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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 2937 OF 4911 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Jan-27-08
 | | Richard Taylor: <greatdane>
I was being a little bitter and maybe"controversial" "These [forget] are shaken from the wrath-bearing tree .." (T S Eliot.) I agree (in spirit) with most of your points above - actually I have a book about the Polgar sisters (I sell books and my "buyer" found it somewhere). I was bit concerned about papa Polgar and his wife experimenting...hmmm... I suppose I was emphasising the "Fischer effect" danger... Counter to that is Keene's point (he makes) in 'Becoming a GM' that basically players with (extra chess culture etc e.g Keene and Kasparov can or could talk on ancient history and Kasparov was interested in literature and politics (we all know the last one) ...I just feel too many chess players - not perhaps Waizkem who -I get the impression is a very nice fellow - but such as Fischer and Kamsky (witness his mad father getting him to devote all his time to chess!) - My attitude would be - if my grandson wants to play chess I would help him but (if I have any say in the matter ) I would urge that he read into as many cultural areas as possible - and I mean that also for people who 'love only "maths"' - and maths can be beautiful also - although - like chess a lot of it baffles me - but I can see the beauty of it - but I feel that (among others) accountants, computer people, scientists, technicians (I was one) should study - necessarily - a good range of the social sciences also - when I was an Engineering Tech I did course by correspondence and it included an English paper - and I was reading books such as "Gulliver's Travels" but I tried not to let on I was -I was also reading about electronics and telecommunications theory - but a lot of my fellow Comms. Techs were or had failed at maths! They were a bit wary of me as I had passed my Certificate of Engineering which includes some quite advanced maths - theoretical stuff on transmission etc - only some of it useful...unless I was to continue and become a Professional Engineer. But I feel Professional Engineers and even mechanics need a wider cultural basis - realise that I have worked mostly at manual a labouring and other jobs (also as a Roading Tech at one stage) and one of my best (and handiest mates!) is a mechanic whose reading however is sadly limited...hmm ...I suppose I am wanting too much ..don't worry I am not in the "justice trap". But also it is one reason I supported (and I still support) Mao tse Tung's "Cultural Revolution" - in theory at least - and a lot in practice. I believe in the creative self-freeing of the working class and in revolution so that the people seize the means of production - this doesn't mean lessening of culture but a huge increase in creativity for everyone (potentially). This lies in the future - what will be the role of chess? [Kasparov misunderstood his grandfather's loyalty to Lenin (or Lenin's ideas) and wrongly equates "Communism" and the Russian hierarchy who were never "communist" however defined - he wrongly believes democracy will save Russia - for years - as Orwell pointed out in 1938, - "democracy" has been known to be a polite word for oppressive capitalism] |
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Jan-27-08
| | Richard Taylor: <whiteshark: <Richard Taylor: After all Chess didn't do Fischer or Morphy any good.> How do you know?> How does anyone know anything?
Good counter attack! |
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Jan-27-08
| | Richard Taylor: <Larsker: I always regard people who don't understand music with the greatest suspicion. It's like saying "I dont' understand breathing". Great musicians breathe music. Take music away from Mozart or Bach and what would they be? Saying that chess didn't do Fischer any good doesn't make sense. It's like saying "Breathing didn't do him any good". Fischer channeled his over-human nerdy intellect into chess, thereby creating art which gives us all pleasure. Tolstoi went half-mad in his old days, dying alone and freezing on a train station after having tried to create his own religion. So what? He wrote "War and peace" and "Anna Karenina". Maybe only over-intelligent and thereby half-crazy people can do things like that. Maypassant ended his days in a mad house. Geniuses are made of a special material.>
I know, I am a genius!!
