World Cup Fever - How Chess Can Help You Pick the Winner!

It may, or more probably may not, be coming home, but despair not - even if England are not going to win the World Cup - and let's be honest, it really doesn't look like we will - we can still secure ourselves a little bit of glory by correctly tipping the winners. And while the bookies have France as very strong favourites, I think I have found a way to outwit them.

We all know that chess is the greatest game ever invented - certainly better than Snap or Old Maid or that other card game that very old people play when they've given up caring - so why wouldn't it also help to work out the winners of the greatest sport ever invented? Answer: it would! Which means I have hit on a fool-proof way to work out who will be lifting the Jules Rimet Trophy (oops, showing my age there, its now been replaced by the uninspiringly named FIFA World Cup Trophy) after the final. Clearly the winners are going to be the team with the most Grand Masters in their team!

Well not actual Grand Masters, of course, as England's chances would be even lower if we were relying on Ray Keene between the sticks, for instance. What we need to look for are teams that have players with the same name as Grand Masters - the more they've got, and the higher they're rated, the more chance they've surely got of winning the World Cup? So let's see how they all stack up.

Team	Grand Masters	GM Country	Rating
Mexico	Martinez	Mexico	2650
	Martinez	Cuba	2455
South Africa	Williams	England	2455
	Adams	England	2622
Canada	Jones	England	2639
	Davies	England	2276
Brazil	Santos (Latasa)	Spain	2632
	Santos (Ruiz)	Spain	2604
Scotland	Adams	England	2622
	Gordon	England	2429
	Shankland	USA	2647
Paraguay	Sosa	Argentina	2546
	Fernandez	England	2539
	Fernandez	USA	2420
	Fernandez	Spain	2350
	Gomez	Spain	2371
	Gomez	Philippines	2365
Turkey	Yilmaz	Turkey	2556
USA	Turner	Scotland	2460
	Adams	England	2622
Curacao	(Curt) Hansen	Denmark	2590
	(Sune Berg) Hansen	Denmark	2490
	Hansen	Norway	2383
Ecuador	Rodriguez	Argentina	2422
Germany	Anton	Spain	2657
	Pavlovic	Serbia	2406
Japan	Nakamura	USA	2792
Sweden	Smith	Sweden	2439
	Smith	USA	2367
New Zealand	Smith	Sweden	2439
	Smith	USA	2367
Spain	Garcia	Colombia	2475
	Garcia	Italy	2396
	Ruiz	Colombia	2474
	Williams	England	2455
	Munoz	Peru	2316
Uruguay	Martinez	Mexico	2650
	Martinez	Cuba	2455
	Rodriguez	Argentina	2422
France	Hernandez	Mexico	2398
Norway	Berg	Sweden	2474
Argentina	Martinez	Mexico	2650
	Martinez	Cuba	2455
	Gonzalez	Cuba	2530
	Gonzalez	Mexico	2466
	Gonzalez	Costa Rica	2453
	Gonzalez (Garcia)	Spain	2426
	Gonzalez (Perez)	Spain	2391
	Lopez	Spain	2486
	Fernandez	England	2539
	Fernandez	USA	2420
	Fernandez	Spain	2350
Colombia	Munoz	Peru	2316
	Rios	Colombia	2405
	Rodriguez	Argentina	2422
	Hernandez	Mexico	2398
	Gomez	Spain	2371
	Gomez	Philippines	2365
Portugal	Costa	Germany	2540
	Fernandes	Portugal	2298
Uzbekistan	Yusupov	Germany	2537
England	Gordon	England	2429
Ghana	Williams	England	2455
Panama	Martinez	Mexico	2650
	Martinez	Cuba	2455
	Rodriguez	Argentina	2422

As you can imagine, we aren't going to have an African winner, as they can only manage 3 name-alike GMs in all their squads combined, despite a double appearance by the Ginger GM Simon Williams for South Africa and Ghana. And its even worse for Asia, as it can only muster 2 GM name-alikes - though that does include the highest rated chess player at this World Cup in the shape of the 2792 rated Hikaru Nakamura - but he couldn't win it for Japan by himself, which explains why they've already been knocked out!

There are currently 6 teams quoted at odds of 20/1 or less, but my method (or maybe I should call it My System?) can instantly rule out four of these. England and hot favourites France have no chance, with only one GM each in their ranks. I slightly favour England of the two, as at least Stephen Gordon is an English GM, while France's GM name-alike comes from Mexico. We can also cross off Portugal and Brazil, as they are not much better with just 2 GMs each and in this case I favour Brazil, with two very strong 2600+ players. Portugal do have one home-grown GM, but he's rather lowly rated these days!

