Chess Pages of Mike Donnelly

5. WHOBERLEY CHESS CLUB (Coventry) The club has teams with a wide range of strengths in the various local leagues whilst the A team won the 2007 Division 1 title, the 2007 and 2008 KO Cup, the 2006 and 2007 Divisional Cup . Contact details.

6. BOOK AND SOFTWARE REVIEWS (from 2007)

Archive of book and CD reviews 1998-2006.

7. DATABASE & TEACHING SERVICE

8. MY STUFF Games, results and chess problems. *

9. LINKS

Chess sites *

Chess problem sites

10. OPENINGS REVIEWS AND OTHER ARTICLES

11. NEW AND SECOND- HAND CHESS BOOKS Tony Peterson. Specialist in rare and secondhand chess books and magazines. Very large stock . Contact details.

IM Sergey Bystrov. Specialist in a wide range of Russian books plus some non-Russian books. Now offering a greater range. Contact details.

12. MY ARTICLES ON OTHER SITES/ON-LINE MAGAZINES.

(a) Correspondence Chess News (CCN).

(b) BS-CHESS.

(c) Thomas Johansson's site

13. WANTED*

Preferably bound volumes of Chess (Sutton Coldfield) 1, 2, 4-8, 11, 23, and 25. Prefer an index to be present-will pay reasonably for these volumes. Also needed unbound vol 21 (259-262).

14. PERSONAL TRAINING BCF Regional Master Andy Baruch (formerly Whoberley board 1) is now available for face to face personal training in the Coventry, Warwickshire and surrounding areas. Players ranging from beginner to County level who wish to improve should contact Andy by clicking here

I'm Mike Donnelly and I live in the historic city of Coventry, England with my wife Carol (pictured above at the Chinese New Year), my son Paul and daughter Kate. Both are ardent musicians whilst my wife is equally passionate about tai-chi and ice-skating. I am a Technical Manager (formerly a research scientist) by profession working in an area of biotechnology for a company that develops new bio-adhesives for application as medical gels and wound care products ( publication list ). In my spare time I enjoy chess, the history of the ancient Greeks and formerly rock climbing and pot-holing.

Over the last decade or so I have shifted from playing otb chess to playing both otb and postal chess. The last few years has seen an even greater concentration on correspondence chess (current rating of 2486 *; ICCF rating history * ). Until recently I occasionally still played some otb chess in the local league (at a somewhat reduced level of approximately 2100 from my highest many years ago of about 2300) grading history). I will attempt to offer a wide range of chess material on this site including game and opening based articles, games for downloading from famous players I have known or competed against, chess problems and some current and past results. This will include both otb and postal play. In addition to more advanced articles I will also occasionally provide articles for beginners to mid-club strength of player.

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MONTHLY ARTICLES SUMMARIES *

June Articles: Whoberley Chess Club is amongst the top few in the Coventry and District League and has won all local team championships at one time or another in recent years. The club has also won the Midlands Club Championship twice in this time. Each year a tournament is held at the club in Coventry in memory of one of its top players Joe Soesan who twice won the British Veterans Championship. The event is always very hard fought with a large number of strong players participating often not only from Whoberley Club but also other local clubs. This year first prize was shared by Andy Baruch and Joey Stewart. each scoring 5.5/6. Andy has contributed two games for this web site, both featuring the Modern Opening, which I have annotated in detail.

Monthly Article 1: Illustrates in graphic fashion the dangers of not castling early in a game. White tries to play a Torre Attack against 1...g6 and gets nothing from the opening. Losing a further tempo with an unnecessary move gets his king stuck in the centre where it does not survive for long.

Monthly Article 2: Is a very complex game featuring a very characteristic example of play where White tries to attack on the queens-side and Black on the kings-side. This type of play occurs in several openings such as the English, KID and as here in the Modern. Ideas can be borrowed from one opening and applied in another as in the illustrative game where a sacrificial pawn move g3 paves the way to create a sharp and unclear tactical position.

File of games associated with monthly articles 1 and 2: Some 130 games featuring the Modern Defence after 1.d4 g6 from 2008 can be downloaded from section 1 of this site.

