A patzer's quest

IECG

2005-05-25T10:13:00.000+03:00

I've signed up for IECG (International Email Chess Group). They have an interesting procedure though: after completing the online signup form, you get assigned to a tutor who verifies that you're familiar with PGN, and can handle a game trough email. It seems my tutor is a PhD in chemistry...which probably means that, after the first, automated email I got, I shouldn't expect very fast answers in the future. :)

Funniest/Most interesting GM finger notes on ICC

2005-05-24T14:15:00.000+03:00

Funny:

Parsifal(GM): "I charge $110 an hour for tuition, and if I hear of anyone who charges more than that I shall instantly raise my fees."

Carole(GM): "I have started chess about 5 years ago and I never played in a tournament yet."

NDShort(GM): "Try the chessbase.com server. It is better than this nannying club."

Hawkeye(GM): "I dont lie, i dont swear, i dont smoke, i dont drink and .. damn it now I just dropped my cigaret into my beer..."

canadiankid(GM): "Congratulations to Norwegian admin eeek, who just recently got married! Damn Norwegian, found the prettiest girl in the world!"

TonyM(GM):"
1: No I am not Tony Miles.
2: Well not always...
3: I prefer to play blitz with a beautiful woman and a bottle of wine in front of a log fire.
4: Please bring your own logs.
"

Gumptious(GM): "ICC blitz is fun, but it's also a ferocious man-eating drug, living off adrenaline, egoism and inertia."

Nikephoros(GM): " "Bringer of victory" although usually to my opponents."

Haircutter(GM): "You look like you need a haircut. this is the drunk and bad mood account of some really weak unknown GM." (the guy's rating is 3166, BTW)

Interesting:

Tioro(GM): "I'm currently on leave from the University of Washington working at Google in Mountain View." (now that's something. Can't find the page at Google where they bragged that one of their employees is a chess grandmaster. I had seen it a while ago...)

Hawkeye(GM): "fastest win ever against a GM ... 2,4 seconds .. 10 moves"

Long time controls

2005-05-24T09:38:00.000+03:00

It seems everybody is playing long games online. DG even had a "hate-post" against blitz. Well, I am aware of the dangers of only playing blitz, but it seems I have no choice right now. Being on a dialup, charged by the minute, I can't afford staying hours online. If only the phone company would charge by traffic...oh well, I'm daydreaming.

Maybe one day I'll have cable - that if I move.Landlord/owner complications now prevent that. And it isn't exactly cheap, but I guess it would be worth it.

Religion and chess

2005-05-17T11:26:00.000+03:00

This site has a lot of facts about the connection between religion and chess, and how the church banned chess in the past. I particularly liked this line:

"Charles VI (1368-1422) of France continued to forbid chess. He later became unsane."

Hmm..I don't advise anybody to forbid chess. Not if they want to keep their sanity.

(BTW, I thought the word was "insane")

chessarea.com

2005-05-12T10:16:00.000+03:00

I've just discovered www.chessarea.com, a site maintained by a handful of romanian masters, aimed towards training and lessons. Seems interesting, especially that their rates are low, compared to what vendors on ICC, for example, charge. I'll have to investigate this further.It might be a good idea to have a personal trainer (one that I could afford), but I'm not very convinced that as an amateur without any lofty goals,playing just for the love of the game, I should spend any serious money on it...apart from a few books here and there.

I still believe that personal dedication and _time_ is what matters most. I mean, no trainer will study for me...they just provide learning material. And there is no shortage of that on the 'net.

RSS

2005-05-03T12:49:00.000+03:00

With so many Knights and chess blogs to follow, one can sometimes lose track and (God forbid!) forget to visit one of the sites on a given day. In such cases, RSS is an excellent tool to use. I didn't really use Thunderbird's RSS feature until I started to read the Knight's blogs. So, if you want to be instantly notified whenever someone posts, and avoid the hassle of going over each and every link in your already crowded Bookmarks toolbar, get an RSS reader (Thunderbird is good, and it can be used for email, too). To read the Boylston chess blog for example, you'd have to put this address into Thunderbird: (right-click on News&Blogs, select Manage Subscriptions and then Add) http://boylston-chess-club.blogspot.com/atom.xml

Chess potpourri

2005-05-02T09:45:00.000+03:00

I have been orginizing my chess stuff at home this weekend, to burn them all on a DVD, and I've stumbled upon some old, forgotten things on my CD's. Back then, when kasparovchess.com was still alive, I've downloaded most of their free stuff - lots of video lectures by Sofia Polgar, Alon Greenfeld an Boris Altermann. It was like rediscovering a treasure, reviewing those videos...unfortunately, the videos are in some proprietary format, and for proper replaying, they need some obscure plugin that has since disappeared into a black hole, and I was naive enough back then to forget saving it..I have since developed the habit of saving things off the net. So, what I got from the kasparovchess lectures was a few introductoring slides, and then blank pages, with sound material :) Not of much use anymore, but at least I could hear Greenfeld and Altermann speaking English - and the experience was worth it :)

Something else I've discovered: the World Chess Champions index page, a nice resource for anybody interested in chess champions, with games, highlights, some stories about the matches, all very well organized in a comprehensive index. Alibaba, an experimental chess engine, which seems to have sunked into oblivion, Rebel Decade 3.0, which was, at that time my favourite since it was the only freely available chess program that had the nifty feature of setting it's ELO strength, and I could actually beat it, if I tried enough. Every Friday it's strength rose to the full Rebel strength, 200 points stronger :) And yes, it was my first encounter with a chess database...Too bad it doesn't run on newer Windowses anymore. I have since discovered ProDeo, which is basically Rebel made into a UCI engine, readily pluggable into Arena or Fritz, but it's just not the same thing as Rebel's Dos interface...oh yes, I'm growing old, getting nostalgic like that.

