THOMSON CHESS CLUB

For June, we decide to take a break from the lecture series and instead, Thomson Chess Club is organising a friendly match with the BullDogs Team at our Club! The BullDogs Team is made up of Filipino expatriates who are crazy about chess and mind you, they are strong and often finish highly in our local tournaments. My task is to rope in as many that they can muster. Format of the match shall be 2 games of 15 min with 10 sec increment.  We shall do a blitz one sometime later. Members who are interested to play please email me. The date is tentatively set at 24 June.

The coming lecture by Bradley will be focused on the 3rd World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca He is Cuban, learnt chess at a young age by watching his father play. One day while his father was playing, he could even tell him that  an illegal move was made with the Knight. Mark of a genius. We start 8pm this Friday at the Club, please come early to take your seats.

The entry forms are available on the SCF Website .

Please note that the Thomson Club sessions will be suspended till May 27. We shall resume with the lecture on World Champion Jose R Capablanca then.

 The next World Champion featured will be the 2nd, Emmanuel Lasker Emmanuel  M Lasker hails from a chess-playing family, his brother Berthold is also a master. He holds the title for the longest period of 27 years (1894-1921) and has battled the likes of Janowski, Marshall, Tarrasch and Schlechter before bowing out to J R Capablanca.  He taught the world to play chess in his famous work " Lasker's Manual of Chess" by expounding Steinitz's theories in great detail. Bradley will be at the Club 22 April Friday at 8pm to say more about this great champion. Please reply via whatsapp or email me if you wish to reserve places.

All present get to review the game Steinitz - Sellman which was a classic positional game expounding many of Steinitz's theories on the accumulation of small advantages as listed below: 1. Keep connected pawns 2. Create backward pawns in opponent's wing (medium weakness for opponent) 3. Create doubled pawns in opponent's wing 4. Isolate the  opponent's   pawns 5. Keeping our majority of queen side pawns to create remote passed pawn advantage in the end 6. Weakening of the pawns especially in front of the opponent's king 7. Create secure advanced posts and posting pieces there 8. Control of open files 9. Play in the centre 10. Advance the queen-side pawn-chain to cramp the enemy 11. Keep the Bishop Pair advantage with you and devoid your opponent from this advantage if possible (exchange his one bishop with your knight) 12. Avoiding all such weaknesses in our camp (unless serious material loss is threatened) and create positional strengths...

Bradley will continue the series on World Champions with his lecture on Wilhelm Steinitz, the man who revolutionised chess thinking with his theory on chess positional play. Come witness a great game where Steinitz puts  his theory into action. You are not going to see fireworks but the methodical buildup of factors listed by the great World Champion. We start at 8pm and this will last 1 hour. There will be no league game on March 18. Please reply at johnwongfk63@gmail.com to reserve your seats. Members only.