A week of chess drama
There are some weeks when I have to cudgel my brains to think of an appropriate topic for discussion. In other weeks, such as this, items crowd in thick and fast, and it becomes a struggle to fit everything in and stay multifariously topical.
First, news of one of England’s senior chess stars. In what follows I quote at length from the account sent to me by Dinah Norman’s husband of many years, Ken Norman. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dinah Margaret Norman (née Dobson) was one of England’s strongest female chess players. Born in 1946, she won the British Women’s Chess Championship three times: 1967, 1968 and 1969 (on two of the above occasions sharing 1st place with Rowena Mary Bruce). In 1970, Dinah participated in the FIDÉ Women’s World Chess Championship cycle European Zonal tournament in the then chess-crazy Yugoslavia, where she finished in 12th place. In 1970, she won the U.S. Women’s Open Chess Championship in Boston. This was undoubtedly the high point of her chess career.
Dinah represented England in the Women’s Chess Olympiads on two separate occasions:
in 1966, in Oberhausen, and also as first board in the 4th women’s Olympiad in Lublin in 1969, scoring +1, =10, -3, a total of six points from fourteen games, a creditable performance given the strength of the competing Soviet and Eastern European teams.
I now hear from Ken, her husband, whom I cite at length, of a serious accident involving our former triple female champion, who is now 76.
Dinah has been admitted to the Royal Berkshire Hospital following a road traffic accident. She was on her way to the bridge club on 29th November. At about 6.45 pm she was crossing the Reading Road near St. Paul’s church.
She crossed halfway to the traffic island looked to the left and saw it was clear and the then woke up to find herself being treated by the paramedics. Dinah had apparently been hit by a motorcyclist, but had no recollection of the collision. When she awoke, she assumed she had slipped on some wet leaves.
Fortunately for Dinah, a group of ladies were meeting in the St. Paul’s Church rooms and, having heard the sound of the accident, came to assist. One phoned for an ambulance and another telephoned Ken. They then assisted Dinah. By the time Ken got to the accident, the ambulance had arrived and the paramedics were treating Dinah in the street.
The ambulance departed for the Royal Berkshire Hospital complete with flashing blue light and she was admitted to Hurley Ward, where she remains with a broken left collar bone and broken left elbow. She also has a head injury that has caused some bleeding in the brain.
The motorcycle was driven by a courier rider, complete with a delivery box on the back of his vehicle. The Police arrested him and have posted an appeal for witnesses on the Wokingham today website.
The following wins by Dinah feature a strategic lesson delivered to an old associate of mine from the 1986 World Championship in London, Sandys Dickinson, the chess antiquarian bibliophile. Also, another smooth performance with the Black pieces against a stronger woman player, Rani Hamid. In the latter game White is deluded into false visions of a king side attack and thereby finds one of her rooks permanently excluded from the decisive central action.
Now I turn to the future of British female chess. Last Saturday Bodhana Sivanandan finished second at the British Women’s Blitz Championship. The schoolgirl from Harrow actually started the event with 8.5 out of 9. The amazing thing is… she is just 7 years old! Three of the other contestants were titled players.
As her score suggests, Bodhana gave a highly accomplished performance. In her featured game, she demolished an opponent, Anusha Subramanian, rated nearly 200 points higher, in the volatile Advance Variation of the French Defence. She sacrificed a couple of pawns in the opening and then hammered home her initiative in no uncertain terms. Ferocious! Black’s principal error was to capture on b5, thus gratuitously inviting White’s knight into the game, whereupon the astonished higher rated protagonist suffered from unrelenting pressure on both wings, and in the centre.
Last, but certainly not least, that ingenious artist of the chessboard, Michael Basman , will be interred today, Saturday December 10 , at Brookwood Cemetery Guildford, in a plot adjoining St. George’s Avenue, which it is felt, he would have approved. There will be a short private ceremony at the Cemetery Chapel. There will be a wider celebration next year for the chess community at large to honour Michael’s life and achievements. Readers of TheArticle will remain informed.
STOP PRESS
Finally, in this dramatic week The New York Times, having concluded an extensive investigation, has come down firmly on the side of Hans Niemann in the case of the cheating allegations levelled against him by the World Champion, Magnus Carlsen. With M’Learned Friends now heavily involved, I confidently expect the maligned American teenager to become a multi-millionaire during 2023. More, doubtless, to come — so watch this space.
Raymond Keene’s latest book “Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus”, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from Blackwell’s . His 206th book, “Chess in the Year of the King”, with a foreword by TheArticle contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, is in preparation. It will be published early in the New Year.
A Message from TheArticle
We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever, and we need your help to continue publishing throughout these hard economic times. So please, make a donation.