Which leaves just 2 of the big dogs in the reckoning - Spain and Argentina. Europe's top hopes have 5 GMs (with 4 different names including the ubiquitous Simon Williams!) in their squad, but none are even rated 2500 currently, so they are obviously missing a bit of fire power. Which can't said about Argentina, who weigh in with a completely full team of 11 GMs, headed by Jose Martinez (now of Mexico and rated 2650) with Dan Fernandez of England (2539) on second board. (Rather than Board 5, which is where he sits in the recently announced England team for the next Chess Olympiad!) Disappointingly, they can only muster 4 different names - but as they have both a Gonzalez and a Fernandez (the two best names for this game!) in their squad, they have way more strength in depth than Spain.

So there you have it - the 2026 World Cup winners are going to be Argentina, while the surprise runners-up will be ............. Paraguay! Yes folks, you read it here first. The currently 500/1 outsiders are going to upset those odds and make it all the way to the final. (My System told you they'd knock Germany out - and they're going to do the same to France!) They will be outgunned there by Argentina, but what a great effort its going to be. They have - ironically! - Argentina's Tomas Sosa as their strongest player amongst 6 GM name-alikes and it will be interesting to see how the 3 Fernandezes cope with playing for both teams at once! But they are GMs so they're clever guys. I reckon they'll find a way round it. Colombia are another very strong team, also fielding 6 GMs, but they have the misfortune to be in the same half of the draw as Argentina, so they are going to lose that encounter - even though they have 5 different named GMs playing for them - including one of their own in the shape of GM Rios.

I have every confidence in these predictions, even though I am struggling to explain the early departures of Scotland, Uruguay and Panama from the tournament, despite having 3 GMs each. And in Scotland's case that included having two 2600+ GMs led by Sam Shankland (2647). Must have beem bad management, I guess. The system obviously can't be wrong! As Nimzowich doubtless also said after the occasional loss!!

No real need for any music with this post, but I'm afraid that following my recent discovery of "Dark End of the Street" I've become a bit fascinated by the song. It turns out the world and his wife (probably not an acceptable term anymore - sorry!) have covered this song, including some truly great names. How did I get to my age and not know about it? Anyway, to add to the Flying Burrito Brothers and Gregg Allman versions, here are three more. We start with the original recording by James Carr. Then its the turn of Linda Ronstadt and we finish (for now at least!) with the great Aretha Franklin. Choose your favourite, but please do not send me the answer on a postcard or any other form of communication!

Though for what its worth my preferences are, in descending order, - (1) Flying Burrito Brothers (2) James Carr (3) Aretha Franklin (4) Linda Ronstadt and (5) Gregg Allman. But there are at least three more versions that I know of, so the fight for top spot is not over yet!

KCC Chairman Makes Remarkable Claim!

Imagine my shock when I saw the back page of The i Paper on Saturday and this dramatic headline!

Bernard's Outrageous Claim!!

I can only assume that the recent hot spell has resulted in  our revered and beloved Chairman suffering from a serious case of heat stroke which has affected his judgment! I'm afraid that even having Jude and him in the same Kenilworth team would mean we were a bit weak on the lower boards, so its a complete act of self-delusion if he thinks he could get into our national side! Take a reality check, Bernard - the selectors are not picking you for the next Olympiad team!!

You'd never catch me making such ridiculous claims about my personal talents, though a completely reliable source like Wikipedia does say:-

Page is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential guitarists of all time.^[1][2][3] Rolling Stone magazine has described Page as "the pontiff of power riffing" and ranked him No. 3 on its 2015 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time", behind Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and No. 3 again in 2023 behind Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix.^[4][5][6] In 2010, Page was ranked No. 2 on Gibson's list of "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time" and, in 2007, No. 4 on Classic Rock's "100 Wildest Guitar Heroes"

I rest my case. But if you need more evidence ..........

Name That Trophy!

This would probably be the world's easiest ever spot the difference competition - except its not! Instead please identify the three trophies that the Club Organiser (that would be me) was presented with by League Officer Tom Darling at the recent Leamington League AGM. If you've been a regular reader of the Blog, or even if you have just been paying attention to what's been going on in the local chess world, this should be pretty easy.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

As its been quite a long interval since the last post, I'm desperate to include some music. So here's a song I've only recently discovered (much to my shame) thanks to a CD (kids, get your parents to explain what these are) bought at the Kenilworth Oxfam shop! Hope you find it as haunting and beautiful as I do. Incredibly moving vocals by Gram Parsons.

