Hi Folks,
I was at the SCT Livingston event today selling some of the many chess books that I am selling on behalf of Cathcart CC due to the fact that we have no room for them.
If anyone is interested in seeing a list or is looking for a particular book that might be there I can send you a list or tell you if we have it.
Just email me at alistair.maxwell34@gmail.com
No reasonable offer refused!!
Alistair

Wishing the Scottish team best of luck today.  Looks like we have a great chance to make a winning start with The Women facing Gambia and the Open team facing Rwanda.

Livingston this Sunday is the place to be for some more face to face chess.  

We have reached the venue's limit so thanks to all that entered, Failed to make the sections even so you failed that task.

Sites for results and draws are:-

Chess results Open here.  Intermediate here.

With no ads or cookies Open here.  Intermediate here.

Please make sure you are in the correct section.

Hi all,

Just to share that today was Day 1 of the Glorney 2022 which is happening this year as a hybrid competition organised by Wales with the Scotland squad convening in the Campanile Hotel in Glasgow. 

The first two of six rounds took place with our teams playing England in the morning and Ireland in the afternoon. 

Well done to our Glorney and Gilbert teams who beat Ireland this afternoon!

Particularly special congratulations go to our Stokes team who won both games beating England in the morning and Ireland in the afternoon and have resulted in an early lead for Scotland in the under-12s competition....

Looking forward to Rounds 3 and 4 tomorrow!


Ruairidh

Hi Folks,

For all those Glasgow (and its environs!) players interested in a match.

the ICCF Congress (a big meeting rather than a tournament) is holding a friendly match versus a Glasgow select on Monday 15th August (evening starting around 7.30). It would be nice if players who have had a link with the SCCA in the past (although this is not essential - some connection with Glasgow will suffice!) and would like a game of OTB for a change would let me know if they are interested in playing. I would appreciate it if you can let me know by the end of this week if possible.

Maximum number of players in each team will be 14. Email me on alistair.maxwell34@gmail.com - please title the email ICCF - Glasgow Match.

If I don't get enough responses I will have to start phoning!

Alistair Maxwell

PS - there is also a lightning in the Tuesday (again restricted numbers!) - people showing an interest in the match will get first shout.

New study: Gender, Competition and Performance: Evidence from Chess Players
Backus, P, Cubel, M, Guid, M, Sanchez-Pages, S & Lopez-Manas, E 2022, 'Gender, competition and performance: evidence from chess players', Quantitative Economics.

Abstract
This paper studies gender differences in performance in a male-dominated compet-
itive environment; chess tournaments. We find that the gender composition of chess
games affects the behaviors of both men and women in ways that worsen the outcomes
for women. Using a unique measure of within-game quality of play, we show that
women make more mistakes when playing against men. Men, however, play equally
well against male and female opponents. We also find that men persist longer before
losing to women. Our results shed some light on the behavioral changes that lead to
differential outcomes when the gender composition of competitions varies.

https://purehost.bath.ac.uk/ws/portalfil...1404_3.pdf

A Telegraph article yesterday reports on this study. I don't recommend that article; the hyperlinks go to other Telegraph stories that are only tangentially related to the point claimed, if at all. I couldn't find a link to the study in the article, which is par for the course as 'the papers' like to embroil you in their own interpretations.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07...ent-women/

But the study itself is interesting on a brief skim. When they say "We also find that men persist longer before losing to women" it suggests men playing on resignable positions, as the Telegraph headlines. I do recognize such attitudes, probably more from past times than present - it would be useful to hear the views of female players.
But as regards the study data on this, I couldn't see where the study took any account of the appearance of a resignable position on the board in each game included. I might have missed it among the mathematical detail, but it looked like they may have been using the length of the games as the measure of how long a player 'persisted'. This would be a much weaker starting point than starting from a 'resignable' position. As I say I might be wrong about that, but the difference that emerged in the length of the 'persisting' (between men vs men and men vs women), however persisting is defined, was quite small, and could be explained by matters of playing style in the games, an admittedly subjective variable the authors avoided taking into account. It's an average of course, which might be caused by a small proportion of very unreasonable players!

Hi

a Dutch Team Schaakstad Apeldoorn are visiting Edinburgh this weekend.  We're running a blitz tournament on Friday evening from 7.30pm at the club.

All on chess results

Open here, and U 1600 here.

Please check you are on the list.

Rd 2: interesting game between two noted Sicilian Dragon experts in Bryson vs Burnett. Could be fireworks. Still in theory no doubt for a while at least. Who is your money on?

Does any former member of Glasgow CC know anything about any memorabilia retained by members:-
a) after the club sold/auctioned its library in the mid 1960s.
b) after the club was dissolved.

It is known that two sets of Laws/Members from 1840 and 1841 were available when Thomas McGrouther attempted to reconstruct the history of the club in the early 1900s (a fire at the business premises of a member had destroyed many other documents and an old Minute Book).

It is also known that the club periodically had photographs taken of members/committees, but these have never surfaced. Old photos of the club premises in the Athenaeum show numerous framed images on the walls. What happened to these with the demise of the club?

The club was officially instituted in 1840, but it is known that there was a chess club in Glasgow as early as 1827 - a letter from John Ross, secretary, to Alexander Glasgow survived and was donated to the club by a later member, Robert Pirrie. It cannot yet be confirmed whether the club was actually named 'Glasgow Chess Club.'

I am attempting to collate as much information as possible about the early members. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated.

https://www.chessscotland.com/documents/...sgowcc.htm

Thanks.