What else was on my old CD's? Manus Fealy's page (wow, it looks so much better now, with much more material!!) was one of the first chess sites I've ever visited and liked, Chesscorner, although designed for kids, was a very pleasent experience, Exeter Chess Club was (and still is) a goldmine, and Tom Kerrigan's simple chess program was the first chess-engine source code I've ever seen. I even tried to rewrite it to use bitboards, gave up after a while.I still don't know why - manipulating bits is so much fun! :)

Opening study

2005-04-29T11:30:00.000+03:00

I've just downloaded the ChessliB database (again, as I had it before, and lost it). For those not in the know, this is a free Scid / Pgn database, containing 2 million games (!). Now, who cares if the games are not very new, names are not normalized and so on, things that you only get with a paid-for database? I guess this database is excellent for opening study. Scid has a nice feature, for each position on the board, showing the most common continuations, with percentage played, score etc. I think I'll complement my tactics training with going over a few openings I suck at (that is, every possible opening)

Mate in one

2005-04-25T17:58:00.000+03:00

After doing lots of tactical exercises, including those mate-in-N types, I would expect to recognize a mate in one when I have one...or when my opponent does, and it's his/her move. :) However, in this 3-minute game, I let 2 mate-in-one-s slip by (it would have been better to oversee a single mate in 2, yes, I know) and a few other tactical opportunities, too. Lucky me, my opponent also missed some shots, and I was the one to make the next-to-last mistake. I guess I need to go back to my PNG-s and PGN-s for a little more training...

ICC trial expires

2005-04-18T18:10:00.000+03:00

My ICC 7-day trial is expiring today. I've played more than 100 games, mostly 3 0 -s, and mostly with white...I was just curious at the beginning to see how fast will people accept my seek if I want to play white. Well, I had to wait a few seconds at most, so I stuck with white.
I really like ICC, but for the average person - it must seem a little bit awkward to type all those commands, to have no statistics at all. Blitzin doesn't even have premove. Playchess.com seems much more advanced in comparison. No commands to type, it's all click-and-play.
So I guess it's goodby for ICC now. It just isn't worth the money they ask for. I guess I'll order Fritz and enjoy Playchess.com, after my trial there also expires. Oh, and after the Romanian Post finishes with their strike - which will last at least 10 more days.

My final ICC statistics are here. The tables are sortable - just click the green dot.

Playchess vs. ICC

2005-04-14T13:32:00.000+03:00

I finally managed to connect to Playchess. I ran IUpdater.exe, which after a moment of thought, came to a screeching halt with an error message complaining about not finding a certain file. Which was, by no means my fault. All I did was download the free client and install it. Afterwards however, strangely enough, the client started to run just fine...no error messages this time. Talk about Artificial Intelligence...

Well, I've grown to become accustomed not to ask questions when something works, so I just went on an played a couple of games on Playchess. Hands down, that's the best chess server in existence today. Too bad it doesn't have an option to log my games in PGN format, it will only save them in Chessbase's own format. I've downloaded a converter, though, have to try it to see whether it works.
I was also busy yesterday trying to get the most out of my free 7-day trial of ICC, playing as many games as possible. At first, it seemed to me that it's much easier to get a high rating there, than it was on FICS, since in a few games, I was already approaching 1500. Never got there, though...before I knew it, it was 2 AM, and I was slowly falling asleep at the wheel, the effect being a long string of losses bringing my rating to just below 1400.

After looking around a bit, it seems that the best option is to buy Fritz. Then I'll have one year of Playchess for 50 euros, and after the year is over, I can still keep the CD :) Whereas, on ICC, I'd have to pay 49 dollars, and stay with nothing after a year...well, ok, I can still keep my statistics if I'm diligent enough to keep the logs.

Seems that I'm not alone with this opinion. Look what I've found in GM Nigel Short's finger notes on ICC:

7: Try the chessbase.com server. It is better than this nannying club.
8: There is audio as well!

[dont]playchess.com

2005-04-12T08:59:00.000+03:00

It seems I can't play on playchess.com either. Every time I tried to connect, their client exited with some strange error message. "Access violation". Might be some conflict with SP2.
And no, I'm not writing them to tell them about the problem. They'll probably immediately discover that I have 2 (trial) accounts registered*, ban me from their server forever, confiscate all my assets and start a legal action asking for a life sentence without a chessboard in the cell. And maybe they'll also demand I wear a note attached to my finger, apologizing for having 2 accounts. Thanks, but no, thanks.

* I registered an account years ago, I don't remember the password or the email I used to register with, so yesterday I tried - and seems to have succeded - to register another trial. But I couldn't actually log in and play.