Apparently this was the favourite song of the late, great Duane Allman, which probably explains why this version was produced. Sorry, though, Gregg - I'm taking the Flying Burrito Brothers version every time!

Cup Finals Night - Glass Half-Full or Half-Empty?

From which you'll have guessed that one of our finalists triumphed and the other didn't! It was the Open KO Cup team which was successful - for the sixth successive time - while the U8750 team, sadly lacking captain and inspiration Ben who was away on business, fell at the final hurdle in its defence of the trophy it had won for the last two years.

I didn't see very much of the U8750 match, but it was clear from the outset that it was going to be a tough fight against a strong Banbury side, packed with former/current A team players. Our only victor was Steph on Board 5, already the hero for stepping in as a late replacement for Patrick,  against the rapidly improving Banbury junior, Dylan Harvey. At the other end of the team, Paul secured an excellent draw against Paul Rowan on top board, but elsewhere the momentum seemed to be largely with Banbury for much of the evening. Phil lost on Board 2 to Nathan Manley and Dylan on 4 to Nick Martin. Which meant that even when Dan was still engaged in a heavyweight time scramble against Mal Waddell on Board 3, our fate was already sealed, as in the event of a tied match Banbury would have won on board elimination. But as Dan flagged, it actually ended as a 3.5-1.5 win for Banbury. So no hat trick for us!

But at the end of the evening, there was a double hat-trick for our Open KO Cup team, as we eventually powered to a 4.5-0.5 win over Leamington on a highly poignant evening, as it was Javier's last match for the club after three and a half seasons. Thankfully he ended his Kenilworth years with another win, taking his overall record to 39/51 (76.5%), mainly on board 1 and never playing below board 2. During this time he lost only 5 games, 3 of which were in the Coventry League and so don't really count! His final victim was Tom Darling after a game where Javi nursed an extra pawn for a long time before converting the advantage to an extra piece, and then neatly sacrificing his rook temporarily to exchange down into a winning king and pawn ending. Thanks for everything, amigo and buena suerte en Espana! (A fuller reflection on Javier's Kenilworth years will appear in due course.)

Despite the lop-sided final score line, this match was by no means a walk in the park. Indeed for much of the evening I thought we were in grave danger of losing, as it seemed to me that we were dead lost on two boards after less than an hour's play. This is the risk you face when Bruce and Josh are in the team, I guess! I was sat next to Joshua and watched in horror as he virtually forced Andy Collins to make a winning knight sacrifice on e6. I say sacrifice, but as Andy's next move was to capture an unprotected bishop with check, it was a very short-term sacrifice! Joshua was two pawns down with a totally busted - virtually unplayable - position. We'll leave it there for now - but we will return!

The other cause of worry was Bruce's encounter with Joshua Simpson on Board 3. (Meaning there were 2 Dylans in the U8750 match and 2 Joshuas in the Open final. Wonder what the odds of that were?) Already stamped with a very sketchy personal record in Cup Finals for us (I can immediately recall 2 disastrous efforts!), Bruce seemed hell-bent on adding to the roll of dishonour, quickly joining Joshua in the 2 pawns down camp. Now this time it was deliberate (or at least semi-deliberate!) as there were compensations and the position was very dynamic. The White king was stuck in the centre; Bruce's pieces were active; White had a bad bishop; there was a king-side pawn storm underway ...... But it was 2 pawns! I didn't believe it for one minute until I sensed a presence by my left shoulder and saw that Bruce was entering the result on the match score card on the table next to me. Of course he'd won. Never in doubt. Always plenty of compensation according to the engine. Blah-di-blah. Still looked highly dubious to me!

But with at least one crisis averted, things were much brighter. Javier duly won and then Andrew followed suit, after a rather unexciting game against Ben Egid which went into a slightly better ending that he somehow converted. Not much to see here. Move along please!

So the cup was secured well before I crawled my way to a highly unconvincing win over Tom Cockell on Board 4 where its eminently possible I was much worse/totally lost for some time. Though neither of us really knew for sure! After finding it very hard to get any kind of activity going, I eventually ended up with a pawn chain running from e3 to b6. Black still had a dark squared bishop and if it ever got to the e3 pawn it would then just start munching the rest of the chain, Pacman style. Alternatively, he might have sacrificed an exchange on e3 and then won the d4 pawn, when c5 and b6 pawns would also go. Somehow none of this happened, but it cost me lots of time to try and avoid these latent threats. However, I finally unravelled and managed to exchange both rooks leaving me with queen and knight against queen and bishop. But by this time I had got my act together and had managed to get my knight to f5 and my queen in on c7 targeting pawns at b7 and f7. Tom jumped out with his queen, but there was only one check and he found he couldn't do anything about my threat of Qxg7 mate. Probably a very lucky win.

