 Nc6 13.Ne2 Nb6 14.Bb3 e6 15.Qd2 d5 16.e5 Nc4 17.Bxc4 dxc4 18.Ne4 Qh4 19.Nd6 Rd8 20.Qc3 Nxe5 21.dxe5 Rxd6 22.exd6 Bxc3 23.Bxc3 Qd8 24.Rfd1 Bd7 25.a4 a5 26.Rd2 Ra6 27.Rb1 Rb6 28.Re1 Rb3 29.Rd4 e5 30.Rxc4 f6 31.Rc7 Bxa4 32.Bxa5 Qxd6 33.Ng3 Bc6 34.Rxc6 bxc6 35.Ne4 Qe6 36.Bd2 g5 37.Kh2 Qf5 <Is this the right game? Probably; Mail Chess 7/1951 gives a different Madsen-Adam game but doesn't say the event.> 0-1

(The note at the end was Harding's comment, not mine)

(hope you got the puritan, outdoorsy overtones)>

The NZ Champs was always 12 players as when you played.

Life is too short to pay too much attention to chess. Chess is game, fascinating but ultimately trivia...

I have spoken (!!>

- So you have, thanks for your support!
The Rugby Sevens in Wellington is half-way through and is very entertaining. That combination of brilliant open running in front of a fancy dress crowd in party mode is just the right balance. I'll take that instead of boring, 15 aside Rugby anytime.

I was always very lightly built and what is commonly known as a short-arse and hopeless at just about everything except I was vaguely good at chess...and I liked reading books and eating ice cream.

My father accidentally killed a man (in light weight or bantam or whatever it was as he wasn't a big man) in England in amateur boxing. Tragic. Had some weakness of the brain. But in league there is all that stop starting...

You and I first met at the Auckland Metropolitan Schools Champs in 1963. I think it was Les himself who organized it. Glenn Turner won it, I think, but you were right up there, as was Robert Chapman-Smith. It was held at the Auckland Chess Club rooms at His Majesty's Arcade in Queen Street. I remember that the King and Queen of Thailand were in a parade up the street in the middle of that tournament. Young memory is quite good!

Yes, I'll likely play in the Seniors and yes, Paul, I think that Bob Smith, Paul Garbett, Bob Gibbons and Tony Carpenter would all be eligible. It could turn into a kind of Ghost Dance with most of the ghosts still in corporeal form and without the threat of knee damage.

I think one of the things that attracted me(and dad) to chess was the mystery and beauty of the chess pieces themselves...

And I even used to love looking at the covers of chess books!

It wasn't until I studied Capa's Chess Fundamentals [went through a few games in that just recently], Purdy's booklet, Tal and Botvinnik (and other masters), but especially Reinfeld's "Winning Chess" that I started to win and when things got "clear".

I don't recall Chapman-Smith but I recall the name. Glenn Turner must have been around and Roly Metge was as I played a (game to decide second place - he won) with him. But once I played a game to decide second with Mark Sinclair (son of Prof Keith Sinclair the poet and historian who was there watching and smoking a pipe); my father knew him. I think he organized that as he and Ian Mitchell saw me off to Christchurch and I met up with Chris Evans in Hamilton and I did quite well down there. Chris won. But it was a big deal for me at the time...

Other memories from that time: Roly Metge used to place his toy mouse on top of the chess clock as a good luck charm. He and Mark were friendly rivals both on the chess board and, a little later, at University, with the ladies. Chris was a very strong player and was later placed third in Congress (from memory). Brett Hart was a strong player then and for years afterward but I last met him a decade ago. And, all this time Peter Stuart was been around, steadily getting stronger.

I was present at the AGM at the Auckland Chess Club when the motion to combine the Auckland Chess Club and the Dominion Road Chess Clubs to form the Auckland Chess Centre was put by Alan Wilkins. Ian Mitchell, who had already done a lot of work on it and was to a great deal more, spoke to it.

I can't remember everyone who was there but here are some of those who were members of the Auckland Chess Club at that time. I'm not sure whether Ewen or Roly were members by then. There were probably twice or three times that number but these are the names that I've remembered so far.