(In fact, the folks at Chessbase are nice, they won't do such things. I had a real pleasant experience with my first trial of playchess, however, I decided not to pay for it, and I chose FICS. A really bad move.)

No more FICS - ever

2005-04-11T20:29:00.000+03:00

I'm not going to play on FICS anymore. Never ever again. If you're curios what caused such abrupt change of mind, here is my story.

I have to say first of all that I had my share of guilt, but still...I really feel I was treated unfairly.

I had an account on FICS since 1999. However, a while ago I found out my handle actually meant "mole cricket" in Spanish, and some kind of monkey in another (african?) language - after a few players made fun of me. And I also had this statistics idea in my mind, so I said to myself it's time for a fresh start. I asked the admins whether I could change my handle - they of course said no. Then, I was curios whether I could just give up on this handle, delete the account altogether and start a new one. FICS doesn't allow this! They also forbid having duplicate accounts, but I thought this one won't really be enforced, after all, I had no intention to cheat by playing myself of stuff like that (and I never did, just in case you wonder) So I went ahead and created another account, giving up on the old one.

Yesterday I had a completely winning position against one opponent (knight and 5 pawns against king and 2 isolated pawns) when this guy disconnected. I thought ok, maybe he was on dialup like myself, and lost connection, no problem, he'll come back and resign. Well, he did come back after 10 seconds or so, but had no intention to resume or resign. He completely ignored me, and went on playing others. I checked, and he had 15 stored games, so he had some history on this. After waiting to finish his game, hoping that maybe, just maybe he'll resign our game, he continued trying to shake me off, by disconnecting and coming back every time I typed "resume"...or he simply started another game. Eventually I become bored and signed out.

However, today I decided it's time to do something about it. My statistics go nuts if I play a few games, and then an adjourned game is decided, so I didn't want to play any games before this thing was settled. So I complained, and asked an admin what to do.

What do you think the admin did? (Solution in the next paragraph)

He immediately discovered I had another account, banned me from the server, and forfeited my stored game, therefore crediting the disconnector with the win and the rating points. I think my disconnector friend is rolling on the floor laughing right now. In fact, had it not been my statistics project, I'd find this extremely funny myself.

The admin guy wouldn't even listen to me. I explained him the situation and practically begged him to ban the older account, if he really feels like banning today (well, I omitted the second part, to be honest) No way - he was following THE RULES, who am I to comment here?

So the funny part with FICS is that once you have a handle, you're stuck with it. Handles never expire. You can never ever have another handle - the rules forbid it. There is just no way. Unless, you're more clever than I am, and register the second handle so that they never find out. I didn't care too much about that, since I wasn't planning to do anything wrong - just change my handle.

These being said, I part with FICS.I think they have serious problems - computer cheating, disconnectors etc. Unlike Ed Collins, I consider the alternative of paying for playing. I was a member of ICC for a year in the past, and their service was ok, and I also like Chessbase's playchess.com - they have all the statistics I need, so I don't have to generate them myself :) Their fee is also lower then ICC's, and they're in the European timezone. In fact, so far my only caveat with Playchess is that the server is not the ICC - FICS - like telnet server. But their client is the best I've seen. Maybe after trying these too out in the same time, I'll post my opinion.

But anyway, from now on, FICS is out of the question.

Two more Wilson books

2005-04-07T13:47:00.000+03:00

New sets of png's. Wilson's 303 Tactical Chess Puzzles and 303 Tricky Chess Tactics are up and diagrammed. Enjoy!

New set of PNG-s

2005-04-05T11:53:00.000+03:00

I've uploaded the diagrams for Fred Reinfeld's 1001 Brilliant Ways to Checkmate. It really helps to have the book too, though :) The positions presented in the book are nice, but I have two comments to make here :

1. You know you have to search for a checkmate, which makes solving these a lot more easier than the Alburt positions.

2. For Reinfeld, "brilliant" seems to be a synomim to "queen sacrifice".

Tactics training: PNG instead of PGN

2005-04-01T13:59:00.000+03:00

If you are a chess addict living in the digital era, or even worse, a Knight (á la de la Maza)you probably know full well what a Pgn file is. Maybe you even take a healthy dose of it, every day, just to stay sharp tactically, or to review that opening trap in the King's Gambit. However, you can take your training to a new level, just by switching two letters: use png instead of pgn.

Ok, now seriously: I had an idea a few days ago: what if I had all those positions I used to review in Scid, also as images? Load up a few hundred positions into my favourite viewer (IrfanView), and browse through, one position at a time.

So, I wrote a script that extracted the FEN's from the PGN file of Lev Alburt's 300 most important positions, and converted them into PNG images - using the excellent converter of Jean-François, available here. (BTW, have a look at the rest of the site, it is certainly worth your while)

Thus, I now have a set of 300 PNG images ready to review.

What are the advantages? I don't have to use a PGN reader, or Chessbase Reader, I can switch very fast from one position to another, and I'm not tempted to just look up the solution, because the solution isn't there :) Just the initial position, telling me (in the image title) whose move it is. Since I've already gone through these positions using Scid and Crafty, for most of the time, the solution just pops in, filling me with a nice, warm, rewarding feeling :)

If any of you wants to try this at home, here are the files.