However, that does leave one game unfinished. While I was suffering the tortures of the damned I happened to eventually glance over at the board 5 game and couldn't believe the transformation that had occurred! Joshua was still two pawns down, but the only material left on the board was a rook each and White pawns on a5 and h7. And to make matters worse, Andy's rook was stuck on h8 defending the advanced pawn. With Joshua's king perfectly placed on b7 to prevent the a pawn advancing there was no way for Andy to make progress, as his king could not escape checks whenever it approached the h7 pawn to try and free the rook from its defensive duties. Cue the music!

A Great Escape, indeed! I think even Josh was embarrassed by this, but it has to be said - he really is "as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University".

So one cup will be returning to Kenilworth to spend another year on display at Page Towers, but the other will disappear south down the M40. For those interested, the U1600 Cup was won by Leamington, who defeated Shirley 3-1.

With Javier's departure, this feels like the end of an era. We've won Division 1 and the cup in each of the 4 seasons he has played for us, and he also arrived just in time to help us win the Coventry League for the only time in 2023 (despite losing to Joshua in the decisive final match) before deciding to give that competition a wide berth. (Losing to Josh will do that!) I don't know how he'd like to sum up his Kenilworth years. Maybe like this?! 😄

Keeping it in the Family

A Wednesday evening in early May can mean only one thing - its the Leamington league Blitz Championship. This has been turned into something of a Kenilworth benefit event in recent seasons, largely due to Javier's total dominance - he won in each of the three years he played (2023-25), sharing the title in the middle year with Bruce. Additionally, Bernard and Keatan have won the second rating section in the last two years.

But come 2026 and where are these titans? Not in Solihull, that's for sure! (I'm not going to let the fact that Bruce was there spoil a good line. And we could always say he isn't one of the titans, anyway!) So it was very much a reduced and weakened Kenilworth contingent who turned up to do battle. But this could hardly be described as a vintage year for the event - numbers were down with just 24 players and Kenilworth still managed to provide seeds 2, 3 and 6 (me, Bruce and Rhys) plus Ben as number 12, after his blitz rating has been shredded by too many encounters with ferocious juniors. 

But its not where you start that matters - its where you finish. And after 9 rounds of hectic competition the cup was returning home again to Kenilworth as I romped to victory (not a phrase which has been used many times) with 8.5 pts to finish 2 points clear of Jon Griffiths (Leamington) and top seed Andrew McCumiskey (Solihull). Bruce finished fourth on 6 pts and somehow qualified for a prize which was only 40p less than I got for winning. Someone will have to explain how that works to me sometime! Rhys was 6th (5.5 pts) and Ben 12th (5 pts), which meant that we all finished almost exactly in line with our starting rank.

A triumph for the oldies - 71 year old beats 65 year old beats 60 year old beats 60 year old!

This is my third triumph in this event, though I suspect I had to play a lot better to win the other two times, when the entry list was undoubtedly stronger. But at my time of life I'll take whatever I can get. I am now tied with Javier as the winning most Kenilworth player, though as one of his victories was shared, I should edge first place on tie break! We'll gloss over the fact that his 3 wins have come from only 3 attempts, whereas mine have come from at least 20, with the other winning years in 2010 and 2018. So I can expect to win again in 2034 to keep the sequence going! (For those interested, the only other Kenilworth winners have been Bernard (1988) and Carl Pickering (2008)).

Before anyone asks, the quality of the games was what you might expect for Blitz between not very good players! I was under pressure from Bruce and lost the exchange, before the clock got the better of him and he allowed my heavy pieces onto his back rank to deliver mate. And against Rhys I completely missed the fact that he was threatening Qxf2 check, and it was only by luck it wasn't terminal. Fortunately I avoided Ben, as he gave me a right going over in the Club Championship last summer!

I'm not proud - I don't mind that I only won because Javier decided not to play. I know I was a substitute for another guy. Cue the music!!

The Kenilworth Half Hour

Quite an interesting night at Solihull on Wednesday. In what may be a first for the Leamington League, Kenilworth A's final league match of the season (completely unimportant) doubled up (with the addition of a fifth board) as the Open KO Cup semi-final (totally crucial). Fixture congestion for both teams prevented us finding an independent date for the Cup match, but a bit of inspired out of the box thinking (modesty precludes me from telling you it was my idea) and some much appreciated understanding from the league committee, allowed us to shoe-horn two matches into one night.

