Club member Geoff Chandler’s marathon lockdown exercise (see earlier post) to digitise all the games played by past club member and many times Scottish Champion, James Macrae Aitken, is reported in the latest (December 2020) edition of Chess magazine:
The games are recorded in over 45 notebooks covering Aitken’s local, national and international games – Geoff has finsihed book 11 and is about to start on book 12 ….
Dear Club Member,
Thank you to Andre for getting the Online Club Championship up and running.
Tuesday 8th December
We are playing an online match tomorrow evening against a very strong Czech side Spartak Vlasim. One of their players visited the club last summer – see the link [get Google to translate the Czech into English in your browser – their visit to the club itself in Edinburgh was probably the highlight of the trip and see a lovely photo of Colin!]. The club have contacts with GM David Navara, who has sent us a signed copy of his new book!
Wednesday 9th December
This Wednesday’s blitz tournament has a 7.45pm start. [Members have been emailed link and password to join: password is 1822 click on https://lichess.org/tournament/OylbsQ2a to join.]
Tuesday 15th December
I suggest we have an informal catch up on Zoom as an alternative to the Christmas evening. There will be an opportunity to play some informal chess on lichess – and can also go through the basics of online chess for any new members. [Members have been emailed link and password to join].
Best wishes
Neil
The son of Angus Burnet, Jon Burnet, has kindly donated some of his late father’s books to the club. In his donation letter Jon mentions that Angus features in “500 Master Games of Chess” by Dr S Tartakower & J Du Mont (which is also held in the club’s library)!
Some of the inscriptions pasted in the donated books include a press clipping showing him winning the first Koltanowski Chess Cup in 1931:
and his school prize pasted in his copy of MCO (5th Edition, 1932):
Angus moved to Edinburgh in 1930 and was Scottish Boys’ champion in 1931, 1933 (shared with A.A. Thomson), and 1934 (after winning the deciding game with A.A. Thomson). He played in the World Record Blindfold Display by Koltanowski at Edinburgh 1937 and was successful in club and league chess in Edinburgh, distinguished himself in several Scottish Championships and played in the 1951 Scotland-England match.
The SCA history web site has a number of pages with further details about Angus’ chess career and his involvement in Koltanowski’s blindfold display which, incidentaly, also has the score of his game versus Koltanowski.
A letter of appreciation has been sent to Jon for his kind donation.
.
Club member Geoff Chandler has accepted the challenge to seek out the unpublished games of James Macrae Aitkens, Scottish Chess champion and Bletchley Park WW2 cryptanalyst.
The club was previously presented with JM Aitken’s library and chess writings which includes chess scorebooks covering his lifetime of playing chess. Whilst many of his games are recorded it was clear that a great number had not been published previously.
Geoff has reached book 5 (out if the 45 have found so far ….) in his journey and has already made many discoveries – which are being written about in his Red Hot Pawn blog (perhaps?!?) and also soon to be reported in a future edition of Chess magazine.
They will be made available through John Saunders’ BritBase.
Having successfully made his move to Llandudno Graham has uncovered several missing copies of BCCA’s CC magazine – filling in various gaps – together with some BCF Yearbooks, a 75-year history of the BCCA booklet and a BPCF Bulletin (neatly completing a gap!) – many thanks again Graham!
Downsizing and moving to Llandudno has led Graham Williams to kindly donate many years (from 1976 onwards ….!) of BCCA’s Correspondence Chess magazine to the club’s library along with a number of tournament books and other publications.
These have now been catalogued and added to the club’s extensive library.
We’re going to run this season’s Johnny Marr Allegro on Tuesday 26th May through lichess. We will make and publish the pairings during the event. Please sign up by emailing myself (president@edinburghchessclub.co.uk) or Andre (serigado@protonmail.com) by Sunday 24th May.
Our usual tournament activity continues. We retailed our title in this week’s UK CLubs Self Isolating Pawns battle on Saturday, and the Wednesday blitz event saw the biggest turnout so far with 52 players. Grandmaster Matthew Turner was victorious, with Calum MacQueen top club member in 3rd. On Tuesday we are looking at the effect of changing time controls for our club night.
This week, you can join the Tuesday friendly allegro night here, and our Wednesday blitz here. Password is 1822 again.