BRITBASE - British Chess Game Archive
Player/Publication Collections
This page features collections of games by player and by publication. I would like to feature more of these, reflecting various standards of players over different decades. Anyone rated/graded, say, 2000/175 at their peak, with games going back a few decades comes into consideration. Any offers? JS.
| Posted | Player | PGN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16/01/21 | Dr James M Aitken | PGN | 960 game entries in total including some part-games and stubs. This is an interim file, added to a fifty-game scorebook at a time as Geoff Chandler works his way through 45 scorebooks in his major project of getting all of Dr Aitken's games input. This is likely to amount to some 2,200+ games when finished. First uploaded here on 2 November 2020. Latest Update: scorebook 11 now completed, adding further games from the period 1950/51, plus some stubs of Guernsey Open games in readiness for later input. |
| 14/01/21 | H E Atkins | PGN | First upload (328 entries, including about 35 stubs and part-games). I decided to create this file when Alan A Smith sent me 50+ club and county games played (and won) by HE Atkins which Alan had culled from an extensive newspaper search. Alan's is an admirable compilation, containing many previously undigitised scores and providing corrections to others (including errors in RN Coles' book of Atkins' games, H. E. Atkins Doyen of British Chess Champions, published by Pitman in 1952). I have added other Atkins games from BritBase, plus some more which I have found myself, while Brian Denman has provided others. There are also games culled from ChessBase's Mega/Big Database 2020 (mainly from Atkins' infrequent competitions outside Britain) and chessgames.com. Thanks to Alan and Brian, and also to Gerard Killoran for help with names and dates. Steve Mann's Yorkshire Chess History was also extremely useful in discovering opponents' forenames. Latest update: Some additional games, a couple of deletions, plus full dates for games which only had the year identified. Gerard Killoran contributed the following games: Atkins-Wahltuch (1915.03.27), Atkins-Yates (1912.11.02), Atkins-Schofield (1936.08.02), Schofield-Atkins (1933.10.21), Spencer-Atkins (1925.03.21). Brian Denman has contributed Atkins-Draycott (1902.05.31), Atkins-Gurnhill (1927), Staynes-Atkins (1927.10.15). Brian has also flagged a misattribution: the game Atkins-Jacobs, London 1915, was actually played by a different player, MG Atkins, vs Herbert Jacobs in the 1915/16 City of London Championship, so has been deleted. Also, there was a duplicate of Atkins-Moses (1924.10.18) which has been removed (I have amalgamated the source notes). Brian has kindly searched through the database and provided a great many full dates where only the year had appeared previously. Many thanks to Brian and Gerard for their contributions. |
| 09/01/21 | Hector William Shoosmith (1877-1912) | PGN | 126 games, plus 2 part-games and 16 stubs, of the English player Hector William Shoosmith, who was a strong player during the first decade of the 20th century. I collected these games whilst researching an article on him which was published in the August 2017 issue of CHESS Magazine. Some games were appended to the games database supplied to subscribers of the magazine, but this has since been updated as a result of further research and a significant contribution from the Sussex chess archivist Brian Denman. Many thanks to Brian for his help. First uploaded 09/10/2017. Latest update: added a game Macdonald-Shoosmith, found in a 1905 newspaper. Event, venue and date unknown. Many thanks to Alan Smith. |
| 13/11/20 | Comins Mansfield | PGN | 35 games played by Comins Mansfield (1896-1984). Of course, vastly better known as a problemist, and the world's first GM of that branch of chess, Comins Mansfield was also a fine OTB player. Gerard Killoran has gathered together these games, including a notable win over Sir George Thomas. I've included links to biographies of Mansfield at Wikipedia and also Bob Jones' splendid piece on him at Chess Devon. Many thanks to Gerard for collecting the games. Originally posted 05/09/15. Latest update: added a game Tylor ½-½ Mansfield, County Match 28.10.1933. |