Despite a fairly ordinary league campaign, Solihull can put out a pretty strong team when all their players are available, so we needed a powerful quintet to repel the challenge. Thankfully we had exactly that, and ran out 4.5-0.5 winners of the cup match, and 3.5-0.5 winners over the top 4 boards for the league points.

As in seemingly all matches these days, it felt pretty tense and very much in the balance for the initial phase of the evening,  but as the clock approached 22.00 things turned decisively in our favour. When the going got tough, our guys got going! When England played a match against China in Liverpool in 2008 (6 rounds of 8 boards), the games kept swinging in China's favour (they won 28-20) during the fifth hour of play. To such an extent that this period was christened "The Chinese Hour". We're not quite in the same league as that Chinese team (Wang Yue, Ni Hua, Bu Xiangzhi, Hou Yifan etc), but - last night at least - we definitely mustered a "Kenilworth Half Hour".

The one person who didn't really contribute to this was Andrew, but only because he had already won after a very polished performance with the Black pieces against Ray Carpenter on Board 4. Not only did he win a pawn, but the extra pawn was passed and on f3 tying down the White pieces. A nifty rook manoeuvre won a second pawn to give connected passed g and f pawns, and while Ray was able to reach a minor piece ending and set up a blockade with his king and knight to prevent the further advance of these pawns, Andrew then started a king march towards the wide open White queen side pawns. In an impossible position Ray lost on time.

Earlier I had been initially optimistic about Javier's position on Board 2 against Andrew McCumiskey, especially as he won a clear centre pawn and doubled the White g pawns. But this had come at the cost of weakening his own kingside, so that he had to castle long. Andrew then uncorked a very nice knight sac which couldn't be taken, and when the combinational smoke cleared the extra pawn had gone and White looked to be pressing against some weak Black pawns. But Javier kept his cool - marching his king down to b3; installing a rook on c2 and threatening to break decisively in the centre with an e4 push that would have created a monster passed pawn on d4. Andrew could have kept some chances of holding the position if he had swapped a pair of rooks off, but failing to do this, Javier doubled rooks on the c file and suddenly - from almost nowhere - it was unstoppable mate! The Kenilworth Half-Hour was up and running!

And then the big match up on Board 1 between Jude and Don Mason also resolved itself after a very interesting, and pretty high level, encounter. Don played very actively and seemed to have an initiative, but Jude first shored up his position and then started jumping into some good squares with threats against some weak Black pawns. He eventually won a pawn and with his time about to expire Don couldn't find a way to continue and resigned. It was apparently not yet a completely won position for Jude, but with the extra pawn and extra time there could only have been one winner.

So that meant we were home and dry, with a 3-0 lead in both the league and cup matches. Keatan was pushing hard to chalk up another win against Akshath Shivakumar on Board 4 and tried everything possible to engineer a breakthrough in a knight ending, where he had just a slight space advantage in a near symmetrical position. But there was simply no way to create a passed pawn or infiltrate with the king or knight and he had to reluctantly agree to a draw.

This left Bruce in action against Julian Summerfield on Board 5, in a game which was something of a slow burner. But as the time control approached Bruce went for the jugular with a king side attack. His queen jumped in to the Black position and it became extremely difficult for Julian to hold the defence together. Despite terrible time pressure he managed to neutralise the direct attack, but only at the cost of a seemingly irrelevant (to me) pawn on a6. But in fact it was exceedingly relevant, because a couple of moves later a White pawn got to a7 and shortly after - once Bruce had made sure not to allow even a glimpse of a perpetual check escape - it cost Black a whole rook when it went one square further. Tense, hair raising stuff - but once again the Kenilworth Half Hour had worked its magic!

This double victory meant we finished 8 points clear of Warwick University in Division 1, for a sixth successive league title. Unfortunately the students finished the season - as I had suspected they would - by winning against Olton and Leamington on successive nights (by a score of 7.5-0.5!) to pip our B team to second place on game points. In the Cup, we will be going for a sixth successive victory against Leamington on finals night at Olton on May 12th. When Ben's u-8750 team will be attempting to make it three wins in a row.

It only remains to choose this week's musical offering. Something dynamic and upbeat, I think, to reflect my mood. And you can't get much more upbeat than this. Absolutely brilliant. Can music be any more uplifting and life affirming? Who wouldn't want to be a rock star after seeing this?!