Disclaimer
As usual, this is a personal blog containing personal observations, questionable decisions, family anecdotes and the occasional attempt at humour. Nobody mentioned here should be considered responsible for my opinions, chess openings, parenting decisions or the decision to voluntarily start 17 correspondence chess games at roughly the same time. Sporting achievements belong to the people actually doing the sport. I mostly provide transport, commentary and snacks.
It has been rather longer since my last blog entry than I had anticipated.
There is no dramatic explanation.
Nobody disappeared.
The website did not break.
I haven’t abandoned writing.
Life simply got in the way a little bit.
Or, to be more precise, correspondence chess got in the way.
Which is quite impressive when you consider that correspondence chess is traditionally regarded as the form of chess specifically designed for people who don’t want anything happening particularly quickly.
I Had Almost Finished My Games
Earlier this year I had reached a rather pleasant situation.
My active correspondence chess games had dwindled to a handful. At one stage I think I was down to one or two.
This is a dangerous position for a correspondence chess player.
Normal people might interpret this as an opportunity.
They might spend more time with the family. Read a book. Exercise. Watch television. Perhaps sit quietly in the garden with a coffee and enjoy the strange sensation of having absolutely nothing requiring analysis.
A correspondence chess player looks at the empty tournament list and thinks:
I should probably enter something.
And so, naturally, I entered two tournaments.
Because moderation is important.
Enter William Mason
The first was this year’s William Mason Championship.
The competition has a proper history behind it. The British Correspondence Chess Association established its own individual championship in 1972, which eventually developed into what is now the William Mason Championship structure of Championship, Candidates and Reserves. Following the amalgamation of the BCCA and English Federation for Correspondence Chess, it now sits within the EFCC programme and remains a long-established English correspondence event.
Interestingly, while the official historical material explains the origins of the competition rather well, I couldn’t find a sufficiently reliable published biography explaining exactly who William Mason himself was and why the championship bears his name.
And rather than do what the internet occasionally does and invent an elderly gentleman from Huddersfield who defeated Capablanca by postcard in 1934, we’ll leave that particular piece of history alone.
The important part was that I saw the invitation.
And I thought:
SIM norm opportunity.
For those unfamiliar with correspondence chess titles, SIM stands for Senior International Master. I am currently an International Master, so SIM is the obvious next target.
Therefore the calculation was simple.
Enter tournament.
Play well.
Get SIM norm.
Celebrate.
Except there was one small problem.
There are no ICCF title norms available in the William Mason.
Excellent.
This is the sort of careful tournament research one expects from an International Master.
Still, I’d entered by then.
And chess is chess.
The 2026 competition started on 15 September and has a surprisingly strong field, including several SIMs and IMs. The EFCC itself describes it as a long-standing tournament, so at least I can console myself with the fact that I have joined something prestigious while completely misunderstanding what I could achieve by joining it.
Surely the Second Tournament Will Be Different
My second bright idea was the 2026–28 British Correspondence Chess Championship.
I don’t think I’ve played in the British Championship before, so this seemed rather appealing.
This time I had done some slightly better research.
The Championship section is traditionally strong. The organisers announced beforehand that it was expected to be around Category 8 and therefore potentially offer SIM and even GM norms.
Now we’re talking.
Finally.
A sensible decision.
Except entry into the Championship section isn’t guaranteed, even for players rated over 2400. Players are allocated according to the competition rules, previous qualifications, rating and the requirements needed to construct the various sections.
My rating wasn’t enough for the main act.
I am playing in the Candidates.
Shocking, really.
International Master.
Represented England.
Played correspondence chess for years.
And apparently I’m still outside the nightclub while the Championship players are inside enjoying the VIP area.
Fair enough.
The Candidates could, however, also have carried title norms.
There was hope.
All that was required was the appropriate international composition of the tournament.
And therefore you can probably predict what happened next.
Not enough non-English players entered.
The Championship itself became a Category 8 title tournament. The Candidates and Reserves, meanwhile, did not qualify for title norms because there weren’t enough players from the other federations to fulfil the international-title requirements.
So I have managed to enter two correspondence chess tournaments while specifically thinking about SIM norms and achieved precisely zero opportunities to obtain one. That takes a certain level of planning.
And Suddenly There Were Seventeen
The more immediate consequence is that I have gone from having one or two active games to roughly 17 games.
This escalated quickly.
