Although I have only known of Peter relatively recently (the last 15-20 years), I thought I would share my thoughts on him and how I saw his contribution to the chess community.
I only came onto the chess scene in the early 1990s, in my final years of high school, so Peter's previous exploits as an arbiter at the Doeberl Cup in Canberra, as well as his shop & chess centre at locations other than Surry Hills & Redfern were before my time in chess. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly when I first met Peter, but presumably it would be when I first walked down the stairs to the basement shop he had in Surry Hills in Sydney sometime in the early to mid 1990s. These early memories are fairly vague, as it would have just been a visit to a shop that happened to sell chess books & products, rather than books or others items in general. The late 1990s was when I really got to know Peter & spent more time at his shop Chess Discount Sales in Surry Hills. This happened as it became a regular meeting place on Thursday nights - I would often meet up with various friends in the chess community, such as Nick Kordahi, Greg Canfell, Eddy Lee, Michael Pandelas, Theos Rippis & many others. On Thursday nights Peter kept his shop open late & for many years there was a regular 'loser off' table of blitz going on when I arrived. Not only was it a great place to meet up with friends, but it was a great opportunity to play against some fantastic players & test one's skills against the likes of Max Fuller, Steve Kerr, Pat Halpin & others who might be at Peter's on a Thursday night.
I also represented Chess Discount Sales in the NSW Grade matches on year in the under 2000 division, in what was essentially a team of friends who happened to meet up at CDS on Thursday to play chess before sometimes heading elsewhere in the city for dinner, a movie, or whatever other form of entertainment took our fancy. Peter was more than happy to leave his shop open later than usual on Thursday nights to allow us to play our home games at his shop. From memory he also paid the entry fee for the team to enter the tournament! This competition turned out to be a great learning experience for me & it turned into a great boost for my rating! Under the competition rules, the board order had players playing mostly in rating order, although there could be up to a 50 point difference between players who could 'swap' boards (ie: player on board 2 could be 49 points LOWER rated than board 3 & this would be fine according to the rules). As it turned out, the vast majority of friends who played in the team were all rated within 50 points of one another, so we came up with a plan to try to maximise the number of points we scored. The plan was to put me on board one (in spite of being the lowest rated in the team) as a 'sacrificial lamb', which would allow the others on boards 2-4 to have a better chance of winning games & as a result, potentially have a better overall result. Of course it turned out that the competition coincided with a purple patch in my own form & I scored around 60% on board 1 against players that were around 300 points higher rated than me & as a result of this & other events I played around that time, my ACF rating skyrocketed from the mid 1600s to the low 1900s!
As for Peter the person, he was always happy to talk about anything chess-related & always seemed to know the latest local chess gossip, as well as what was going on around the world in chess. He was always happy to give a discount on anything I purchased from his shop (and the majority of books in my chess library were purchased from Peter's shop), as the shop name would suggest. He also had a good memory of events in the past, particularly those that he was somehow involved with, whether directly or indirectly. When it came to 'official' duties, he was always quick to remind people of his various awards & titles, of which he was obviously so proud. The main one of these being his Order of Australia medal, which he received in the late 1990s for services to chess. He was also happy to remind people that he was an International Arbiter & often served on a variety of FIDE committees & panels. His regular Monday column in the Sydney Morning Herald was always useful for keeping up with local news, particularly in the days before the internet &he didn't mind including an occasional mention of noteworthy performances from his Thursday regulars in weekend or club events.
Peter will be sorely missed by the chess community, particularly in Sydney, while his dream of once again having a chess centre in the Sydney CBD has yet to eventuate, there is still a possibility that something of this nature might end up happening one day in the future. I am not sure what will happen to his shop & business, but chess in Australia would be a poorer place if it were to disappear.
Below is a photo of Peter receiving his Order of Australia Medal, which comes from the cover of one of the chess magazines he used to produce, Chess in Australia.
