John Littlewood (chess player) John Littlewood (chess player) John Eric Littlewood (25 May 1931 – 16 September 2009) was for many years a leading British chess player and took the title of national senior champion in 2006. Perhaps his most famous game was the one he lost against the world champion Mikhail Botvinnik at the Hastings International Chess Congress 1961/2. Littlewood launched a fearsome attack which Botvinnik was able to defend only by means of a tactical finesse. Botvinnik chose to include the game in his autobiographical "Best Games 1947–1970". John Littlewood was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire in 1931, the fourth of his eleven
Marseillais chess Marseillais chess Marseillais chess (also called Double-Move chess) is a chess variant in which each player moves twice per turn. The rules of the game were first published in Marseillais local newspaper "Le Soleil" in 1925. The variant became quite popular in the late 1930s with such chess grandmasters as Alexander Alekhine, Richard Réti, Eugene Znosko-Borovsky, and André Chéron playing it. A player can either move one piece twice or move two different pieces on his turn. Castling is considered a single move. When a player gives check on the first move, he loses the second move of his turn.