Sunday, April 29, 2007

Beating a GM with Black!

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

Schachspieler oder Verbrecher?



"Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be Grandmasters. Don't let 'em push pieces and read Russian Informants. Make 'em doctors and lawyers and such. Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be Grandmasters. They'll never stay home and they're always alone. Even with someone they love.
Grandmasters ain't easy to love, and they're harder to hold. And they'd rather give you a theoretical novelty than diamonds or gold...."

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Kasparov Busted!


Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who heads the United Civil Front opposition organization against the Putin government, was trying to attend an oppositional protest rally at Pushkin Square, Moscow. The government had mobilised 9,000 police to block the march. Kasparov was arrested on site and detained for 10 hours before being released.

His arrest has made the news in almost every Western TV channel, and has been reported in all major news agencies and newspapers.

Friday, April 13, 2007

My conversation with Nigel Short


Playchess.com server at about 1:30 am Friday April 13-2007

Me: Hi Nigel, I look forward to seeing you at the Canadian Open
NS: Who are you?
Me: My name is Larry Page (a fictitious name)
NS: ok
Me: I'll also be playing in the Canadian Open in July. I guess you will be a favourite to win it.
NS: The odds against a player winning an open are high, even if he is the highest rated.
Me: True, but your odds must be better than everyone else's.
NS: If I am the highest rated.
Me: By the way, have you seen this blog: http://www.chesswhore.blogspot.com
NS: Never heard of it.
Me: It purports to be a blog by Susan Polgar. Anyway, I just thought you should know about it as they are talking about you.
NS: It does not look like a much visited site.
Me: On a different topic, I haven't seen any top GM's play the Winawer French anymore. It's usually a mccutcheon or classical.
NS: Why are you a guest?
Me: Well, I'm not really a guest. I just named myself "guest9210" as a gag. I don't think real guests can chat, nor play rated games.
NS: That is why I was confused. Mind you, I managed to play a totally illegal move in one game on this server, so I was starting to believe anything was possible.
Me: That's interesting. I've never heard of something like that happening on this server. The main problem here is the lag. But I prefer this interface to what ICC has, especially for bullet chess. The ICC version of premove is still quite choppy.
NS: The ICC is ancient, and it shows it.
Me: Yes
NS: First-mover disadvantage
Me: Yes, the clock runs immediately.
Me: So do you have any wisdom for my French Defense? I play it pretty much exclusively against 1.e4.
NS: The winawer loses to Qg4!
Me: White has too much pressure eh?
NS: No, He annihilates the kingside or Black has to castle into a mating attack.
(after a lull of about a minute, waiting for Nigel to provide more "wisdom" on the French)
Me: Well, it was nice chatting with you Nigel. And thank you for the advice. Hopefully we'll talk more in July, in Ottawa.
NS: I will be there. Unless I am ill.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Kasparov's Last Game (part 1)

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Monday, April 9, 2007

Kasparov's Last Game (part 2)

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