| 23/09/20 | Murray Chandler | PGN | 1,593 games played by Murray Chandler between 1973 and 1989. This is a major new (29 August 2020) item for BritBase, showcasing the early games of one of the top GMs during a particularly exciting and important era of British chess. During the summer Murray made available to me scans of scoresheets which he had discovered amongst his family's effects, and I keyed in the moves. These were mostly from the time he arrived in England in 1975, and well into the 1980s. I've endeavoured to discover the event in which they were played (the teenage Murray didn't always fill in all the fields of his scoresheets), date them, work out round numbers and opponents' names, and then place them in chronological order. (I do hope readers will help in the identification process and perhaps send in games of Murray's which are missing.) I have also appended a list of the tournaments that Murray took part in from 1975 onwards. I've included some of his early New Zealand games but these are being worked on independently by Bill Forster and in the course of time these will be made available at the Peter Stuart NZ Games Database, which I recommend you to visit. Also, I am still working on adding further detail to Murray's games played subsequent to 1989 and will add these to the collection in due course (there are more than 600 of them). I can also recommend following Murray's excellent Facebook chess autobiography where he is recounting his chess career in regular segments. He's up to number 48 as I write and has just started coverage of his English period in 1975. Together with his BritBase collection it provides a unique and innovative insight into the career of a grandmaster. Update: I've discovered the moves of the game Chandler-Angantysson, EU Team qualifier vs Iceland, 10 July 1982, in an issue of CHESS Magazine. |
| 23/09/20 | Ian Wells | PGN | 299 games played by Ian Duncan Wells, one of England's most promising players of the 1980s before he met with a tragic accident in Brazil in January 1982. I am greatly indebted to Sean Parker, who has collected and input more than 100 of Wells' games from scans of the player's original scoresheets. I have added a good number myself, including games from Wells' last tournament in Brazil. Sean supplied another batch of 21 games in April 2018, played between May and July 1979, including a win against Nigel Short. Note, I have left in the three-figure BCF grades exactly as entered by Wells in his scorebook. Readers might want to remove or convert these before adding them to their own databases. Latest update: a by-product of the 15 games added to 1977 Lloyds Bank Masters was that one of them involved Ian Wells - a loss to John Henshaw in round 7. Thanks again to Brian Denman. |
| 06/06/20 | Mir Sultan Khan | PGN | 204 games, plus 32 part-games and stubs, by the legendary Indian/Pakistani player Mir Sultan Khan (c1905-66), who played most of his chess whilst residing in the UK between 1929 and 1933. This is probably the most comprehensive collection of Sultan Khan's games currently online, though there are gaps that still need to be filled. Latest update: some games added from Daniel King's new book Sultan Khan (New in Chess, 2020) and also from the latest ChessBase Big/Mega Base. |
| 08/05/20 | GPS Coy | PGN | 74 annotated games played by George Philip Stanley Coy (1917-2019) between 1934 and 1940. He was a strong amateur player who represented the civil service and Kent in matches and won the civil service championship four times. Games entered and contributed by Kevin Thurlow, for which many thanks. |
| 04/06/19 | Wilfred Henry Pratten | PGN | 533 games played by strong Hampshire amateur player Wilfred Henry Pratten (1908-1985). Pratten was a fine player who won the British Boys' (Under 18) Championship in 1924 and 1925 and might have gone on to become a master had not the necessity to earn a living and support a family intervened. 400 of these these games were originally published in a 2004 self-published book Wilfred Henry Pratten: Doyen of Hampshire Chess by Roger Paige; the number of games has grown subsequently and this file was kindly made available to me by Arthur Brameld who collaborated with Roger Paige in collecting them. I am grateful to both Roger and Arthur. Latest update: 12 more games contributed by Brian Denman, for which many thanks. Brian has also provided some amendments to dates and venues. |
