Category: Lessons from the Masters

June 1, 2018 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

The top British players F.D. Yates and Sir George Thomas played many games against each other during their careers. Chessbase gives a total score of 12 wins, 12 draws and 9 losses for Sir George Thomas out of a total of 33 games, starting in 1918 and finishing in 1932, the year of Yates’ death….

May 24, 2018 Matthew Sadler 2 comments

This interesting game doesn’t even make it into Tibor Karolyi’s 3-volume biography of Mikhail Tal, or even in Mikhail Tal’s own collection of Best Games! I found it in “The Complete Manual of Positional Chess, Opening and Middlegame” by Sakaev and Landa, in a chapter entitled “Do not leave the king in the centre”. Good…

May 8, 2018 Matthew Sadler 6 comments

In the next few months, I am going to spend some time looking at the games of one of the strongest British players of the 1920s and 1930s, 2-times British Champion Sir George Thomas. It is strange that the British players of this period have attracted so little attention, when so many other long-forgotten players…

April 27, 2018 Matthew Sadler 4 comments

Chess has taken a back seat for me after a recent move back to the UK from Holland. It’s been quite strange to fit back into British life after 18 years abroad, but 6 months on I can barely believe I ever lived anywhere else but here! As everything is settling down now, chess is…

May 4, 2017 Matthew Sadler No comments exist

A few weeks ago, I talked about my visit to the Max Euwe Centre in Amsterdam and my purchase of the Hungarian Grandmaster Szabo’s (excellent) book of his Best Games. A reader Carsten Hansen mentioned that Szabo considered his game against Pirc to be his best achievement of his early years so I thought it…