STANLEY RANDOM CHESS MONTHLY
Gregory Topov is a world famous Grandmaster in Stanley Random Chess. In our introductory article, he briefly introduces himself, as well as the legendary GM Lord Humberton-Snapf.
As far as my own chess-playing credentials are concerned, I would prefer not to boast about my abilities, but I will admit to having a real fondness for Stanley Random Chess (SR Chess), and I achieved my GM norms in SR Chess quite some years ago already. So yes, I am a grandmaster in SR Chess. But rather than speak about myself, allow me to simply share with you a thoughtful tribute that I came across, devoted to one of the greatest SR Chess players in history, SR Chess GM Lord Edward Humberton-Snapf (1874-1916). I personally have two of Lord Humberton-Snapf's books, and am greatly indebted to him for my own understanding of the intricacies of the game. Here is the tribute:SR Chess GM Lord Humberton-Snapf, famous for his eponymous theorem, of which there were 421 revisions, was one of the great Victorian players of the game. He was a student of Percival "Watford Junction" Penfold, himself a legend in the SR Chess world, but young Edward soon exceeded his master with his inate wit and guile, and a bit of cheating now and then. Lord Humberton-Snapf rose to become the All England SR Chess Champion in 1897. During the championship game of that year, in which one of the spectators was Queen Victoria herself, Lord Humberton-Snapf performed a particularly daring Gladstone Goodge Street Gambit, and followed this two moves later with the now famous Camden Co-axial Combination, which led on to his spectacular win 64 moves later. Afterwards he was heard to remark that "My trousers are shaking uncontrollably!", and the remark became his trade mark at all subsequent important matches.
Lord Humberton-Snapf it was who helped brought the game to the great unwashed masses of his time, through his famous books of SR Chess instructions- "The Unwashed Masses Guide to Stanley Random Chess - Being the first Volume of Instruction for The Great English Game of The Same Name, to Educate and Exemplify for the Common Riff-Raffs in The Street the Rules of This Game" and the book which later became compulsory reading for all would-be SR Chess experts - "Vol Two".
Lord Humberton-Snapf died in the year 1916, after failing to correctly execute a Vauxhall Ventral Verification move in an important SR Chess championship game, and died of a heart attack shortly after his Finnish opponent played an Silician reverse gambit. It was a most unfortunate ending to a brilliant career, and the world has seen few SR Chess players of his abilities since. As the British say, it's just not cricket.
SR Chess GM Gregory Topov
Posted Friday - 2004-03-12 - 11:23:12 EST
by Staff Reporter Verdra H. Ciretop in Toronto
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