Thursday 14 February 2008

Back in the Day

Due to another kind donation I received a number of Australian chess magazines from the 50's and 60's. Included was a bound set of "The Chess Bulletin" from 1951. This was the official organ of the NSW Chess Association, and although it was published at the same time as Chess World, was probably too slim (8 pages an issue) to be considered a competitor.
Nonetheless in the 8 pages, there was plenty of coverage of City and Country chess (32 Sydney clubs alone!) plus tournament reports and games. There was even a section called "Opening Traps" which had the following game

Bailey,J - Broun,M [C80]
Australian Junior Championship, 1951

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.Re1 Nc5 7.Nc3 Nxa4 8.Nxe5 Nxe5 9.Rxe5+ Be7 10.Nd5 0-0 11.Nxe7+ Kh8 12.Qh5 d6 13.Qxh7+ 1-0

Another item of interest was that annual subs for the Correspondence Chess League of Australia were 10 schillings per anum, which at an annual inflation rate of 2% (which I just plucked out of the air), would result in the subs being $31 today. As they are only $25 modern players are slightly better off than ancient ones.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The spelling at the time was 'shilling', also known as a 'bob'.

Anonymous said...

In the - The Chess Bulletin - from 1951 , were there any women's chess games published?

Anonymous said...

The Austrian schilling was never legal tender in Australia, Shaun.

When it is available, try the RBA Inflation calculator at
http://www.rba.gov.au/Statistics/measures_of_cpi.html

They do the guessing for you.