Sorry about having to download two different files, it seems I'm not allowed to upload files larger than 1 MB :(

Supermemo

2005-03-30T10:17:00.000+03:00

I've recently discovered Supermemo, a software program designed to aid in learning. It basically schedules repetitions for the material to be absorbed, according to an algorithm they say is optimal for learning. There is a whole lot of worth-to-read articles on learning on their website.

Unfortunately, the product is not free, but it has an evaluation version that I've found to be quite good for chess-position training. I have generated a set of .png images of the positions in "300 most important positions" and entered about 70 of those into Supermemo. It's great to have a program that can schedule for you the positions to review. Those that you don't remember well are scheduled frequently, those that you know with your eyes closed will pop up less often. I think it would be great for the de la Maza program...too bad it's quite tedious to enter images into Supermemo. Or maybe there is a way to automate it.

Rating again

2005-03-30T10:09:00.000+03:00

Having your games rated immediately is, I guess, one of the biggest benefits of online chess. You don't have to waith months to see your rating published somewhere. And, with some simple scripts, you can create statistics :)

So, my rating has been going up lately. I'm almost 1450 right now. Not that it would matter too much, since I'm quite sure another deep plunge is going to follow. But, I'm proud to have a draw (out of 5 games) against players rated between 1700-1800. That's a 10% score. Not really something to brag about, but for me, this is an achievement. BTW, ratings on FICS are typically much lower than the Elo or USCF ratings of the same player. So a 1700 rated player on FICS would have around 1850-1900 Elo. There is an ongoing survey on FICS for that, ran by SurveyBot.

I haven't, as for yet, played anybody between 1800-2000. And it turns out, players rated over 2000 are no match for me. Err...I'm no match for them, sorry. 3 games played, lost them all.

Istratescu lost - rapid games to follow

2005-03-25T10:06:00.000+02:00

He lost the last game, so the score is 2.5 - 1.5 in Karpov's favour. A score somewhat expected, but shadowed by Karpov's unsportsmanlike behaviour. He didn't honor his contract to appear on national television, he just cancelled it, because he was angry with his one and only loss. Like contracts mean nothing. All right, he's the great man, he can do anything, unlike us, mere mortals.

Now if Istratescu was Fischer, I guess he would start to complain about the poor lightning conditions, the chair, Karpov's hipnotizers (I would really love to find out whether that rumour was true, and Karpov indeed had them in the playing hall - or if it was just that, a rumour), the TV cameras and the contrast of the squares of the board. But I guess there were bowling alleys nearby, and I highly doubt that his hotel room had too nice a view. At least, we no longer have to search for Bobby, we know exactly where he is: Reykjavik.

Now this is funny

2005-03-25T09:47:00.000+02:00

In one of the pictures seen on this page, Fischer is walking in the airport holding a bottle of water, while Myioko Watai, his fiancee, is behind, pushing a cart stacked with luggages. I know the man has just escaped from prison, but shouldn't this be the other way round?

Karpov doesn't know how to lose

2005-03-24T09:47:00.000+02:00

After losing yesterday's game to Istratescu, Karpov seems to have lost his temper. He cancelled all his appointments for the rest of the day (he was invited to national television and to several important newspapers), declaring that he has come to play chess, not to waste his time in other places. According to spectators, after the game, he was livid and analized the game for 40 more minutes with Andrei (Istratescu). They also had dinner together, and Karpov couldn't believe he lost, and was asking Andrei all the time what he would have done in different situations.

The night before, he had dinner in a traditional romanian restaurant, and he said that the folk music played there made him lose his focus. He really can't accept defeat and is looking for excuses.

According to newspapers, sources close to Karpov declared that he made lots of phone calls to Russia, to summon on his grandmaster staff. He has at least 12 grandmasters he is consulting with for today's game (the last of the match). They also said that he'll have hipnotizers in the playing hall, to take care of Andrei :) Now this is what I call will to win... I really didn't expect such behavior from Karpov. After all, this is an exhibition match, for charity - I don't know, maybe the games aren't even rated, so he won't lose any Elo points (but then again, I might be wrong)

We're looking forward to an exciting (or should I say, explozive) game today. The score is now tied, 1.5 -1.5

Ra(n)tings

2005-03-23T17:43:00.000+02:00

My rating is starting to resemble a stock chart: mostly unpredictable, going up on a good day, and crashing on the next day. But the good news is I'm above my average rating now, in fact, for the first time (not counting the first few games) above the average rating of my opponents, too!

On a sidenote, my average rating moves too slowly. Maybe I should change it into a running average... last 50 games running average.

These statistics were a good idea. Now I have some more motivation to improve. That thin blue line can have an amazing influence on my morale.

It's too early to say yet, but it seems that I play best against stronger opposition. I had an idea this is what's going on, now the numbers back me up, too.

Chess board signed by Karpov: for 600$

2005-03-22T12:33:00.000+02:00

The board Karpov and Istratescu are playing on is for sale. Current bid is at about $600.A sensory board like that normally costs around $450-$500. But this one will be signed by Karpov and will come with a certificate of authenticity.

