Blog Post #178: World Senior 50+ ACO Group A Chess Champion…with God’s Help🙏

Dear Friends,

I am of course extremely happy to have won the World Senior 50+ ACO Group A Chess Championship with a score of 8/9 (7 wins, 2 draws, and no losses) in Crete last week…but there are also countless other matters that I care about. Only God knows absolutely all of them, because He knows everyone perfectly; far more deeply than we even know ourselves. Still, I will sincerely try my best in this blog post to express at least some matters from my heart 🥰. To attempt that…while being sure to be completely respectful…with many good and important thoughts, and some puzzles (which I always love to share)…a selection of lovely photos should help me greatly, too, as there’s a lot of truth in the saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words” 😊💗.

Chess is sometimes called ‘The Royal Game’. Several years ago, I had a wonderful IGCSE Maths student whom I called ‘Royal Rüya’. It was Rüya’s birthday yesterday 🎂.

Thinking way back to St. Andrew’s Royal Catholic Primary School in Dundee, Scotland, in the 1960s, one of my first friends then was Stephen Reid. More than 20 years later, Stephen was living in Edinburgh, and he often very kindly let me stay overnight at his home when I needed to fly the following day from Edinburgh Airport to some international chess tournament. It is Stephen’s birthday today, October 14 ❤️.

Stephen and I both shared some flair for numbers and chess. I think/hope🤞that he/you may enjoy the upcoming fun/ideas…😊!

14 x 14 = 196, the number of years since the modern independent state of Belgium began (in 1830). My dad’s age reached my absolute favourite number, namely three, 89 years ago (in 1937)! 14 x 14 x 89 = 17444. That’s the exact number of days from 6 January 1979 (including that day, when I won the FIDE World Under-17 Chess Championship in Sas Van Gent in The Netherlands 🥇—organised by Walter Cardon & friends of Het Witte Paard Chess Club—) up to and including 9 October 2026, when I won the World Senior 50+ ACO Group A Chess Championship in Crete🏆.

A nice aid for me to remember the ACO Chess Championship end-date, 9.10.2026, is that it was the (8 x 8)th = 64th birthday of Leonid Kerbel, co-founder (together with his wife, Hagit Hassid-Kerbel) of Musica Mundi School 💖, where I loved working as a really dedicated Mathematics teacher for 8 years since 2018, until I retired this summer.

I truly didn’t want to let anyone down, and God had made it totally clear that specific, enduring health problems were indicating that it was time for me to retire instead of risking problems for the school that I still love dearly. Indeed, I will be having a necessary operation in the excellent UZ-VUB hospital in Jette tomorrow afternoon. Currently, I go there every four weeks for a medical procedure, and I am extremely grateful to the doctors and nurses for all their constant, great care throughout the past 25 years since October 2001. Tomorrow, though, will be my first operation under full anaesthetic since 2007 and, given my history and the changes, God made crystal-clear what I had to do this year, for the sake of myself and many others who will always be very close to my heart 💖. It was a huge comfort for me to know that top-quality Maths teaching would be continued at the school by my friend Jens Van Steerteghem, who is a super scientist as well! I am truly grateful for being able to rest a lot, now retired, and I can also try to play better and better chess, with God’s help 🙏. I never forget the letters SDG, with which Bach often signed his musical manuscripts. SDG represented Soli Deo Gloria: Latin for ‘Glory to God Alone’. Equally important to remember is SDG = Sincere Daily Gratitude. On the day of the first round of the chess championship in Crete, I wrote to Hagit to wish her a super-happy 60th birthday 🎉🎂, and to thank her (and the school’s other leaders, too) for beautiful social invitations that they have very kindly sent me, and which I have accepted gratefully and really happily🙏💗.

Nowadays, whenever I see or hear the word ‘champion’, I always think of Anna ‘Champion’ Cicchino, a world-class cellist who also performed really well in her Cambridge IGCSE Maths exams👏(just like brilliant violinist ‘Royal Rüya’ did before, also at Musica Mundi School in Waterloo, Belgium)👏. I will think happily of Anna on her birthday tomorrow 🥳🎊.

