These messages brought to you by the Cornish Pasty Council. Phil

and... Taylor, let me describe the chess culture there, since the population
is about the same as our own state, about 250,000 on a long peninsula
sticking out into the Atlantic. I remember the longest possible ride from
one club to another, probably St Ives or Penzance in the west, to St.
Austell in the east was about 45 miles.

There were 2 chess leagues, A and B, each of 16 teams of 6 people each, plus
a reserve. So approximately 225 players. 'A' league board 3 might be 1650
average, and 'B' league board 3, 1400. Top boards could be anything from
2000 to 2400. [I remember an American master/Californian, in our league,
forgotten his name].

One interclub league match game per week at game/100.
Every club had a knockout style individual championship.
There was also an interclub annual knockout championship.
There was a county individual championship.
One inter-county match over 20 boards every other week. Bottom board maybe
1700.

Michael would have typically travelled about 100 miles [in Anton's car
laugh] each way to the intercounty matches over Bodmin moor and Dartmoor
to Exeter University, alternatively Exeter chessclub. These matches were
with other "Wessex" counties, Devon, Somerset and Dorset. The Cornish county
captain was the venerable P. H. Clarke who always had some several hundred
chess books with him for sale, many in English.

So, typically one might play 60 or 70 rated games per year, or a strong
player as many as 200 rated games simply from the county basis.

Michael joined the league via the Truro School chess club for students aged
between about 12 and 18 [like a US high school], and later joined the
Falmouth club. The funny thing was that when I remember him he was not even
the strongest player at Truro School. A fellow called Nick Cummings [about
master level at the time] who used to post here knew Michael better than I
did, and says that when Michael was 14 he was practically unbeatable.

Cordially, Phil Innes



Taylor Kingston