Istratescu - Karpov: 1/2-1/2

2005-03-21T10:16:00.000+02:00

First game was a draw. Istratescu had the white pieces. It's interesting that the match is getting constant media attention, something chess wasn't entitled to in Romania in the past 10 years. Of course, there were a few blunders on tv, like simply calling Karpov "a chessplayer"...I mean, come on, he's one of the greatest of all time, and they call him like that. Another tv station went into the other extreme: they presented GM Karpov playing against Istratescu, a chessplayer...like he wasn't a GM, too, and second best in our country. But whatever...good that chess is in focus, even if only for a week.

Lots of VIP's present at the opening. President Basescu made the first move for Istratescu, d4, after requesting " a moment to think about the move" :) A Queen Gambit declined, Lasker variation. A 34-move draw, that doesn't seem to be one of those "GM draws". But hey, what do I know, and then again, it's just an exhibition match. After the match, the sensory board they're playing on will be sold, and the money used to sponsor chess clubs for children in Romania.

http://www.chess-romania.ro/eveniment/indexen.html

FICS statistics

2005-03-21T00:27:00.000+02:00

I have always missed some detailed statistics for games played on FICS. Ever since playing on Playchess.com. That's because they have a very nice graphical interface, and detailed statistics. But for 29 euros a year, they'd better call it Paychess.com.

So, I was busy all weekend doing my own statistics for FICS. It all started with an article by Ed Collins, "Why I don't pay for internet chess", which is BTW a very interesting read. He said there that he doesn't see a reason why people would want to email themselves the games played on the server. And then I thought: why, of course there is a reason: I play on different computers (at least 3) and it's cumbersome to merge 3 different databases with games, if I use Babaschess's autosave feature. I'm better off having FICS send me my games by email, and then I have all of them in the same place, regardless where I play the games.

So now FICS is gmailing my games, and I wrote som Python scripts to retrieve the games from there, and generate some statistics, which I've put online here.

A few remarks: I've always known I suck at chess, now I know exactly how much. And if I manage to fully automate the process, and write the part of the script that uploads the statistics, and schedule it to run, say, every midnight, then I can track my progress (well, it's regress, to be more precise) without any effort.

My rating is going south fast - 72% of the time. But that's not the greatest of the problems. It seems I'm not getting to play strong players on FICS. On Playchess, if I accepted a 1800+ rated player's seek, he / she didnt abort on the first move. On FICS, this happens a lot. It's like having the door slammed right in front of you. As my statistics show it, the highest rated player I played was 1607.

Oh, and I'm sure playing without increment 60% of the time is a recipe for disaster. Oh well. But it's addictive.

(There are some issues with generating the statistics when stored / resumed / resigning stored games come into play, I'll have to figure those out. In the meantime, I just hope that little blue line will one day start to go upwards, too...)

Comments, email are welcome.

No increment

2005-03-17T10:00:00.000+02:00

Playing without increment is fun, but I don't really see why I should play like that anymore. Beside the fact that I lose loads of points, sometimes it doesn't even resemble the game we call 'chess'.'Blunderfest' would be a more appropriate name. It makes me remember a saying, that patzers and masters don't play the same game, it just happens that the rules are the same...
Funny, after playing a dozen or so games without increment, a 2 12 game seems _long_ to me...I guess I should really take on standard now. Playing long games is one advice of Heisman I didn't quite follow until now.

Playing on FICS

2005-03-15T10:12:00.000+02:00

I usually play with increments. This Fischer invention is great. I mean, there is nothing more annoying then having two queens and a rook against the opponent's bare king and not having the time to actually mate him. Not that this happens to me too often... But anyway, I tend to avoid no-increment games. However, a couple of days ago, I accidentally discovered the "gm" command on FICS. I think I was looking for GM's....and suddenly, lots of challenges started to flow in. Turned out, "gm" is the "getgame manual" command...it's better than "getgame", because you can hand-pick a challenge and not let the system get one for you automatically. I was having some fun yesterday with that command...playing but non-increment games. The result: a whole hour of pure fun, and the loss of about 30 rating points. Normally, I'd be really upset for this...but it doesn't really matter. I can get them back, no big deal.

There is one interesting thing, though: I tend to lose 10-12 points at a time,when I lose, and only win 5-6 points when I win. I guess I 'm not too confident and only play below my rating. It would be nice to see some statistics. I really liked on Playchess.com that they provide very interesting charts, broken down to rating categories. What I learned from there: I tend to play better against better opposition.

Babaschess has a plugin SDK. Maybe somebody will develop some plugins for us to have some nice statistics on FICS, too. That's one thing I miss on the server.

So many books...so little time

2005-03-12T12:14:00.000+02:00

I've grown up in a country where chess books are a rarity. I could count on my fingers all the chess books I've seen in bookshops during my 25 years of existance. And I guess I'd need only one hand...

Fortunately there are libraries, having a few chess books one can read, and sometimes one has also aquintaces fortunate enough to have some decades-old chess-books inherited from their grandparents.That's the situation around here. Or, should I say, would've been, unless there was Amazon.

For me at least, Amazon changed all that. I now have a dozen or so chess books, all but 2 purchased online from amazon.com. So here is my top-list:

1. The Art of Checkmate. The only chess book I've ever read cover to cover. Every single bit of information. And let me say that it was well worth it. The book covers every typical mate one is likely to encounter in a game, with examples and quizzes after each chapter. Fun to read, and a confidence booster.It is in descriptive notation, but that won't stop any serios chess afficionado.

