First Rank Volume 3

First Rank Volume 3

Issue

Comments and Games (pgn) – Link: Game boards User Guide

Vol 3 – No 1 [of 10]

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Issue Date: October 1979

Some solid team performances, but only one game in this issue.

There is a report on the “Wanstead 30-30 Tournament”. This was not run by the Club, but organised by the David Wood Memorial Trust for fund-raising purposes. The report is therefore a of Club participation in the event.

The issue closes with a puzzle. Answer next issue.

Vol 3 – No 2 [of 10]

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Issue Date: November 1979

As good as the results were against Richmond and Drunken Knights, the catastrophe against Willesden is the sort of thing nightmares are made of.

Four quality games in this issue, two of them from the Drunken Knights match from the previous issue. Two of the games come with quality annotations from Philip Gasper, probably our best player that season. On closer inspection, a fifth game lurks within the Gasper-Leyton game – five games in all! (To play through the fifth game, select the Gasper Leyton game from the dropdown and click on the moves in square brackets starting with [4 d4 …]; return to the game by selecting the main move 4 g3.

And, as promised, the answer to the puzzle in Vol 3 No 1.

The Lee brothers, Simon and Eddie – both 138J at this time – were beginning to flex their wings; a nice miniature from Simon in this issue.

Vol 3 – No 3  [of 10]

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Issue Date: January 1980

Interesting to see Ilford with some beef – Gerry Hayes 198 and Jim Howson with a grade of 185, though no longer well over 200, and lower down Jon Manley 153J who subsequently established himself as a 200+ player. Bill Hawthorne on bottom board was once the League Secretary.

A feature of the season was that the opening 1st team Essex League match was not until 15 November, then three in three weeks, but at the time of reporting in January, none of them were yet finished! Perhaps a reminder of the League rules of the day is in order. No digital clocks in those days. Although the Quickplay Finish had been invented, it was not yet used in the League. The shortest permissible session was 2½ hours – for Clubs who could not have their venue for a full three hour session – in which case the time control was 30 moves in 75 minutes plus six moves a quarter. Games unfinished at Time but which had not reached 36 moves had to be resumed at a later date. Games where both players had made 36 moves were submitted for adjudiation. So in these three matches, a combination of adjournments and adjudications meant none of them were finished by this issue, though we had a winning score against Ilford and Chadwell Heath. Quite a change from the present day (Covid-19 excepted) where we know the full score of each match by the end of one evening.

On P4 we have another loss by Roy Wagstaff. No-one was more self-effacing than Roy Wagstaff and, more than most, he readily submitted a lost game for publication where he thought his opponent had played well.

Adjudication didn’t have many fans, but at that time, it was the devil-you-know, whereas many players distrusted the idea of chancing all on a blitz finish when your evening’s hard work could be undone by a blunder or simply running out of time. Many players therefore preferred to stick with adjudication, even though they were not completely happy about someone else deciding the result of their game, but where an unfavourable result still allowed appeal against the result if you could put the analysis together to prove it. But others would have no truck with it, so much so, that some players were prepared to agree a winning position as drawn, just to avoid adjudiation! See the case in point on P5, Peter Smith v P Rose. A word about the opposing team here, “PERME” This was the Propellants, Explosives and Rocket Motor Establishment, aka Waltham Abbey Royal Gunpowder Mills. They really did know how to make an explosive combination! And is that Peter Rose now of Chingford?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propellants,_Explosives_and_Rocket_Motor_Establishment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltham_Abbey_Royal_Gunpowder_Mills

Vol 3 – No 4  [of 10]

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Issue Date: early February 1980

The Club has had to date five Presidents: T H Acton, J Mason, R A Wagstaff, D C Bennett and now Terry Whitton. This issue of First Rank dealt with the passing of our second President, Mr J Mason, who died in 1979 aged 85. The Secretary’s notice on the front page, records the succession with the election of Roy Wagstaff as President and my own election as Chairman, on 11 December 1979.

There is promise of a subsequent issue with a selection of Mr Mason’s games, which was duly published – as Volume 3 Issue 6 – and is currently being prepared for online access, to appear in its correct sequence (Issue after next).