Correspondence chess sounds wonderfully relaxed when you explain it to somebody who doesn’t play correspondence chess.
“You have days to make a move.”
Yes.
Technically.
The slight problem is that during the opening phase, particularly at this level, theory is well established. Many positions have enormous databases of previous games, engine analysis and established lines.
So moves can arrive quickly.
Very quickly.
You wake up.
Four moves.
Go to work.
Three moves.
Come home.
Another four moves.
Spend time with the family.
Another move.
Go to bed.
Someone in continental Europe has apparently decided that 23:47 is the ideal moment to challenge your understanding of move 19 in a Sicilian.
And because several games are travelling through known opening theory at the same time, my ICCF inbox currently resembles the Upper GI take list after a Bank Holiday weekend.
I tend to play slightly slower than many of my opponents.
There is a relatively simple explanation for that.
I have a full-time job.
I have a family.
I have a child with enough sporting commitments to require the logistical planning normally associated with a medium-sized NATO exercise.
Many of my opponents are retired.
That isn’t a complaint. It is simply the reality of correspondence chess.
They have considerably more opportunity during the day to stare thoughtfully at Stockfish, databases and strategically questionable pawn structures.
I, meanwhile, occasionally have to interrupt my analysis because somebody needs taking to tennis.
Or Martial Arts.
Or swimming.
Or cricket.
Or a board-game library.
Or apparently Guildford.
Speaking of Guildford…
Sporting-wise, Eddie actually had a relatively quiet week.
“Relatively” is doing quite a lot of work in that sentence.
The significant development is that he has entered the UK Open Taekwon-Do Championships in Guildford next weekend, representing Evolution Martial Arts.
He has entered both Patterns and Sparring.
The tournament is being held at Guildford Spectrum over 3–4 October, with the colour-belt competition taking place on Sunday 4 October.
Which is us.
Sunday.
Guildford.
Early.
From Taunton.
Lovely.
From what I understand, we’ll need to be there somewhere around 9am.
There are few things more enjoyable than getting a child up at an hour on Sunday morning normally reserved for airport transfers and regrettable fishing trips, putting him into a car and explaining that he will shortly be expected to demonstrate precision, concentration and controlled aggression.
I suspect the controlled aggression may begin somewhere around the A303.
Still, this will be his first UK Open and he’s looking forward to competing in both disciplines.
Patterns require precision, technique and remembering exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.
Sparring requires rather more direct negotiation.
I’m looking forward to watching both.
From a safe distance.
A Surprisingly Normal Saturday
This weekend, by comparison, was considerably calmer.
Eddie and I went to the monthly Board Game Library Day at Taunton Library, while Olga sensibly used the opportunity to run errands and go shopping without either of us accompanying her.
Everybody won.
She could shop in peace.
Eddie could play board games.
I could play board games.
The shops remained largely free from me standing near an entrance looking increasingly despondent while asking whether we really needed to visit another place selling cushions.
Family harmony achieved through tabletop gaming. There are worse systems.
The Return to Parkrun
Sunday then marked another return.
Junior parkrun.
Eddie hadn’t attended for around four months and had only really started running again the previous week.
Expectations therefore weren’t particularly high.
After several months away, the sensible objective is simply to get around, enjoy it and gradually rediscover some running fitness.
Naturally, he finished only about 20-odd seconds away from his personal best.
Because obviously.
Four months without parkrun.
One week back running.
Almost a PB.
This is apparently how children work.
If I stopped running for four months and returned the following Sunday, I’d probably be 20 seconds away from requiring oxygen.
He just carried on as though the intervening months hadn’t happened.
So Much for the Quiet Period
And that essentially summarises life at the moment.
I haven’t written quite as much because things have been busy.
Work continues.
Family life continues.
Sport continues.
Board games continue.
And somewhere amongst all of this I decided that having virtually completed my correspondence chess commitments represented an unacceptable outbreak of free time.
So I fixed it.
Seventeen games.
Two tournaments.
Zero SIM norm opportunities.
Perfect.
Next weekend we swap correspondence chess for Taekwon-Do and head to Guildford for Eddie’s UK Open debut in Patterns and Sparring.
I’ll therefore spend this week doing what any responsible father would do:
Making sure everything is organised for Sunday, supporting Eddie’s preparation and spending whatever small amount of spare time remains trying to work out why one of my opponents has just played 17…h5.
Because life is all about balance.
Apparently.
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