March 2005: My book has been published: The Pocket Guide to Chess.
I write the Saturday chess column in the Globe and Mail newspaper. Put chess in the search box. My most recent column should be among the hits. Up until sometime in 2004, The Globe kept the material at the free site for a week, but now (Dec 2004) only the first couple of paragraphs appear, and all those who want to see the whole thing must subscribe to the Insider Edition. You can get a 2-week free trial, but after that, you must pay (eventually $16 per month) to subscribe. And they require a credit card even to sign up for the free trial. If I read correctly, even paying subscribers receive free only 4 articles per month. The Globe writes: "subscription will only be required to access some of our most valuable services." I'm charmed. click here for a partial index of my columns at a Globe site, but you will be able to access only the first couple of paragraphs free.
I sympathize with those who no longer are able to read my columns. I find it hard to imagine that subscribing will be worthwhile purely for access to my column. Most libraries in Canada carry the Globe, and some of those libraries have the paper available on the day of issue! Coffee shops (for example, BOCCA here in Nanaimo) often buy one or more copies of the Globe for their patrons. So consider Saturday brunch. If none of these options appeals, there are plenty of good columns available free on the internet. I recommend Nigel Short in the Guardian (was the Daily Telegraph, but he got fired!) and Lubomir Kavalek in the Washington Post. Registration may be required, but be pleased to know that I've never been spammed by those two papers.
If it's any consolation, inputting the search term chess at either the Toronto Star or the Ottawa Citizen (homes of the chess columns of Lawrence Day and Deen Hergott, respectively), results in no hits at all. La Presse doesn't even have a search facility. You can go to the Archives of cyberpresse.ca and do a search for echecs and Barbeau; you'll get a list of Sylvain's most recent columns with the first few words, but you have to pay for the rest.
Of graver concern to me is the change, as of August 9, 2003 (column date), that the Saturday column must be submitted on the Monday of the previous week, i.e., 12 days in advance. For over two decades, the column needed to be submitted on the Wednesday of the same week, i.e., 3 days in advance. The reason: outsourcing of typesetting. I requested that the column be moved to a part of the newspaper (say the Obits, a very familiar location for chess!) with a more modest lead time. No reply. Oh well. The Globe pays for the column, and what they do with it is their business. The business model in Canada seems consistent: chess columns are not provided free. Elsewhere, it's different.
United States versus China match, March
12 - 19, 2001
Game Two of the Kasparov - Kramnik match
for the Braingames World Championship, October 2000
Photos from Game 4 of the Kasparov
- Kramnik match - 14 October 2000
My first published writing may have been in a local (Vancouver) Chess magazine published by Art de Jong. But I starded writing regularly about 1968 (through 1975) for Northwest Chess. My first article in NWC was August 1968, page 12. Then in December 1969, page 12, I wrote a scathing article about the Southern Vancouver Island Open in Victoria, thus fulfilling my destiny as a jerk and pairings expert. Interesting that with a few corrections, this system could look like an accelerated system. In 1971, I started a regular column The Brilliancy Prize, showcasing reader games, sometimes in a humourous light.
From the July 1972 issue for about a year I was Associate Editor (along with Dr. Elod Macskasy and Bob Eldridge) of Canadian Chess Chat when Dr. Divinsky went on sabbatical. I had occasional articles in Chess Canada published by Vladimir (Walter) Dobrich. In early 1975 came the first book, 1974 Canadian Junior Chess Championship, with the games, commentary, and photos of all the players. It was produced samizdat style on a Gestetner copier, with three pages of, ah, graphics, produced at the UBC print shop. Then we collated the pages (I remember that Nigel Fullbrook was particularly energetic) then binding with a borrowed stapler. Et voilà.
In 1975 I became the Business Manager of the Chess Federation of Canada. Part of the package was to edit their bi-monthly magazine, CFC Bulletin, later known as Chess Canada Echecs and now as En Passant. I did that until circa 1983. I left the CFC in 1985. I still occasionally contribute an article. While there, I produced the book Border Wars III, by Jean Hébert, published by Chess Enterprises.