You make some great good points - I like the breathing example or simile. I am checkmated a bit by what you have said! But (BTW) Tolstoi hated Lear - see Orwell's essay 'Lear Tolstoy and the Fool' in his book of essays ["Inside the Whale"]. The essay on Lear and Tolstoy is one of the most brilliant on the play (and Tolstoy and literature and religion etc and perhaps "renunciation") by anyone and in it the reason (or a very believable theory of) for Lear's and Tolstoy's suffering can be found. [But I do understand music - I play the piano for example - I meant had no ear for music - that is not good pitch or memory so I couldn't begin write it as Mozart could - or even to write the music for Three Blind Mice would be hard for me...I also meant that I _presently_ - key word - don't listen so much to it, particularly while reading or playing chess - I have loved music of almost all kinds for many years - albeit I am not a professional musician.] |
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Jan-27-08
| | Richard Taylor: Then there is the "counter example of Shakespear himself who stayed (as far as I know!) very sane - and got very rich also - by writing plays and being very busy as an actor. Tolstoi is a a fascinating example - I have always preferred Dostoevksy and Chekov - I didn't know about de Maupassant's madness - I read his stories as a teenager...and he was a friend of Victor Hugo and Flaubert at al - Hugo's "Les Miserables" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" I read as boy but only recently read any of his poetry - it is very beautiful. Flaubert was a great writer ["His Penelope was Flaubert" (or something similar) ... (Pound - in "Hugh Selwyn Mauberly" )...] |
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Jan-27-08
| | Richard Taylor: Some of Larsker's bio ponts!! It sounds too much like me!!??!!!!!! <7) Over and over again, on the message boards, you get entangled in fierce discussion - with yourself.>!!! How did Larsker know so much about me?
<6) You think that Botvinnik actually lived.> Of course he didn't - did? - didn't?
<5) # 5 and 4 on this list had to be removed to make room for your next posts.> Lol
<3) You count down the hours before the next tactical exercise of the day like a child on Christmas eve.> I started on here and soon found that the tactical exercise was like an infinite hole I could disappear into!!
I would find some main lines or what I was sure was the win - only to find a refutation so now I just play over the "insane" ones, and a lot of the others also - except the very easy ones... <67) You've forgotten basic skills of other parts of life - like counting down from 10.> Hmmmf!
<2) Everybody else gave up kibitzing because you take up all the server space. > Sorry! Everyone... |
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Jan-27-08
 | | Benzol: <Richard> There's always John Lennon's old saying "Genius Is Pain". Everybody loves what an artist produces but nobody wants to live with an artist. They are too driven and obsessed. The artist has it all in him (or her) and it just has to come out in some form of work or production. Everybody else is just driven crazy in the meantime. |
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| Jan-27-08 | | Sibahi: Dumb Question :
Why doesn't Fischer vs Spassky II have a page of its own ? |
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Jan-27-08
| | Benzol: <Why doesn't Fischer vs Spassky II have a page of its own ?> I hope it does when <chessgames> finishes the World Championship feature and gets it all indexed. Although most people didn't think of it as a WCC match except for one Robert James Fischer. |
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| Jan-27-08 | | zluria: Hi. I have an opening question. Right now on the internet I was playing white and I played the Italian: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 and my opponent played g6 (!?) Never having seen this move before, I assumed it must be very bad (otherwise I would have surely seen it somewhere before) and so I played 4. d4, reasoning that since g6 was a slower plan than Bc5 or Nf6, I should open up the center and attack at once.
To my horror, my opponent was able to defend f7 and castle easily, and indeed my playing d4 only increased the scope of his g7 bishop! So: does this opening have a name? Has it been refuted? what should I play against it? |
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Jan-27-08
 | | Open Defence: <Zluria> maybe you could post the complete game score as you might have lost due to a tactical oversight etc... but the move g6 alone does not entail an all out attack against f7 and maybe you should have built up pressure against the king side, no doubt g6 weakens the k side a bit, but did you try h4 some time during the game ? this would also depend on where your QN was in order to blunt Bg4 from Black |
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Jan-27-08
 | | technical draw: WGM Open Defense and WGM Red October are killing me at QA. So I must come to these conclusions: 1. I should not play the day after open heart surgery. 2. I should see my Optometrist as soon as possible.
3. Open defense Is Anand's sister,
4. Now I know why they have separate men's and women's tournament. (the men haven't got a chance) 5.I've been thinking too much about Wannabe's bar
6.And last, Maybe, just maybe she might be a better player. Thanks for the games QD and RO.....TD |
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| Jan-27-08 | | hitman84: This is a wonderful site! |
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| Jan-27-08 | | Larsker: <Richard Taylor: Tolstoi is a a fascinating example - I have always preferred Dostoevksy and Chekov> All three are fantastic.
