G. H. Diggle
Encyclopedia
Geoffrey Harber Diggle was a British
chess
player and writer. Diggle contributed articles to the British Chess Magazine
(BCM) from 1933 to 1981, and to the British Chess Federation's publications Newsflash and Chess Moves from 1974 to 1992. C.H.O'D. Alexander called Diggle "one of the best writers on chess that I know". In his A Book of Chess, Alexander reproduced in toto Diggle's account, first published in the November and December 1943 BCM, of the de facto 1843 world championship
match between Staunton
and St. Amant.
After Diggle told Alexander of a game he had lost in seven moves (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Bxf7+?! Kxf7 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6.Qf3+ Kg8?? 7.Ng5! 1-0 Davids-Diggle, London Banks League 1949), Alexander affectionately christened Diggle "the Badmaster", a facetious counterpoint to the more familiar title Grandmaster. Diggle later adopted the sobriquet as a pseudonym
, writing a series of articles in Newsflash under that name between 1974 and 1986.
Chess historian
Edward Winter
wrote the following in his remembrance of Diggle in CHESS magazine
:
In 1984 and 1987, Chess Notes
published two collections of Diggle's Newsflash articles as Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster and Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster, Volume II.
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
player and writer. Diggle contributed articles to the British Chess Magazine
British Chess Magazine
British Chess Magazine is the world's oldest chess magazine in continuous publication. First published in January 1881, it has appeared at monthly intervals ever since. It is frequently known in the chess world as BCM....
(BCM) from 1933 to 1981, and to the British Chess Federation's publications Newsflash and Chess Moves from 1974 to 1992. C.H.O'D. Alexander called Diggle "one of the best writers on chess that I know". In his A Book of Chess, Alexander reproduced in toto Diggle's account, first published in the November and December 1943 BCM, of the de facto 1843 world championship
World Chess Championship
The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....
match between Staunton
Howard Staunton
Howard Staunton was an English chess master who is generally regarded as having been the world's strongest player from 1843 to 1851, largely as a result of his 1843 victory over Saint-Amant. He promoted a chess set of clearly distinguishable pieces of standardised shape—the Staunton pattern—that...
and St. Amant.
After Diggle told Alexander of a game he had lost in seven moves (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4 4.Bxf7+?! Kxf7 5.Nxe4 Nc6 6.Qf3+ Kg8?? 7.Ng5! 1-0 Davids-Diggle, London Banks League 1949), Alexander affectionately christened Diggle "the Badmaster", a facetious counterpoint to the more familiar title Grandmaster. Diggle later adopted the sobriquet as a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
, writing a series of articles in Newsflash under that name between 1974 and 1986.
Chess historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Edward Winter
Edward Winter (chess historian)
Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
wrote the following in his remembrance of Diggle in CHESS magazine
CHESS magazine
CHESS magazine , also called CHESS and previously called CHESS Monthly, is a chess magazine published monthly in the UK by Chess and Bridge Limited. CHESS was founded by Baruch Harold Wood in 1935 in Sutton Coldfield. Wood edited it until 1988, when it was taken over by Pergamon Press and changed...
:
Specializing in nineteenth-century chess history (particularly the Staunton period), he brought the old masters to life with rare wit and shrewdness. These qualities also permeated his accounts of the idiosyncratic doings and sayings of club "characters", such as the elderly player "who fumbled his way to perdition at reasonable speed until he was a queenQueen (chess)The queen is the most powerful piece in the game of chess, able to move any number of squares vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Each player starts the game with one queen, placed in the middle of the first rank next to the king. With the chessboard oriented correctly, the white queen starts...
and two minor pieces to the bad, after which he discovered that 'every move demanded the nicest calculation'", or "the LincolnLincoln, LincolnshireLincoln is a cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England.The non-metropolitan district of Lincoln has a population of 85,595; the 2001 census gave the entire area of Lincoln a population of 120,779....
bottom board of 1922, who complained that he had 'lost his queen about the third move and couldn’t seem to get going after that'."
A former county champion, G.H.D. was charmingly self-deprecatory in his reminiscences, as when he had a game adjudicated by TartakowerSavielly TartakowerKsawery Tartakower was a leading Polish and French chess Grandmaster. He was also a leading chess journalist of the 1920s and 30s...
: "The Great MasterChess masterA chess master is a chess player of such skill that he/she can usually beat chess experts, who themselves typically prevail against most amateurs. Among chess players, the term is often abbreviated to master, the meaning being clear from context....
, having been fetched, sat down at the board very simply and unaffectedly, and drank in through his spectacles the fruits (and probably the whole deplorable history) of the Badmaster’s afternoon strategy."
Little escaped G.H.D.'s eye, even towards the end. Modestly adapting Oscar WildeOscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
, he claimed to have "nothing to declare but his longevity", simply adding that he had "mingled from time to time with three generations of eminent players ranging from Isidor GunsbergIsidor GunsbergIsidor Arthur Gunsberg began his career as the player operating the remote-controlled chess automaton Mephisto, but later became a chess professional....
to Nigel ShortNigel ShortNigel David Short MBE is an English chess grandmaster earning the title at the age of 19. Short is often regarded as the strongest English player of the 20th century as he was ranked third in the world, from January 1988 – July 1989 and in 1993, he challenged Garry Kasparov for the World Chess...
, and rambled extensively round the highways and byways of provincial chess". He was one of the game's most stylish chroniclers.
In 1984 and 1987, Chess Notes
Edward Winter (chess historian)
Edward Winter is an English journalist, archivist, historian, collector and author about the game of chess. He writes a regular column on that subject, Chess Notes, and is also a regular columnist for ChessBase.-Chess Notes:...
published two collections of Diggle's Newsflash articles as Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster and Chess Characters: Reminiscences of a Badmaster, Volume II.