EX-CHESS CHARGE

Postage stamp price hike puts end to longest game of Correspondence Chess

Trecent increase in the price of First Class stamps has spelt checkmate for two pensioners, who had been playing a series of postal chess games for nearly half a century.

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London bus driver Reg Wholegrain and Newcastle binman Willie Redpath had been playing postal chess for a record 48 years, and their ‘Best of Three’ tournament had been reaching an exciting climax. But thanks to the recent increase in the cost of a stamp from £1.10 to £1.25, their third and deciding match had to be abandoned.

The competitors met when they and their wives spent a week at Pontin’s in Prestatyn back in 1976. The two couples got on well, with Reg and Willie playing chess every evening whilst their wives went to the bingo. At the end of the holiday, the couples returned home, but not before the two men agreed to play a game of postal chess.

Reg drew white and sent Willie a letter with his opening move – 1.e3 – in August 1976. Three weeks later, Reg received a letter with Willie’s response – 2.d5 – beginning the game with the famous Van’t Kruijs opening. The first game continued for the next 6 years, with the players exchanging letters containing their moves.

“We made about three moves a year each,” recalls Reg. “I made a couple of

mistakes early on, so it was a fairly short match. And stamps didn’t cost much back then, so it was a fairly cheap game to play.”

The first game ended when Reg wrote to his friend in May 1984 and resigned. It was first blood to the Geordie.

Reg levelled the series in 2001 after a checkmate move on Willie. “This was a much longer game, with quite a bit of cat and mouse between our bishops throughout the 90s,” he remembers. “Plus Willie had double bypass surgery in 1997, so there were no moves that year.”

prawns

The deciding game got underway in 2002. It began cautiously, and it was 2005 before the first piece was taken. Reg began an attacking offensive in 2006 and thought he had his opponent on the ropes in 2009. But disaster struck in November that year when, in a lapse of concentration, Reg lost his Queen. “I’ll never forget the day I opened the letter from Willie, and read his move – KxQ! I’d fallen for a trap that Willie had laid with his bishop,” he says.