Polls

Last week’s question was: ‘At the chess Olympiad, do you think it is fair that England, Scotland and other British teams are allowed to compete individually?’ I must admit I expected a big vote for ‘No’ but I was wrong. 67% of you are fine with the present situation. Maybe you are traditionalists, or British, […]

Last week’s question: ‘Was it right of Nakamura to claim the full point in the game against Topalov?’ 69% said Yes, and 23% No. The only surprise to me is that ‘No’ received so many votes. In competitive blitz, illegal moves lose. And push-a-pawn-to-the-8th-and press-the-clock is a blatantly illegal move. Clearly some feel that the

Last week’s question was: ‘Who was the best player never to become World Champion?’ Our clear winner was Korchnoi, ahead of Rubinstein and Keres. Was it an impossible question? Probably. How can we compare players from different eras? Not well, but luckily there is no harm done if we get it ‘wrong’. For what it’s

Last week’s poll question was about football/soccer – ‘Who will win Euro 2016?’ Germany dominated the early voting and held the lead to the finish, despite a late surge for ‘Other’. It seems many of you believe in the Gary Lineker quote: ‘Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes

Last week’s poll proved what we suspected: you are mainly chess players, not board game players. One of the best things we ever did in Quality Chess was to start this blog. We had no real plans for it, and just did it because our website manager asked if we wanted one. The communication with

Last week’s question was: ‘Are you interested in chess variants?’ By far the most common answer was ‘no’, you only play classical chess over-the-board. Even the second-most-common answer was ‘correspondence chess’, so the true chess variants are still very much a minority pursuit. I am with the majority, as over-the-board chess is the only one

Last week’s question was ‘What is most important for you in a World Championship cycle?’ Over three-quarters of you voted for ‘that the best player wins’. Fair enough, but I suspect the ‘entertainment’ option would have gained more votes if we still had the old classical system of first-to-win-6-games, and matches lasting for six months.

Last week’s poll question was about trying to claim a draw in a blitz game. It was a simple question and had an overwhelming answer from the readers. ‘Play on’. Some of you correctly guessed the reason for asking the question was to settle an argument in the office. Playing with Black was a friend