2. Logical Chess Move by Move. This is going to be the second book I read cover to cover. Basically, the book is nothing else but a collection of 33 games, annotated to the blood. Chernev made a really good work here, particularly for patzers like me. I am fully confident that even after finishing this book, I'll still remain a patzer, but at least I'll have a better insight into the game. I already have, after studying as little as the first 7 games.

3. Art of Attack in Chess. Another classic. The chapter about mating patterns and focal points had me. However, I didn't have the patience to read through all the chapters. Maybe with a computer in front of me, to replay the moves, I'll once finish this book to.

I have, however, a fond memory of the chapter called "The Classic Bishop Sacrifice". I was once hanging around in Chessclub (yeah, I did have an account there for a year, but didn't renew it...FICS is about the same, and it saves me $49 a year) and there was this guy who challenged me for an unrated game. Without even looking at his rating, I accepted, and there followed a straightforward, humbling and completely humiliating defeat for me. I never had a chance. Bishop sacrifice at h7, knight check, the queen comes into play, and I knew I was lost. As a sore loser that I am, I told him afterwards something along the lines "Well,you know, I also read Vukovic's book but didn't see this coming". Turned out the guy was a 15 year old russian IM from Moscow. And he never read Vukovic's book.In fact, he hasn't even heard about it. He just proceeded to checkmate me exactly like the book described.

The moral is: if you're not a 15 year old russian IM from Moscow, you need this book. If for nothing else, then at least you can brag with your chess vocabulary and assign fancy names to ways of losing.

Karpov playing in Romania

2005-03-11T12:24:00.000+02:00

I've just read that between 20-26 March, Anatoly Karpov is going to play a match against romanian GM Andrei Istratescu in Bucharest. Fide.com reports a rating of 2617 for Mr. Istratescu, his national rank is 2 (after Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu, Elo 2673, world no. 31) and in the world ranking he's in the Top 100, more precisely nr. 92.

Karpov is listed as world no. 29 with a rating of 2674 . So I guess Nisipeanu would've been a much closer match. But never underestimate the underdog! :)

The match will be commented by GM Dorian Rogozenko, known for his Chessbase Trainig CD's as well as occasional lectures on playchess.com

Want to become a Knight?

2005-03-11T10:48:00.000+02:00

A Knight Errant, that is. A follower of Michael de la Maza, if you please. Let's suppose you've read through the Knight Errant's blogs, have read the two de la Maza articles (part 1 and part 2) and decided that, unlike me, you're able and willing to devote time, effort and brain sweat to this program, and become a ravenous chess-wolf, with frightening tactics-knowledge under your belt. However, one single detail scares you: this program, and all its variants are based on CT-ART 3.0, which is commercial software, and you can't afford it. No problem. You can do it without investing a single penny. Or cent. Just time and effort.

Here is what you should do: get Scid, or any other pgn reader that you like. Now, you need some good tactics exercises, for free. The Ossimitz game collection has some very good pgn files ready to be downloaded. I recommend the 300 most important positions. Ok, there are only 300 and not thousands, as CT-ART has, but that's enough for a start. And you may find some other tactic-focused game collections there. Have a look around.

And, if you're willing to invest some more time, there's even more you can get. Go to the DBGames collection page. It has an incredibly large collection of games from books, and there is a section devoted to tactics. Lots of positions to use and peruse. However, the files are all password protected and they'll only send you the password if you contribute: that is, find (or get) a book that is not in their collection, enter the games and positions in pgn, send them the collection, and you'll get access to hundreds of games and positions. For about 2 weeks of not-so-hard work, it's worth it, in my opinion. And besides, you'll need the determination if you're going to follow the training program. It's good for warming-up.

The title

2005-03-11T09:52:00.000+02:00

No, I don't have a title.No GM, no IM, FM, not even NM (I wish!). Well, in fact, if I think about it, it might be eng. Not that it would matter, since this post is not about my title. It's about my blog's title. Because I've just discovered there was an error in it. It's not "_to_ a distant paradise", it's "_for_ a distant paradise"! How could I make such a mistake?? (BTW, did I mention I was a perfectionist? I am)

Where does the title come from? In case you didn't guess it by now, it's...
from a Vanessa Mae album, "A Poet's Quest (For A Distant Paradise)"
(select the line above with your mouse to reveal answer)

Welcome Boylston Chess Club Weblog readers!

2005-03-11T09:28:00.000+02:00

Boy, was I surprised to discover someone else discovered me! But hey, welcome, and have a nice stay.

Now regarding my not being a Knights Errant candidate...well, you guessed it, not for now. But not because I don't recognize the merits of such a system. I also read the Michael de la Maza articles, thought about it, decided it's certainly going to help my rating, and then decided it's too much work, and I don't have the time and the dedication required.Oh, did I mention I'm not only a patzer, but a lazy patzer, too? No? I'm sure you discovered it by now.

However, I have great respect for those who are able to stick to that program, and I certainly don't want to play a rated game against any of them on FICS. Unrated, you're all welcome :) Just kidding...don't care that much about rating, and facing stronger opposition always makes me play stronger, too. Too bad I lose.