I was Saturday chess columnist for the Ottawa Journal newspaper from 1975 until it closed forever on 27 August 1980. There were rumours of a revival in 2003, but the links died. In 1980 I began to do the same thing for the Globe and Mail, thanks to a tip from Martin Jaeger.
In 1987, Yasser Seirawan asked me to set up the production of Inside Chess magazine. I set up a system using Ventura Publisher. I was an editorial consultant for Inside Chess for 12 years, until they went purely online in 2000. During that time, I wrote a few articles. But mostly I edited and typeset chess books:
I have experience in text-based data conversion, especially in Chess. I wrote the software package YWDD (YesWeDoDiagrams) which automates the production of diagrams (in Ventura Publisher with a PCL compatible printer).
The Pocket Guide to Chess Review Page, published March 2005. ISBN 1-894154-95-9
Border Wars III, (main author Jean Hébert), published in 1984 ISBN 0-931462-37-1.
I sent this book out to the participants of CCCA-70 and a few of
the high ranking ICCF officials. Every comment I received back had
very high praise for the book. One GM said, I enjoy games
annotated by the players themselves because they know best what was
going on in the game. This is a book of very high quality!
(In the next issue, page 24, Ken continued:) As usual, Jon Berry's
writing is clear, succinct, and enjoyable to read! The layout is
very clean and readable with Jon's wonderfully clear diagrams ...
this is one of those books that one can pick up and read
from
any point. It contains many at the time
comments from the
participants who obviously used their game notes when annotating
their games. We have received comments from book reviewers around
the world and from the participants of CCCA-70. They all give the
highest compliments to this book. The ICCF Congress at Finland had
many participants talking about the high quality contents and
production of the book. This is a book you should own, not only for
correspondence chess players, but particularly if you enjoy high
quality correspondence chess games and a resounding Canadian
accomplishment!
If Chess is a sport which prods the intellect to give of its best, then Correspondence Chess is where that best can be achieved.
To celebrate its 60th (Diamond) anniversary, the Canadian Correspondence Chess Association held an invitational tournament comprised of six postal chess grandmasters, four postal chess international masters, two face-to-face chess international masters, and three untitled players.
The winner was Erik Bang of Denmark, who has not lost a game of postal chess since 1968. For Canadians, the major excitement was that their players placed 2nd, 3rd and 4th, each one thereby qualifying for the grandmaster title.
In this book, all 105 games are analyzed and explained deeply. Games not commented by the players themselves have lucid and insightful treatment by postal chess international master John Wright.
Chess lovers who expect to learn more about the arcane art of the middle game will also be treated to opening novelties that haven't been discovered by mainstream chess theory, and interesting end games, including ones that will establish new reference points in their domain.
Published February 1991, ISBN 1-879479-00-1
Fairly modest. As an impecunious student, I taught regularly at St. George's School and sporadically at University Hill School in Vancouver. St. George's paid and U Hill eventually did not, despite a promise. That coloured my impression of teaching chess!
I gave at least two adult courses at UBC, through the Centre for Continuing Education. One was in the fall of 1972.
I gave an adult chess course at Malaspina College in Nanaimo, circa 1989.
As private students, in the 1990s, I had Kenny Vezina and Mark Marcil, both of whom went on to become national champions in their grade levels at the Canadian Chess Challenge. Realistically, though, I must grant the individuals 99.99999% of the credit for their own success!
On 5 August 2003, I gave a one-hour chess lecture at Haines Junction, Yukon. The subject was Postal Chess, illustrated by my game with world champion Tonu Oim. On 8 August, I gave a two-hour talk, thoroughly going over the game Botvinnik-Capablanca, AVRO 1937.
URL: This web page is:
http://members.shaw.ca/berry5868/chw.htm
Last modified January 5, 2006