| 27/03/19 | Bernard Cafferty | PGN | 1,921 games played by FIDE Master Bernard Cafferty (born 1934), including 2 part-games and 20+ stubs. Most of the games I input myself, from scoresheets and scorebooks kindly lent by Bernard himself. It is not complete - we have still to locate some material - but I have input everything that we have found so far and there may not be too much to follow. If anyone else comes across Bernard's games in publications and bulletins which are not included here, I would be grateful if they could forward them to me. My thanks to Ray Cannon and Gerard Killoran and others for submitting additional games. Full list of updates. Latest: A further 12 games, though 9 of them are stubs (1976 Birmingham International) and one a part-game (Cafferty-Speelman, 1976 Birmingham International). One of the new games is Cafferty-Stean, from the above tournament, and the other is Cafferty-AT.Richardson, Birmingham Post Cup, July 1976. N.B. I only have a handful of the games Bernard played in the 1971 Albena tournament as Bernard has not yet been able to find his original scoresheets. Can anyone help with that? |
| 28/02/19 | Roger Emerson | PGN | 602 games played by Roger Emerson between 1965 and 1982. They were for the most part input by Roger himself and some of them include his extensive commentary. Roger stopped playing in 1982, unable to devote the time needed to maintain his standard but returned to play on retirement in 2009, since when his ECF grade has once more reached 200 and he has won three British Senior Championship titles. As well as the games there is some biographical information and photos. Latest update: two games added (Emerson-C.Jones, Streatham Club ch 1978 and G.James-Emerson, London League 1980. Thanks to Brian Denman. |
| 18/01/19 | Steve Berry (1951-2019) | PGN | 393 games played by Steve Berry, the sad news of whose recent death has prompted me to assemble a collection of his games. I am grateful to Mark Page and Kevin Thurlow for sending me some of their own games played against him. Steve held the FM title and won the Surrey Championship no fewer than 12 times, and was thew current title-holder. Latest update: Stephenson-Berry, County Match 1976, contributed by Norman Stephenson. Thanks, Norman. |
| 03/05/16 | London Central YMCA (Centymca) Games, 1973-76 | PGN | These games have been input from the bulletin The Centymca Story by Jimmy Adams, published in 1976, which I have supplemented with a few more relevant games sourced from elsewhere. Games input without notes for the most part. For further details of what the file contains, click on the link. Updated 9/10/2015 - 174 games. Updated 03/05/16, with a game which Korchnoi lost to Peter Montgomery at a simul in Luton in 1976. Many thanks to Mark McCready. |
| 29/10/15 | University Chess Annual 1950-54 | PGN | These 92 games are from University Chess Annual, of which four issues appeared between 1950 and 1953/4. PDFs of these booklets may also be accessed here. |
| 30/08/15 | Barry Sandercock | PGN | 7 games, including simul wins against Jonathan Penrose and Sir Stuart Milner-Barry. As at 2015, Barry Sandercock (born 1930) is one of the most active club players in England and an old colleague of mine from when I played county chess for Buckinghamshire in the 1960s. But Barry goes back much further than that - he recalls making his county debut in 1946! I persuaded him to show us a few of his games over the years. These are mainly from simuls, with one notable one-to-one win against John Littlewood. JEL was very old at the time - but, then, so was Barry! Many thanks to Barry for sending me the games. JS. |
| 07/06/09 | Peter C Griffiths | PGN | 1,008 games. Peter C Griffiths (born 1946) is a strong amateur player (of about 2250-2300 strength) who was active from the early 1960s to 1989 when he gave up competitive chess. This database was prepared by Matthew Tapp from scores made available by Peter Griffiths. Matthew has done a splendid job and I am indebted to him for making this file available for publication on Britbase. Note that Mega Database 2009 purports to have 106 games played by Peter Griffiths but in fact the ones they have dated 1991 and after were actually played by Paul V Griffiths (born 1976) and not Peter C Griffiths. (Update 2015: just to prove that those good people at ChessBase do take notice of what I write here, they've since separated the Peters from the Pauls and have the Griffiths games correctly attributed.) |