Later this month, I wish very happy birthdays at the school for:-

Annabel, David B., Liav, and Luciano 🎉🎂🤗💘

Now, something that you should do, without delay, is to check out https://www.musicamundinews.org/solo-concert regarding what’s certain to be an unforgettable Solo Concert next Wednesday, 21 October, in Musica Mundi’s splendid Bach Concert Hall, starting precisely at 19:30, CET (= Central European Time). I’m so much looking forward to being there to see all the fabulous performances involving lots of the school’s young talents 🎼😍🎶🎻.

Everyone in my family appreciates really good movies. More than one of us feels that the loveliest actress of all time may well be Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993), who was born in Ixelles, Belgium. One Chinese student at the school uses ‘Audrey’ as her easy-to-say English name. The delightful, short, music video clip that you can watch freely via https://youtu.be/73CSB08Y3is?si=tE4wGXk9XDpxGClq reminds me of both of the lovely Audreys! Happy viewing! 😍

Puzzle #1 (In honour of the new students at Musica Mundi School)

On the day of the concert, it will be exactly 117 days since 26 June, when I last saw my former colleagues and students at MMS, because there was the long summer school holiday, and also I was away a lot with my family or for chess. I’m really looking forward to seeing Everyone again, and, for the very first time, to meeting new students Greta, Ivan, Lena, Lizaveta, Nina & Yago.

Your fun puzzle in their honour is to make a proper seven-letter English word by rearranging the letters EGILLNY (but please don’t shout it out!!) 🤣😂

You’re allowed to smile like Santa, though!! 🤩

Puzzle #2 (A brainteaser! 🧠🤓)

Imagine that Jean (the new MMS Physics teacher, whom I also look forward to meeting) and Jens each write down different positive whole numbers on a paper. Let’s call Jean’s number P (in honour of Physics) and Jens’ number M (in honour of Mathematics). I honestly don’t want Jean to be offended at all when I say that M happens to be bigger than P, just in this particular puzzle! 😉

Now, recall that the number 117 appeared before, up above…

OK, here comes the brainteaser, involving 1 17 in a sneaky way…

You are given that 1/P + 1/M = 1/17,

and your fun challenge is to figure out the exact values of P and of M.

It could be solved really quickly and efficiently using the noteworthy TABLE button on the excellent TI-30 calculators that are used at MMS, but I reckon that Jean, Jens and others will even more enjoy cracking the brainteaser by using elegant algebra instead👍🥇.

Of course, no-one needs to send in any solutions unless you/they really want to! Naturally, everyone is always very welcome, though 🤗💗.

By the way, Jens’ birthday, 12 July, is on the same day and month as the birthday of Dundee’s Michael Holligan, a long-time friend whom I first got to know in primary school with Stephen Reid and other classmates 😊. Exactly one month earlier, on 12 June, is the birthday of Musica Mundi’s Vincent Williot—the day before my own birthday! 😅

Puzzle #3

Tomorrow, it will be 111 days since I hugged many MMS friends on 26 June.

They all know that 3 is my absolute favourite number 🥰.

So, this puzzle says: “Draw a 3 x 3 square, which of course contains nine little unit squares inside it. Your fun puzzle is to make it a very special 3 x 3 magic square by putting different whole numbers in each of the nine little boxes.

The total of the 3 numbers in any horizontal row, or in any vertical column, or in either of the two main diagonals, is to always be exactly 111. You may use 1 for one of your numbers, but all of the other eight numbers that you use should be different, proper prime numbers.”

Have fun with that now! Happy solving! 🙂💗

Puzzle #4 (A delightful chess puzzle from LiChess, and seen on Facebook, is being shared here for great chess enthusiasts at MMS such as Alexander ‘The Great’, Amazing Aimar, Awesome Antoni, King Richard, ‘Happy Hundred’ Ephraim, Housefather Peter ‘The Great’😁& others, including a former student Tommy Daemen (from another school long ago; who wrote to me yesterday). Bonus Tip: For anyone who’s keen to improve at chess, I highly recommend watching top-quality ‘PowerPlay Chess’ videos on YouTube by Grandmaster Daniel King, who is one of the superb GM coaches who helps players at all the ACO events👍. Danny always gives beautiful explanations of many key chess concepts ✅. You can also enjoy solving oodles of free practice puzzles on numerous sites, including LiChess, ideachess.org, and more…😊.)

