Continuing our series of Captain’s Corner. This time with Paul Chamberlain of the National Liberal Club.
Tell us about your club
The National Liberal Club was founded in 1882 – the largest clubhouse in London at the time. With the waning of the Liberals the Club contracted and in the 1970’s it sold off the bedrooms. However, it was able to retain several of the grander areas – notably the Smoking Room, the Dining Room and of course the Terrace. In recent years the membership has been reviving, growing by half as much again in the last five years. However, we’re still one of the smaller clubs, not having quite reached 3,000.
And your chess circle
We’ve been playing chess for many a long year and indeed were inaugural champions of the inter-club chess competition, now known as the Hamilton Russell, back in 1924. We won 13 times but our laurels have been languishing since 1968. Interest dwindled for some time, but it has revived in recent years and the Circle has been active again since 2016, with internal and external games. We’re not yet back up to our former glory, but we’ve steadily been attracting more players. A particular feature is our in-house website, http://www.nlcchess.net, masterminded by Ben Widdicombe, with excellent match reports and character studies.
Is your circle operating online? How is that going?
I’ve played quite a bit, from school, through university and beyond, although not very seriously and with little club involvement. I‘ve only twice played enough to be briefly graded – and that was nothing to crow about! But it’s been a source of pleasure over the years (most of the time!) and it’s something I’ve much enjoyed again since I became a member of the NLC. It’s a good social thing, particularly in the context of our Clubs with their splendid surroundings and convivial dining.
Who is your favourite chess player?
It’s hard to pick a favourite chess player, but I was quite aware of Bobby Fischer when I was growing up, and his games were often worth playing through. But it was good to see that even he could blunder occasionally (the infamous B x h2, game 1 in the Spassky world championship, losing his bishop for a couple of pawns). Like some other chess obsessives, he was rather a flawed character and probably rather unpleasant, as I was reminded recently when I read Patti Smith’s account of meeting him in Iceland – they ended up singing Buddy Holly together rather than talking.
Favourite chess book/DVD/Video?
I’ve garnered a few chess books over the years and occasionally go through a few pages, but I don’t find that I remember much. And videos don’t seem to help much either, although at the time I feel as though I’m benefitting from the wisdom of people like Dan Heisman, Joel Benjamin or Alex Yermolinsky on the ICC chessclub site. I’ve also enjoyed the Youtube videos with Matthew Sadler and Natasha Regan. But I think I benefit most by playing over-the-board chess with time to think, as in the Hamilton Russell games, for example. Yet another reason to hope for a return to some sort of normality before too long. Online 10-minute chess games are better than nothing, but they’re not my forte.
Anything to add perhaps some trivia about yourself
So why my online name of Hardicanute? No very good reason. I was trying to think of a nom de guerre and I was reading Dance to the Music of Time when I joined an online chess site – this is the name of the composer Moreland’s cat. In real life, he was the son of King Canute, sometimes known as Harthacnut, King of England for just two years from 1040. A cat may look at a king, and I can pretend to know how to play chess…
Hamilton-Russell Chess Cup 