Rudy Baeyertz
Charles Belton
Dave Cooper
Brian Douglas
Terry Free
James Hanlon (President)
Brett Hart
J. B. Kay
Adrian Lentz (Treasurer)
Graham Mears (Director of Play)
Ian Mitchell (Secretary)
Merv Morrison
Gilbert Sale
Ortvin Sarapu
Richard Sutton
George Trundle
John Van Pelt
Wayne Power
Simon Van Dam
Robin Weatherley
Alan Wilkins (Club Captain)

Then there were the Dominion Road club players. Names that I remember there are

Roger Court
Fred Fowlds
Alan Fletcher
Barry Menzies
Rodney Phillips
Tom Phillips

Roger was a very strong player but suffered from asthma, which claimed his life at only about 32.

As you say on Phillips' page on this site, Phillips was a prodigy. The sense of loss to NZ chess was huge at the time and I still feel it today.

I'd like to draw you attention to the following ebay-auction. Hopefully the rare chess book item is of some interest for you.

<The Chess Literatur of Australia + New Zealand by John van Manen, 4th ed.2009>

http://www.ebay.de/itm/The-Chess-Li...

The trustworthiest chessbook seller on ebay to me, which has also a players page: Bernd Schneider

Yes tragic re Philips. When I started chess I looked up to him, Richard Sutton, [and all the others including Feneridis], Sarapu, and Roger Court. I saw him (and the others)as very significant. He had an attractive sister. Poor old Tom Phillips! he probably had nothing to do with chess after that...I knew they lived in Bannerman road which was near where Sarapu lived.

In those "good old days", Lightning Chess was very much the rage on the non-official club nights - and also after the official play was completed. It came with trash-talk and both the chess and the talk blended into an art form - variously funny, rude and everything in-between. Kibitzing those games was also very entertaining. I think the ongoing lightning games between Ian Mitchell and Graham Mears were the ultimate. Graham (who is still around) had an almost violinist grip in the pieces and seemed to telegraph his moves many seconds in advance. When Ian thought he was winning he'd chuckle to himself and slap his disabled hand with the other while puffing furiously on his cigarette (smoking was, shamefully, the norm). Apart from the (good natured) verbal exchanges between Mears and Michell what was also amusing to us kibitzers (Brett Hart was one) was the way they were constantly missed winning moves and all we could do was exchange grins.

I remember playing many high quality lightning games with Richard Sutton and while I lost most of them, it certainly tuned up my tactical skill. Richard was perhaps the best tactician of them all - counting Ortvin and Rodney.

Burry was a mysterious character who annoyed Communist (followed the USSR -more or less Stalinist) I mean Ian Mitchell. Chris Evans witnessed a time when in the heat of the argument he was poking Burry with his umbrella as he made each point!! Burry used to set up msyterious positions and ask if we knew what was the best move... I was fascinated by the people I have to say...and the chess pieces not so much whether I won...of course I liked doing that! But I think you might have some idea of what I mean

About the mid 80s my father said how it was all so much more cosy and much more fun in the early days we were playing chess...I agreed. I still agree. (I remember the fun we had playing Kriegspiel at the DRCC on Firday nights) I, in a sense don't want NZ Chess to progress. I love it to stay with relatively weak players and less formal chess...but of course I will still play for swindles and so on! Sorry Wayne! But you know I have actually even deliberately lost some games and also I took draws when I had sure win...as I felt for my opponent which I know sounds really lie either a lie or mad! (Not so much in rated games of course!)

I can't remember Burry but it sounds like he and many of the others of that time were, in effect, card-carrying members of the "Larger-than-Life Characters Union (LTLCU)". You certainly qualify then and now and maybe the younger me could have qualified. The "Union Secretary" of the LTLCU would have been Ian Mitchell himself and, as we know (although many might not) he really was a card carrying member of the CPNZ.

