Chess Ethics - Retreat and recapture, it's the right thing to do!

Colonel Polhill consulting
a very old edition of ECO

Today I'd like to introduce (or perhaps for some of you who are very well read, reintroduce) Hebden Bridge Chess Club members to a new guest columnist; Colonel Walter Polhill (Retired). The Colonel's editorial was first published in The Independent on Sunday back in the mid to late ninties and he mainly concerned himself with the moral code associated with the game. In today's regergitated post he debates whether or not standards of decency at the board may be on the wane.

"There is an unhealthy mood of bravado laced with machismo running through modern Russian chess. In the old days, captures were met with the politeness of a recapture and any player with pretensions to be considered a gentleman would retreat a piece that his opponent had attacked. Such old formalities, however, are no longer observed, as the following game attests".




I was reminded of Colonel Polhill's articles (and this one in particular) when I played this fun game below on the Chess.com website. If you want to see a game with pieces being placed and left enprise in the most outrageous fashion then there is no better opening line to study than this bloodthirsty line of the Classical Sicilian.

There is just time for me to add that the second round of the Calderdale Individual Championship takes places at the Trades Club tomorrow night. I'm very much looking forward to watching events unfold and will be reporting on proceedings next week.