Chekov the minimalist. So little happens. It's all in a gaze or a kiss - and the rest is waiting for something that never comes. His collected short stories are 8 tomes in Russian - one of those things to read before dying. Dostoyevskij the rugged Siberian (although he wasn't from there). The extremes of Russia. The psychological heatwaves and arctic coldness - the permafrost and the White nights. The most verbose of the bunch. Tolstoi the perfectionist. He dictated 7 whole editions of War and peace to his wife who claimed that she was the happiest woman on earth because she had the task to write down the 3000 pages seven times over. (And most readers don't even make it to page 50). I admire his Anna Karenina. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." That book is so incredibly well-written. I came to think of him because of that story about Fischer talking Icelandic after having heard 30 minutes of it. Tolstoi was a bit like that. He learned many languages, including many exotic ones, just as a pass-time. And that just the peak of Russian literature which more or less is only 200 years old. Gogol, Pasternak, Bunin (who received the Nobel Prize.), etc, etc. Many of them expatriats. Suffering is a part of the Russian soul. |
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Jan-27-08
 | | PhilFeeley: CG: Now that Corus is over, how about a Gibraltar page? http://www.gibraltarchesscongress.c... |
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Jan-27-08
| | technical draw: "Boys will, be boys and girls will be girls except for my Lola...I know I'm not the worlds most passionate guy but I wonder why she looks like a woman but talks like a man, my Lola, lo lo lo lola.... Lola...The Kinks ...1970 |
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| Jan-27-08 | | GeauxCool: Gibraltar (2008) |
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| Jan-27-08 | | be3292: <Richard Taylor> Good evening, Mate. Your comments regarding chess and poetry as being ill-advised remind me of an ancient joke you may have heard: A vacationer befriends a fellow at a resort, asks him if he would like to play chess. The fellow says, "No thanks, tried it once, didn't like it." The vacationer tries again, asks if he would enjoy a rubber of bridge. The fellow says, "No thanks, tried it once, didn't like it." Finally, the first man asks the second if he would play a game of tennis. "No thank you, but my son might give you a game." The vacationer says, "Your only child, I presume?" Keep smiling, Mate! |
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| Jan-27-08 | | be3292: <Richard Taylor> <Your comments regarding chess and poetry as being ill-advised> on the Kibitzer"s Cafe page 2937. |
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Jan-27-08
 | | BishopofBlunder: <technical draw: "Boys will, be boys and girls will be girls except for my Lola...I know I'm not the worlds most passionate guy but I wonder why she looks like a woman but talks like a man, my Lola, lo lo lo lola.... Lola...The Kinks ...1970>
I have always found that a disturbing song. It brings out my homophobic side. |
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Jan-28-08
| | Richard Taylor: <Larsker> I have a friend who collects Russsian books only - he started with Dostoevksy - I agree re the Russian writers (so many are so good)... I am also reading Mandelstam's poetry just now. I read Ana Karenina but I couldn't see that it was very good (maybe I need to re-read it) - I preferred George Eliot's "Middlemarch" but haven't read anything else by Tolstoi - I love Chekov's stories and his plays. Marilyn Monroe knew his plays almost perfectly BTW - she actually very well read. Of course she had other assets! I saw the film "Dr Zhivago" when it first came out. I would love to read more of Nabokov - one of my lecturers (Boyd) won an award with his 2 Vol Biog of Nabokov. My favourite is "Pale Fire". All these great writers! Dostoevski was an epileptic (or had some affliction like that). I carried "Dead Souls" round with me for years and finally lost the copy I had (I used to carry a big bag of books with me like they were a talisman - (e.g. I had a book about Che Guevara and what I liked about it was the picture of him on the cover!!)) - but I want to read (Dead Souls) - it fascinates me that Gogol was driven mad writing it! Fischer Queen and Eval are right into literature... I was doing pretty well in my first A Grade Tournament (since the 80s) earlier last year and my "taring" was reading a book about Shakespear! Then I made the mistake of trying to get one young opponent into complications and studied the Kings Gambit all night!! (I was prepared to sacrifice my king's knight). But I lost - not by his good chess - but from fatigue...he refused the gambit and we entered what was essentially an = position; but I blundered from fatigue - my only loss except for one against a +2000 player. The same young fellow won the recent tournament I was in ... I know now that it is a waste of time trying to out play him but he would be easy to = lise against.