But members of the LTLCU were everywhere you looked - Fenny, as you said, Simon van Dam, Andrew Day ("Who's my victim for this round?"), Colonel Closey from Pakuranga - a first world war veteran, Rudy Baeyertz, Charles Belton (founder of Belton's Real Estate), Adrian Lentz (who had many an argument with Ian), Bernie Sylvan, Mario Anthony, Don ("Grandmaster") Burdett. Ortvin had genuine charisma.

Michael Whaley ("Whalebone") coined a lot of nicknames, including "The Trashman", "Tricky Dicky", "Gibbo", "Powerhouse", "The Ort Cloud", "Hart Attack" and others I'll recall soon. Then there were terms like "spong" denoting a sure win and its variations such as "Hong Kong Spong" and "Stone Cold Spong". To "toss" was to resign.

But Merv Morrison really deserves a whole award-winning film all to himself. Looking like Mr McGoo, he was nonetheless the owner of a construction company and could drive a bulldozer with the best of them. His frequent phrases included "Everybody bullies me" and "I'll have to ring up the boss and see what she says". During a match he had a habit of rubbing his back on the chair, supposedly because it itched, and poking a pencil into his ear, supposedly to clear it! To his great credit he was a non-smoker and one of the very first campaigners for smoke-free chess. Although not very strong in his middle years, Ortvin started to coach him and, as we all know, he eventually to become the World Over 90 Chess Champion.

I didn't know that Merv had won that title. Good on him.

As a young fella at the Auckland Chess Centre I can remember Adrian Lentz, Peter Goffin, Terry Free, Mario Anthony, Ian Mitchell, Graham Mears, Merv Morrison, A Skuja, Barry Williams, Andrew Day, G Pilkington, Ken Williams, A Hollis, Don MacArthur and of course you <Wayne>. Apparently Andrew Day still lives in Auckland. I don't know why he gave chess away. Don't know what happened to Mario Anthony either. Keep the memories coming fellas.

Yes Merv got that award. Merv is a main member of the LTLCU. Rudy Baerytz is another (he was a lawyer and I think he worked with or for Belton). Once our club played the Remuera and I won after he told me a story of how he got off killing someone on a crossing. He just said (in Court) there was a bee in his car.

Of course there was Glenn Turner who was my friend as schoolboys we both went to Tamaki College. His father was Communist! Glenn had big arguments with his father - who was at heart a really nice fellow. Glen once won the NZ Correspondence Champs in 1986 I think it was. He beat Smith (I used ideas in that game to get an advantage against Leonard McLaren but blew it at critical moment.)

I also recall McArthur and some of the others up there. Ken Williams I knew at the Howick-Pakuranga Club. nice fellow an quite good at chess. I dint see Day very much in person but he certainly played some good games and must have had a lot of talent.

In the ACC Club Champs we have FM Ben Hague (originally from England) who is the highest rated player in the CCs being higher rated than the others in the tourney. That is: FM Steadman (NZ Champion), FM Bruce Watson, Luke Li (who lost to Ben last Monday night), Roger "Dragon /Grunfeld") Perry (who I face next Monday!), Hans Gao who beat me last Monday (I stuffed up the opening), and Nathan Goodhue.)

Al rated higher than me I think (I know probably on the NZ rating and almost certainly on the FIDE list). It's going to be tough nut for me! But at different times I have beaten all of those players except Ben Hague, so hope springs eternal!

Ian had been crippled partly by Polio when he was young in Scotland.

I recall turning up once and we were taking nails out of the walls (of the then new Club) and I had to ask Bernie Sylvan which end of the hammer you used to get a nail out. (He showed me.) I was very under-confident those days about anything practical - in fact I had never used a hammer and was about 17 I think. I actually had a pretty "mollycoddled" life as my parents used to do everything for us and we always had masses of fruit and food as my father worked in a good job...but we still robbed orchards for fun! As a teenager I retreated into my room and stopped seeing anyone except the occasional chess player eventually I had nervous breakdown in 1967 by this time I had basically given up chess.

But my father organized the permit, as, as an architect he had to do that for Hellabies a lot.