I have stated/implied honestly and accurately, that I truly owe everything to God, but He knows that it’s appropriate for me to also specially thank some people (in addition to people already mentioned above) for their great support now and/or in the past, over a long period of many years; often even spanning decades.

So, I wish to also very specially thank:-

My wife, Jenny, my son, Michael, and all my family members & closest friends in Scotland, China and Belgium. Some people prefer to not be named explicitly, and I respect that.

Paul Fitzpatrick (1948-2024) was my former teacher, chess mentor and very dear friend in Dundee, Scotland, for half a century. Jenny, Michael and I remain close friends with Paul’s wife, Gill, and their family 💖.

John Glendinning (R.I.P. 2026, former President of the Scottish Chess Association) did enormous amounts of great work to advance Chess for lots of Scottish players, including me. John also very generously shared his ‘Scotsman’ newspaper Chess column with me for a long time, and his wife, Nancy, has been an absolute gem, too, in welcoming many players at their home 🙏.

Some of the following dear friends have also passed on, but they are still remembered very fondly 💗.

International Master Stephen Mannion is like a beloved uncle to my son, Michael, and he is always sending me really useful, modern Chess publications.

Grandmasters Colin McNab, John Shaw, Jonathan Rowson & Keti Arakhamia-Grant, International Masters Craig Pritchett, Roddy McKay, Mark Condie, Douglas Bryson & Andy Muir, FIDE Masters Craig Thomson, Tim Upton, Iain Swan, Ian Mackay, Iain Gourlay, Donald Holmes, Andy Burnett, Phil Giulian, Graham Morrison, David Lawson & Neil Berry, former Scottish Champions Jonathan Grant & Gerald Bonner, and correspondence masters David Kilgour & George Pyrich, all helped me to improve through their great friendship, numerous memorable chess battles with each of them, and by all being amongst Scotland’s best-ever players themselves at certain times.

Jim & Jean Chalmers, Bill Russell, Peter Walsh, Gordon Robertson, David Findlay, Ed Spencer, Peter Whayman, Ian Gibb, Jim Anderson, Jim Webster, Tom Johnston, John Justice, Lynn Morrison, Nancy Elder, Christine Elder, David Reid, Keith Rose, Hazel Steele, Ron Thompson, Alex Thomson and many other good people all in or near Dundee (formerly);

Bob Clapham & relatives/friends from Arbroath; Alan Borwell, David & Isla Cowling, and Donald Campbell from Perth; Hugh Flockhart, Terry Purkins & friends, Elaine Gillings, Willie, Beth & WFM Elaine Rutherford, Alison Coull, Alison McClure, IM Mark Orr, Ian Mullen, Alistair White, FM Alan Tate & family from Edinburgh; Candidate Master Helen Milligan from St. Andrews and her late husband, Tommy Milligan; Len & Phyllis Weir and David & Sheila Smith & their families from Prestwick/Troon; John Henderson, Eddie Davis, Alan Scrimgour, Stephen Swanson, Larry Kirk, Tony Coffey, David Duncan, Chris Dixon, Boyd McCamon, Alistair Maxwell & Mick Hanley from the Glasgow area or the West coast area; Walter Pearson of Glenrothes; Ian Robertson & Christopher MacDonald from Stirling; Michael Payne from Tillicoultry; several very nice friends in Aberdeen & other cities long, long ago.

I also thank very many people from England, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and other countries, who helped me by playing against me and/or accommodating/sponsoring me for tournaments/matches where I got invaluable experience. You are all remembered and truly thanked from my soul, which is much stronger than the body.

God-willing, I still hope to keep improving for a good while yet. It’s a worthy work in progress 🙏.

I will conclude this long Blog Post #178 with a beautiful quote from The Bible, followed by more of the promised selection of photos 💗. I never forget that this blog began over nine years ago, with precious technical help then from an IT expert friend, Patrick Santana 💻. He and his wife, Roberta, and their lovely children, Christian and Elizabeth, very kindly sent me a magnificent bouquet of flowers and a sweet extra gift when I returned from Crete a few days ago💐💘.

“They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8 in The Bible 💖.

The ACO runs really well-organised, friendly, efficient, high-quality Chess events in beautiful locations👍😎.

Yet another happy photo below speaks for itself 💖😊💖

Wishing everyone lots of love always,

Paul Motwani 🥰 xxx…♾️