July Articles: It is of course well know that chess is a very complex intellectual game. Even so psychological aspects of the game are not that well documented. There are several interesting books on this area such as Krogius's "Psychology in Chess" and more recently "Chess Psychology" by Dunnington (but notably not Reuben Fines which is the only chess book I have willing placed in the bin!). More recently Nigel Davies has produced a DVD Chess for Scoundrels in which some of the interesting methods players use to unsettle opponents are described. Players are not only affected by matters on the board, or by their opponents but can also be effected by features outside of the game. Getting into the right frame of mind to play chess effectively is not a simple matter and for one Nigel Short used to practice focusing his mind on the game in hand for quite a whilst before the game even commenced. This month I give two examples from my own play. I attempt to describe what players were or might be thinking about (apart form chess moves!) and what at least in theory can be done about this. These are rather extreme examples hence the standard of play is rather poor in the main. However , both games do indicate how strongly the play and result can be determined by psychological matters-in fact I should have lost both games rather than winning both!

Monthly article 1: Is a game that indicates pretty much any result is possible in fact when a higher greater player meets a much lower graded one but where the psychological status of each player is not optimum. Its the sort of game that might even encourage some players to give the game up for good!

File of games associated with monthly article 1 : Some 40 games featuring the Symmetrical English Opening (ECO code A32) played between 2005 and 2008 can be downloaded from section 1 of this site.

Monthly article 2: Is a game with a long story attached which is needed to indicate why what was said by another competitor had such an impact on my opponent. This led to him to handling the position poorly and throwing away a winning game.

File of games associated with monthly article 2: Some 50 games featuring the Kings Indian Attack versus the Caro-Kann Opening played between 2004 and 2008 can be downloaded from section 1 of this site.

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All material for downloading from this site is zipped. Use WinZip or similar to extract. Monthly articles are in .pgn format (from May 2000, previously in .txt format) whilst games for downloading are in .pgn format (or .cbv occasionally ).

Contributions, suggestions for articles and comments to improve this site are welcome: mail me!

	SCCA Magazine
	The SCCA magazine is published quarterly and consists of 24xA4 pages packed with correspondence chess news, articles, reviews and games.
	SCCA members receive the magazine as part of their annual subscription (£8). This entitles them to download pdf files (the e-mags) from a secure area of the SCCA website.
	If you prefer to receive a printed copy of the magazine, an extra £5 per annum covers print costs and UK postage and you get the four issues mailed directly to you.
	The SCCA magazine is unbeatable value! You can try a complimentary copy by contacting the membership secretary.

NEWS AND NOTICES *

This web site(June 20): Please note due to various commitments the June and July monthly articles are uploaded together and earlier than usual. Normal monthly articles will resume after July 20.

Ken Messere Memorial International Invitation Web Server Tournament (June 20): Commemorates a major figure in British Correspondence Chess who played in the finals of the 5th World Championship. This is another category 11 event in which I'm playing featuring 2 GMs, 6 SIMs and 4 IMs from nations all over the world. This is being played on the ICCF web server and the TD is Alan Rawlings.

Current leading scores are: SIM Fenwick (NZ) 8.5/14 (final score) ,SM Velilla Velasco (ESP) 8/12 and myself (ENG) 8/14 scoring my third SIM norm; final score), SIM Serradimigni (FRA) 7.5/12 and GM Haugen (NOR) 7.5/14 (final score) etc (15 players).

My final game was a loss to SIM Robert Serradimigni the former French Champion. In a line critical to the sicilian my opponent with very good and deep opening preparation improved on a previous game of mine. This loss mean that whilst I confirm my SIM title with a point to spare it also means I miss the GM norm by one point.

BCCA-100 GM International Invitation Web Server Tournament (June 20): The Grandmaster section (a category 11 event) is part of the BCCA Centenary celebrations and has 3 GMs, 9 SIMs and 2 IMs from all over the world. The event is being played on the ICCF web-server and is sponsored by Chess Mail with a prize fund of £1250 and is almost concluded. The BCCA aims to produce a large article on this event in the magazine "Correspondence Chess" in 2008.

Current leading positions with just 1 game to complete (June 20) : GM R. Smith (USA) 11 (final score and winner) ; SIM K.Kogler (GER) 9.5 (final score and GM title) ; SIM M.Lilleoren (NOR) and SIM J.Kuipers (NED) both 9 (final scores and GM norms); S.Kerr (AUS) 8.5 (final score and SIM norm) ; SIM Prof D.Fleetwood (USA) 8/13; myself (securing the SIM title) and SIM M.Rinesi (ITA) 7 (final scores) etc (15 players ).

Next main update due on: about July 20th 2008.

(minor updates occur at several points during the prior month)