The reason the Michael de la Maza program won't work for me right now is the fact that I don't play real chess[txt] (an article by ... who else...Dan Heisman). I used to play "flip-coin" chess (oh, and guess what .. I still do, occasionally), and recently upgraded to "hope" chess. So, unless I become a "real chess" player, I don't have a chance. What is the reason for pulling out a nice tactic, winning a piece, if I hang my queen afterwards? Believe me, it happend to me. Not once.

Edgar Allan Poe's advice on chess

2005-03-07T11:26:00.000+02:00

"in nine cases out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers"(The Murders In The Rue Morgue)

Simple, isn't it? Just pay more attention, concentrate more to avoid oversight, and you're done. If only I could follow this advice, I'm sure my rating would soar. Into the 1500's, that is.

Happy Birthday FICS!

2005-03-07T10:06:00.000+02:00

Well, it seems that on Friday, FICS turned 10! Now, in the digital era, that's a fine age to reach for my favourite chess-playing site. It was nice to have you around, FICS, I'll dedicate the next cup of champagne to your future...

And it seems it wasn't total blackout for the weekend for Fics...they were having some issues with the DNS and their new IP, so maybe it was just me having problems connecting. Anyway, I can now connect and play my game.

Chess-less weekend

2005-03-04T10:13:00.000+02:00

The FICS server is relocating, and I wasn't able to connect yesterday. No luck today, either. They are going to stay black for the rest of the weekend. Too bad.

Anyway, I'm showing the signs of addiction, I guess I behave exactly like some drug-addict unable to get his fix (umm, FICS, that is). At least I have email chess. By the way, there are plenty of email-chess servers, I'm playing here, at E4EC. It's a hungarian email server, but it has full english support, and most players are speaking english.

I just remembered that I forgot to take my daily dose of Chernev yesterday. Game no. 6 of "Logical Chess" was due, and I missed it. Ok, so I need to analyse two games today. But I guess I'll like it. It's good reading. Unless I'm extremely tired, it's almost as good as reading Poe.

Oh, and the last New Scientist issue for February has also arrived yesterday evening. Maybe this won't be such a bad weekend after all.

Is it worth doing tactics exercises?

2005-03-01T18:20:00.000+02:00

Of course it is, I hear you saying. After all, this is what the masters recommend for class players. There are articles, even books praising the allmighty tactics on board. It's spectacular, it's blood-pressure and adrenaline raising, it's all a player needs to do to achieve mastery. Right? Wrong.

I've been plowing my way through the 300 most important chess positions for some time now. I can do most of those (at least 80%) in a few seconds, just looking at the position. I've also done a lot of exercises from CT-ART.Most intermediate level tactics quizzes don't seem to be a problem for me. And yet, my rating doesn't seem to reflect it. Why?

That's because tactics is not the panacea of all the chess hardships a patzer encounters on his or her way to mastery. First of all, there is nobody telling you at the board, that there is a beautiful tactic waiting for you to discover it, and the time you invest into finding it will pay generous dividends. Especially in blitz, when your time is limited, you're bound to let these occasions pass by. And as Caissa has a weird sense of humour, I bet you'll discover the tactic right after you made your move and let that really good move elude you forever.

Well, to be honest, there are the seeds of tactical destruction [pdf] one should look for. Recognizing them isn't so hard, after you get used to them a bit.But how to steer the game into positions where these seeds make themselves visible? Now, this is what separates boys from men, this is where master's show their wizardry.

In this regard, I decided I'll adopt another course for my chess study, and that includes, besides doing tactics problems, the following:

1. Studying the games in "Logical Chess - Move by move", from Chernev. One of the best books ever written on chess, in many expert's opinion. It takes 33 games played by masters, and patiently explains every single move from every game. Why did the master play that move, and not another.
I'm sure this will help my game, provided I'll have the patience required to finish this book.One game a day, it'll take me 33 days. A month's effort.

2. Play through the collection of Paul Morphy's games. Fischer used to do that, when he was in his teens. I'd sure like to have a look into his notes...

3. Save my FICS games and have a look at them. This might not be as helpful, though. I predict that the only lesson I could learn from this is: "don't hang your pieces". Oh well, and perhaps: "don't move to fast". But it might be worth a try.

Advice

2005-03-01T15:05:00.000+02:00

Dan Heisman's articles on chesscafe.com are great, but if there are only a few ideas one remembers from his writings, then those should be the following:

1. For every move you consider, look at your opponent's checks, captures and threats.
2. Always use all the time you have (i.e. don't move too fast, only to lose with plenty of time on your clock)

Up and down

2005-02-27T21:31:00.000+02:00

Nine more games played today. All with 2 12, my favorite time control. Lost 4 games in a row, then won 5 games in a row, to get back to the rating I started the day with: 1356. What a patzer....players with more than 100 rating points below me seemed to have an easy time today, beating me. And I didn't even hang my queen for them, as I usually do. Not noticing mate in 2-s, easy forks, sudden checks...these are my plague. Is there any remedy? Well, Dan Heismann says there is. In his Novice Nook columns, he has some good advice. But I don't have the time to play longer games, and besides...losing a long game is much more painful than losing at blitz.