More games from Philip Gasper in this issue; look out for the one against Roy Watts, with its amusing annotation.

Vol 3 – No 5  [of 10]

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Issue Date: end February 1980

Sorry for the condition of P1 in this issue. It is the last issue in this ring binder and consequently the top page, leaving it dog-eared and grubby after 40 years! It is the only copy I have of this issue.

I find the quote given at the bottom of Page 1 salient advice, which remains true over 120 years after publication.

Otherwise, a lot of meat in this issue, so I’ll leave you to get on with it.

Vol 3 – No 6  [of 10]
Special Issue

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Issue Date: March 1980

This was a Special Issue, publishing a collection of the games of our then late President, Mr J Mason (1895-1979), my maternal grandfather.

On revisiting this issue, there are one or two points in the Appreciation that need to be qualified. With regard to the games, I have fully reviewed all the annotations and found a number of modifications were required.

The Appreciation: spelling correction (para 4) “Kriegspiel”;

Amendment: “The Games – The Player”: 1st para – I think the number of “missing games” is not nearly as great as I thought at the time; I now believe the 19 score books represent virtually all Mr Mason’s games.

The games were originally given in English descriptive notation, for reasons I now cannot recall given that the magazine from the outset was in algebraic. At the time of original publication, I believe that English descriptive was still the method used by the majority of players to record their games – I had converted as recently as 1977, three years earlier – and it is possible I thought that for a Special Issue I should use descriptive to give as many members as possible ‘easy access’ to these games. Of course, now nearly everyone uses algebraic notation, so I have produced a new version in algebraic with updated annotations. As before, you can play through the games on screen with the game board.

I have also added a clip from the Ilford Recorder published on 12 October 1944 which gave Game 6 herein with the match report (pre-season friendly, Ilford v Wanstead). You might also be interested to note from this clip that the problem given is by a Wanstead player, D E Love (Board 2 in this match), who we take it was a problemist.

Vol 3 – No 7  [of 10]

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Issue Date: end March 1980

This Issue is reproduced with thanks to Terry Whitton. I am missing one ring binder for the First Rank. I have a number of spare copies, but this is one issue I did not have to hand. Terry, on hearing of my missing source material, offered to help as he has retained all his copies of First Rank. I was in fact missing only three issues, this being the first. So, thanks to Terry, it now sees the light of day again.

Vol 3 – No 8  [of 10]

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Issue Date: April 1980

There’s a  game description I seem to have overlooked in the Harrow match on P3, for the Board 8 game: “Glew came unstuck”. Or perhaps I excercised my better judgement?

Vol 3 – No 9  [of 10]

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Issue Date: mid-June 1980

I make no apology for repeatedly reminding readers that in the days when these First Rank issues were originally published, there were no “analysis engines”, so all the annotations in the games were the work solely of the players concerned. A very good example where honest analysis is shown by the modern analysis engine to be inaccurate, is the interesting game in this issue Drury-Pritchard. This was Paul Pritchard’s first season with us and he came with a grade of 171, so clearly a first team player. Yet he, his opponent and the First Rank editor, all failed to find key features of this very interesting game. Modern annotations, with the aid of an analysis engine have been added into the version in the game board below. A key example is Paul’s move in that game, 23 …Be6, which he deprecated in his analysis as “unnecessarily flash” and which “…could have jeopardised the win”, is in fact the analysis engine’s first choice! To put it simply, the best modern analysis engines can play up to GM standard; the annotations in First Rank are ‘strong club player’ standard. That’s the difference and it remains the same difference when we play over-the-board.

Vol 3 – No 10  [of 10]

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Issue Date: mid-July 1980

This issue completes Volume 3, with apologies for the faint image; it was just a pale copy – perhaps the copier needed toner.

The principal feature of this issue is the Club Championship report – apologies to Fin for mis-spelling his name – but no games, apparently, and the result on a knife edge with a tie between Simon Lee and Tony Clark, to be resolved by play-off: you’ll have to wait for the next issue!

Also reported is our third trip to Hastings and the first time we avoided defeat, without managing to win.