It would appear that the Cameronian philosophy of crushing the little guy and suppression of free speech has permeated deeper into our society than you may have imagined. The following was removed from the Cumbernauld Chess Club noticeboard because it was deemed to "reflect badly on the club."

" Last season in Glasgow Division Two, I never lost a game. Therefore I believe that I have earned the right to play in our Division one matches. So being left aside in order to play Dunfermline players is Grossly unfair in my opinion. I appreciate that they helped us out of a hole in the past, but that is not my problem."

Dunfermline players very Kindly offered to play for us when Hamilton refused us the opportunity to reschedule a Division One Match.

" These players did NOT earn Promotion I DID. What is the point of working hard to earn promotion when someone else is going to reap the benefit??? And to add Insult to Injury, I'm to "stand by" as Reserve......
Er No Thank You !!!"

The reason that I'm posting this on here is that I object very strongly to my thoughts being suppressed from our noticeboard especially on the grounds that it reflects badly on the club.

I believe that having people slogging it out in Division two year after year, spending a fortune on petrol ferrying people around then earning promotion only to be replaced by players from another club who very conveniently become Cumbernauld players, reflect more badly on the club than my murmurs of discontent.

Admittedly I'm playing pretty crap at the moment , but still do not feel that my poor form justifies replacement with other players from another club in a desperate attempt to stay in Glasgow Division One.

Dunfermline players, please do not withdraw as a result of this posting as I would not now play anyway.
I just can not abide people telling me what I can and cannot think or feel. If I wanted THOUGHT SUPPRESSION I would swallow a few LARGATIL.

As the title says, Siegrun has asked me to post a list of her books that she'd like to give away. The list is as follows (desc = descriptive notation):

British Chess Mags 1994/5; some other mags
Fischer: My 60 memorable games (desc)
Forbes: Polgar sisters
Keene: Aron Nimzowitsch
Niemzowitsch: The Praxis od my system (desc)
Károlyi: Judit Polgar
Kasparov: My great predecessors IV
Motwani: H O T Chess
Gerzadowicz: Journal of a Chess Original
Gerzadowicz: Thinker’s Chess
Bologan: Selected games
Shirov: fire on board
Reti: Masters of the chess bd (desc)
Kmoch: Rubinstein’s masterpieces (desc)
Tartakower: 500 Master Games (desc)
Abrahams: Technique in chess (desc)
Ilyumzhinovaris…
Keene: How to beat Kasparov
Pandolfini: Principles of the new chess
Littlewood: How to play the middle game (desc)
Philips: The chess teacher
Walker: Test your chess
Kostyev: 40 lessons
Hodgson: Attack with Julian
Avni: creative chess
Avni: The GM’s mind
Avni: Surprise in chess
Taulbut: How to play the ruy lopez
Barden: The ruy lopez
Schiller: Complete defense to King Pawn openings

Please send her an email if interested.

Hi Folks,

Remember SNCL is on 24/2/13

I would appreciate getting all trophies back so that I am sure they are in my hands for prize giving in March.

EVERYONE look in your cupboards, attic, whatever and get the trophies found!!!!!!!!

GG

From the organisers of the European Senior Championships to be held in Plovdiv in March -

You have a nice opportunity to visit Bulgaria this summer as we have chain of tournaments -Bulgarian Chess Summer in one of the best Black sea resorts and very attractive prize funds.

<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.bulchesssummer.eu">www.bulchesssummer.eu</a><!-- w -->

Best regards,
Central Office
ESCC 2013

Incidentally five of our senior players are registered for the Euro Seniors.

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I have decided to write my biography for the archives while I can still remember - it's currently 8 pages and I have just realised what debt I owe to Walter Munn, Stewart Reuben, Gerald Bonner and many others who organised these:

Look at this list - all disappeared - are there others ?

Langside Hall junior tournaments
Renfrewshire Open
Glasgow Chess Club and their open tournament
Lloyds Bank International
World U-26 Team champs
World Student Team champs
ARC Young Masters
a competitive Glasgow Schools League
a competitive Scottish Boys Championship
Glasgow Herald U-19 Championships
Glasgow League A K Miller team handicap
Renfrewshire county championship
Scottish county championship
A 14-round Olympiad

Perhaps instead of spending energy on this noticeboard those with time could organise a tournament

I have a few (a lot!) of questions...hopefully someone will have the time, knowledge and forebearance to answer them

...If someone were to lodge an official complaint (let's say, for example, about decisions pertaining to a recent Richardson Cup match) who would deal with this within CS? The Standards Committee? An arbiters committee? Someone else?

-Would the complaint be made 'public' or would it be kept internal?
-Would the other team involved be told exactly what the complaint was even if the complaint wasn't specifically against them?
-Would the other team have to comply with any questions asked of them pertaining to the complaint if they weren't told what the complaint was?
-Would there be any way of annulling/reversing/or in some other way re-determining the result of the match in question if a decision was reached upholding the complaint?

-Does anyone have a copy of (last week's?) Scotland on Sunday column by Dougie Bryson? Apparently the column mentioned the match/complaint?!

Could Dougie or someone else post the text of it here perhaps (if I promise to be more religious about buying the paper in future! (I actually stopped buying it because every week I 'had' to read how great hunting/fishing/shooting is by some bloodsport enthusiast

Any help or answers would be much appreciated,
Cheers,
Andy Burnett
(Wandering Dragons CC)

...and preventing further discussion is worse than the subject matter.

I'm sure we would all have kept it all above board and clean.

Now we will have to restrict it to PM's or are those too subject to Big Brother.
My Dad fought in a world war for freedom of speech.
(OK he ended up being on the losing side but that is another story.) =)

Kevin gives a link to Chess Scotland from his site.
Maybe this is what Andy meant (but never got the chance to explain.)

I agree with you Andy, some bits are unchess like, He gives an email address.
Perhaps we can ask him to post a polite warning on his site that some of the contents may offend.

I would just like to thank the individual who has allowed Edinburgh University to defend the BUCA title this year by donating the entry fee... It's really appreciated. The event takes place next weekend (16th-17th).

The team we're sending is: Boris Mitrovic, Gabriel Petesch, Clément Sreeves, Jonathan Edwards, Hamish Olson. Each team member will play four out of the five rounds.

On another note... I was wondering people's opinions on us all being forced to become ECF members in order to participate in the event. We almost boycotted the event on the basis that in order for it to be ECF rated we each have to pay £12 (so £60 for the team). Well, we don't want it ECF rated! British Universities??? More like English Universities.

I meant to write/ask about this a while back but got side-tracked. Another topic referencing his blog reminded me of it just now.

Am I alone in finding half of Spraggett's blogs just plain offensive (pornographic/ foul language/etc.)? Should CS be advertising this site with a direct link? I know the internet has infinitely worse things floating around, but we wouldn't link to those either!

Hi, if you want to enter there are still a few places left.

Either e-mail or phone me, only 5 entries have come by post the rest either e-mail or phone.

Michael.