Battle of the Blues

The annual Varsity chess match between the University teams of Oxford (Dark Blues) and Cambridge (Light Blues) takes place today at The Royal Automobile Club, in London’s Pall Mall. The Varsity match has often been described as the Boat Race of the Brain. Two years ago, the Cambridge “boat” sank, with almost all hands. After 139 matches the overall score then stood at: Cambridge 60 wins, Oxford 57 and Drawn 22.

That catastrophe for Cambridge, normally held in spring, had been postponed because of the pandemic. It eventually took place with a six-month delay on Saturday, October 23, 2021. For the 139th Varsity Chess Match any predictions, based on respective ratings, of a close contest did not come to pass, with Oxford moving swiftly to establish a 3-0 lead, the match eventually ended in an overwhelming 5½–2½ victory for Oxford – with only one game being drawn.

The 2022 contest was held on Saturday March 12 and in a week which saw the identification of Shackleton’s long lost ship, Endurance; it was clearly a propitious moment for long lost wrecks to peek from the depths towards surface visibility. Indeed, as Cambridge rose from the previous year’s depths, a drawn outcome was in sight, until the moment when an elementary blunder converted a likely Cambridge win into a stony cold draw.

The concept of a regular chess match between Oxford and Cambridge Universities had first been suggested in 1853 by English polymath, Shakespearean scholar and unofficial world chess champion, Howard Staunton.

Once the proposed match actually came to fruition, Staunton, without claiming direct credit, made it obvious in his Illustrated London News Chess column, that the person who first suggested the idea must have been a very clever fellow!

Howard Staunton wrote in The Illustrated London News of 5 April 1873:

“Whoever first projected a chess tourney between Oxford and Cambridge as an accompaniment to the great aquatic contention, may congratulate himself on the idea. … It was so pre-eminent a success that it is pretty certain to become an annual occurrence; and in that case its influence in disseminating a taste for chess can hardly be exaggerated. …

Oxford were, of course, the favourites, since among the Dark Blue representatives were Mr. Parrott, long known as one of the strongest players in Yorkshire; Mr. Anthony, one of the best pupils of Steinitz; and three strong club players, Messrs. Madan, Meredith, and Schomberg. The Cantabs, besides being much younger men, were, as a rule, very ignorant of chess theory, and their defeat was never a matter of doubt.”

Staunton had established his formidable playing credentials, by a sequence of convincing match victories in the 1840s, against those masters of European stature, Saint Amant, Horwitz and Harrwitz. And to be pre-eminent in Europe in the 1840’s, before the advent of Paul Morphy, was, in Shakespeare’s phrase, “To bestride the narrow world like a colossus” (Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2). It is my contention that the idea of a world championship in chess only really took root, after the establishment of regular transatlantic travel by steamship, rather than sail.

Then in 1871 the Oxford University Chess Club challenged Cambridge to a match. At that time, the Cambridge Club only admitted dons, who arrogantly declined the challenge from mere undergraduates. Not until 28th March, 1873, a year before Staunton’s death, did the first official over-the-board Varsity Match take place, at the City of London Chess Club. Since then it has become established as the oldest continuous fixture in the chess calendar: older than Hastings, older than Wijk aan Zee, older than the Olympiads, older even than the official world championship itself (1886). The Varsity match has been interrupted only by war years.

In 1973 the event was held for the first time at its current venue, the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall, London, for the Centenary match. The Committee’s Honorary President, the indestructible Henry Mutkin, also present for this year’s match, captained Oxford on top board in 1957 and has been a driving force of the event to the present day. Plenipotentiary for matters Varsity have, this year, as is now customary, been delegated to the capable hands of Stephen Meyler.

I personally played four times in the Varsity match, scoring, with the help of adjudicators Harry Golombek and Bob Wade, three wins and one draw, once on board two and three times on board one. Two of these wins (see below) were legitimate, but my win against Andrew Whiteley, 1969 and my draw with George Botterill, 1971, were very much down to the adjudication team.

Fortunately, adjudication, that relic from the Cretaceous Period, has now been banned, and the players must rely on their own resources, without help being helicoptered in from thin air, as it were.  With the historical scores being so close, with Cambridge leading overall by just one match victory, this year’s contest promises to be one of the most exciting on record.

The Editor of TheArticle, Daniel Johnson, will be doing the honours in terms of officially opening the contest. Spectators who wish to attend the opening ceremony should arrive at the RAC Club at noon and play will begin promptly at 12.30 pm. An additional attraction will be the presence of Arbiter Shohreh Bayat, the outspoken advocate for female rights in Iran, her home country, from which she has now defected.

And my own involvement is illustrated in a couple of games that follow:

Keene vs. Woodcock and also Keene vs. Botterill .

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 The Article contributor Patrick Heren, and written in collaboration with former Reuters chess correspondent, Adam Black, is in preparation. It will be published later this 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.