Not that losing at blitz is fun. In fact, I already swore to myself, several times, that I'm not going to move any chesspiece ever again. That I don't want to see a checkered board ever again. And still , here I am...fortunately, after a string of painful losses, there is somebody who gives away a piece or the queen for me, and I'm back again on track. Only to lose another string of games, until I meet a patzer just like myself...

Well, I guess that, instead of paying huge sums of money for chess training, people should just pay some fellow to let them win over the board now and then, to get back in the mood.

Commercial chess software

2005-02-27T20:32:00.000+02:00

1. Fritz - One of the strongest, most complete chess programs out there. It is currently on version 8, and it seems to be the de facto standard for computer chess engines. The best feature of the program, in my opinion, is the annotation. People frequently call this feature "annofritzing". :)

2. Chessbase - a chess database application. It offers the same features as Scid does, only in a visually more pleasing way.

Both Fritz and Chessbase, along with a lot of other chess software, are available in the Chessbase store.

3. CT-ART 3.0 - a very good tactical trainer. Although the Elo values it assigns do not seem to reflect reality, making your way through th 1000+ tactical exercises is bound to increase your chess muscles. One of the funniest features it has is when, after asking you to deliver mate with white, it reverses the board, and asks you to find a win, from the same position, for black this time! Available at Convekta.

4. Chess Mentor. A unique trainer. It has a lot of modules, each covering different aspects of the game. Has very good explanations. Too bad the price tag is a hefty one :(. However, a free demo is availabe at Aficionado's site.

Well, this is just a selection of the chess products I consider best. There is literally tons of material for sale. However, with so much good and free software available, I guess there are only a few commercial products worth their prices.

Free chess software

2005-02-25T15:47:00.000+02:00

If you're an amateur, but starting to get serios about the game, there are a few things you should definitely have. Here is my list...

1. Scid - the best free chess database application. In fact, I don't think it has any serious competition in its category. If you don't have it yet, go and grab it. You've got nothing to lose.
Unfortunately, Scid uses a GTK based interface. Which means, it doesn't look too good. I know that one shouldn't complain about things like that when it comes free, but I really do think interfaces matter. Someone should rewrite it using Qt, for instance... Anyway, Scid does the job, and does it well, too.

2. Chess database - well, Scid alone doesn't do too much. You need some databases, too. Here it is one, that's free, and it has 1.5 million games. Pretty impressive, for $0. But of course there is a "but": the games there are not too new, the latest is from around 1994. Not that it would matter, for an amateur like me :D

3. Crafty - one of the strongest free chess engines around there, developed by Robert Hyatt. After getting Scid, and the chess database, Crafty is the next thing to download and install. It is extremely useful in analyzing the games in the database. It seems however, that right now the site only contains the sources of Crafty, there are no precompiled binaries...too bad, but there are other places one can get them.

4. Babaschess - I tried a few interfaces to connect to FICS, and this one is the best I've seen. Register a handle on FICS, get Babaschess, and the world of online chess is ready for you.

5. Arena - one step further....it's a very nice looking interface to chess engines. You can use it to pit chess engines head-to-head (there are loads of chess engines available for download on the site, all working with Arena), to play against the engine of your choice (there are also some weaker chess engines, not just GM strength!), or it can serve as an interface to chess servers. Good to have.

Well, these are the first things that pop into my mind when it comes about free chess software. Have a look, try them out, have fun.

Introduction

2005-02-25T15:04:00.000+02:00

I mostly play blitz, on FICS . My rating there varies between 1350 and 1450 (yes, I know I'm weak), my best ever rating there was 1500. But I can't maintain that :(

I don't play any "real" , over the board chess. Just online. In fact, I could have entirely passed by this beautiful game and live my life without it, had it not been online chess. Some 5-6 years ago, I did a search on Google for "chess", discovered FICS and online chess, and my life changed. So, I'd like to document those changes from now on. And also, share a little bit of the knowledge that I acquired. Because even if I'm just a patzer, I did read a lot about the game. Just that, because of lack of time or determination, it was all superficial, I guess. Read on, maybe you'll use all those resources way better than I did...

Purpose and intended audience

2005-02-25T11:44:00.000+02:00

Who I am writing these pages for? Well, excuse me for being selfish, but I'm writing this primarily for myself :) But anyone is welcome to read my rants. Especially if you like chess, are a novice/intermediate amateur. Of course, masters are not excluded...
If you have any criticism or encouragement to say, or you just want to share an idea, please comment. I'd like to hear from you.

First Post

2005-02-25T10:48:00.000+02:00

Hi there and welcome! My name is Levente, and I'll use these pages to document my chess-path. I'm a (very) amateur who's hopelessly in love with the game, trying to improve my game, and having a life, too. I am completely aware that I'll never make it to mastery, but it doesn't matter. It is just plain fun.

If you are in the same boat, maybe, just maybe, you'll benefit from reading this blog. I won't give any advice, because I'm not in the position to do so, but I will quote others. And give relevant links. And, why not, some insight into the life of someone just like you, struggling with the habit of hanging the queen or giving away pieces for free on the board. Don't fret, you're not the only one.

So, just stay tuned, there's interesting material to follow.