Culture Night 2013

A brilliant night of chess was enjoyed. We setup four tables from the Cloth Ear along Skipper Street. The night was a buzz of activity. People throughout the evening stopped and played chess. It is such a privilege to be part of Belfast Culture Night - meeting new people, chatting, sharing stories and all over a game of chess - paradise.

With chess players Gareth Annesley, Calum Leitch, Geoff Hindley, Damien Cunningham, Damien Lavery, Adrian Dornford-Smith and Martin Kelly we werent short of chess talent, all enjoyed the friendly atmosphere and its events like this that can only happen with support from UCU members - many thanks...

These events are always fun you meet people and get inspired - I meet a young student from India studying the letters of EM Forster. Our discussion instilled a desire to re-read 'A passage to India'.

I blinked and then noticed we had MP Naomi Long playing MLA Chris Lyttle who were out with a group of friends enjoying the Night of Culture.

With a little coaching from Adrian Dornford-Smith, Naomi won the game.

The four tables were fully used all night. With many people stopping and playing. The flow continued so we kept the tables available well beyond our advertised finish time of 9:30pm.

Adrian playing a possible future champion.

Pamphets were distributed with the UCU website details and five exciting chess puzzles.

Answers:

Kunnerman-Anon 1924  (c) Qc1 pinning the Rook and threatening the Bishop - this stops all of Whites threats.

Lasker-Moll 1911  (c) f6 the start of a pawn break through stopping black from Blockading with f6. Play would continue  1 f6 gxf6 2 f4 Kd4 3 g5! fxg5 4 fxg5 Ke5 5 gxh6 Kf6 6 Kc2 Black would soon be in zuzwang and White would force h7.

Aaron-Gligoric 1962 (c) Rg4 - threatening the Queen and winning as 2 Qxg4 Qxf1+ 3 Bd1 Qxd1#

Sahovic-Matulovic 1969 (c) Qxe6 Bxe6 2 Rd8+ Rxd8 3 Pxd8(Q) +

Teschner-Portisch 1969 (c) Qf2!

Some beautiful positions from a fantastic book: Blunders and Brilliancies by Ian Mullen and Moe Moss.