He is sharp but not really that good or as good as I can be. So I have wandered but my point(s) is (are):
a) sometimes reading non chess things is good in a tournament b) studying openings up late is very stupid during a tournament - just try to play logical chess and watch out for blunders. So for a) take a book (or listen to music) & for b) try not to study chess during a tournament (especially after 10 pm or at least 11 pm.) And don't take a cell phone!! |
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Jan-28-08
| | Richard Taylor: <Benzol: <Richard> There's always John Lennon's old saying "Genius Is Pain". Everybody loves what an artist produces but nobody wants to live with an artist. They are too driven and obsessed. The artist has it all in him (or her) and it just has to come out in some form of work or production. Everybody else is just driven crazy in the meantime.> I cant live with myself!!
But I see there is a film - something like "Living with Beethoven" wonder if that is any good? I mean the film! |
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Jan-28-08
| | Richard Taylor: This game finished with bang and not a whimper!
[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "freechess.org"]
[Date "2007.02.25"]
[Round "?"]
[White "galeon"]
[Black "ChessBook"]
[Result "*"]
[WhiteElo "1653"]
[BlackElo "1535"]
[ECO "B02"]
[TimeControl "120+12"]
1. e4 Nf6 2. e5 Nd5 3. Bc4 Nb6 4. Bb3 d6 5. Nf3 g6 6. O-O Bg7 7. Qe2 O-O 8.
a4 a5 9. d3 d5 10. Be3 N8d7 11. Nbd2 e6 12. h4 c5 13. h5 Qc7 14. hxg6 fxg6
15. Bg5 Nxe5 16. Rfe1 Ng4 17. g3 Bd7 18. c3 Rae8 19. Nh2 Nxf2 20. Kg2 c4
21. dxc4 dxc4 22. Nxc4 Bc6+ 23. Kg1 Nh3#
* |
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Jan-28-08
| | Richard Taylor: Amusing mate v a 1783 Blitzer!
[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "freechess.org"]
[Date "2007.03.07"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Kompete"]
[Black "ChessBook"]
[Result "*"]
[WhiteElo "1783"]
[BlackElo "1458"]
[ECO "B90"]
[TimeControl "120+12"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be3 e5 7. Nb3 Be6 8.f3 Be7 9. Qd2 Nc6 10. O-O-O Qc7 11. g4 O-O 12. g5 Nd7 13. Nd5 Bxd5 14. exd5 Nd4 15. Nxd4 exd4 16. Bxd4 Rac8 17. f4 Nc5 18. Bh3 Rcd8 19. Bg2 Rfe8 20. h4 Bf8 21. h5 Ne4 22. Qd3 Nc5 23. Qf1 Rc8 24. c3 b5 25. f5 b4 26. h6 bxc3 27. Bxc3 Na4 28. Rd3 Qb6 29. Qg1 Qxb2+ 
click for larger view30. Kd1 Qe2+ 31. Kc1 Rxc3+ 32. Rxc3 Qb2+33. Kd1 Nxc3#
* |
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Jan-28-08
| | Richard Taylor: Corridor mate at the speed of light!
[Event "rated blitz match"]
[Site "freechess.org"]
[Date "2007.01.18"]
[Round "?"]
[White "makarp"]
[Black "ChessBook"]
[Result "*"]
[WhiteElo "1433"]
[BlackElo "1480"]
[ECO "B20"]
[TimeControl "180"]
1. e4 c5 2. Bc4 e6 3. c3 d5 4. exd5 exd5 5. Bb3 Nc6 6. d4 Be6 7. f4 Nf6 8.
Nf3 Bd6 9. Ne5 cxd4 10. cxd4 O-O 11. Nc3 a6 12. O-O Rc8 13. a3 Nxd4 14. f5
Nxf5 15. Bg5 Bxe5 16. Nxd5 Bxd5 17. Bxf6 Qxf6 18. Qxd5 Bd4+ 19. Kh1 Black to move and win in 3 - sure it does help to be a piece up! 
click for larger viewNg3+ 20. hxg3 Qh6+ 0-1
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Jan-28-08
 | | ahmadov: Anyone who wish to play a correspondence game can challenge me on gameknot.com... |
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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 2937 OF 4911 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
