<WannaBe> My alibi is that I along with the rest of the country was holding my breath watching the All Blacks defending like demons against the French onslaught at Eden Park. The All Blacks just squeaked home 8 - 7 in a nailing biting finish that had everyone on the edge of their seats. Good thing that today is a national holiday and the fans can recover from the celebrations. Can someone give me a bit of the hair of the dog please.

They did the Haka and POLICE showed up and maced them.

I sincerely apologize for American ignorance of Foreign Culture.

There is a good alternatiive in the B20 Sicilian.

It goes 1 e4 c5 2 b3.

Check out the games of Tamaz Gelashvili. He is like +44 with White!

Great stuff.

From a correspondence game Kinnier vs. Jaeger, published in the chess column of the <Atlanta Sunny South>, October 4, 1879:

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At this point, White announced mate in 34 moves. They did that sort of thing in the 19th century. The editor noted:

<"It is thought the announced mate is not forced, and that the position is drawn. Considering this possibility, and in order to afford our readers some amusement, Mr. Jaeger authorizes us to say, that he will give a copy of <Morphy's Games> to the first amateur who proves, by analysis, that the position is drawn instead of being a win for White.">

So there's your chance. While Mr. Jaeger himself has surely long since passed on, I'm sure his descendants will be glad to honor his generous offer.

But good luck. I'm not going to try to figure it out 34 moves in advance, but it sure looks like a win for White. He marches his king up, wins Black's h-pawn, and promotes his own h-pawn in 10 moves. By that time, it doesn't look like Black can do better than get a pawn to the 7th, since he has to waste a move to capture White's e-pawn.

My friends liked especially the end:

"How much,Travis?"
(clears the meter)
"So long".

<Dear chess friend,

my name is Lothar Hirneise. I am president of the new Amateur Chess Organization (ACO).

We are the new World Chess Organization for amateur chess players. And we are an independent organization and not connected to FIDE.

99% of all chess players are amateurs and the so far only world chess federation FIDE is almost exclusively dedicated to professional chess. Because this trend has increased tremendously over the last few years the establishment of a new world chess organization especially for amateur players under 2400 ELO was a necessary consequence.

More information about the ACO you will find on our webpage www.amateurchess.com

From 2012 on we are hosting two World Championships for amateur chess players:

World Amateur Chess Championship from 06 -15 July 2012 in Dubai

Playing venue will be the 5 star hotel Jebel Ali Golf Resort & Spa, where also the participants will stay during the tournament. Highlight of this event will be the prize giving ceremony + gala dinner. Therefore the 7-star hotel Burj Al-Arab grants entrance to the most luxurious ballroom of the world, the Al-Falak-Ballroom which is located at 250 meters, exclusively for the participants of the ACO World Amateur Chess Championship.

World Youth Chess Championship from 04 - 12 August 2012 at Disneyland Paris

Playing venue will be the conference room of Disney’s Hotel New York.

The children (U8 – U20) will play their games of chess in the morning so that they can spend their afternoon at the two Disney parks. The participants stay in 3 different Disney hotels.

But organizing chess tournaments is only a part of our work:

In the beginning of 2012 we will be introducing our own chess server with lots of novelties in chess playing, chess community and social exchange among chess players.

Besides our web pages we are also developing a new rating system in cooperation with systemic and mathematical experts that firstly improves on the existing defects of the ELO-System. Secondly it considers the entire chess player, not just his classical chess performances. Thirdly it does not cause such high costs for tournament organizers as the ELO-System does now.

You see there is happening something positive (finally) again in the world of chess. ACO will be focusing on intensifying and recreating the pleasure of playing chess.

For this purpose we have called on our website to the competition

"Create YOUR chess organization". We are looking for creative ideas on how the ACO can improve the chess world for amateurs. Proposals can be submitted until December 31th, 2011. The ACO will be awarding the best idea with a paid starting place for the ACO World Amateur Championship in Dubai, 2012.

To continue keeping you up to date on the development of the ACO we will be informing you at irregular intervals.

Yours sincerely,

Lothar Hirneise

President ACO>

1. g3 g5
2. d4

Calling it a Benko Opening with 2. d4 (notice the change from 2. d3 to 2. d4, same vein -sorry my mistake-, name but with a different variation with permutation).

Then,

1. g3 g6
2. d3 (Benko Opening: Symmetrical)

1. g3 g6
2. d4 (Benko Opening: Symmetrical with 2. d4)

1. g4 g5
2. d3 (Grob Opening: Doble Grob)

1. g4 g5
2. d4 (Grob Opening: Doble Grob with 2. d4)

And

1. g4 g6
2. d3 (Spike Opening Deferred)

finally,

If we have

1. c4 d5
2. e3 ...

Should it be d5xc4, or should it advance to d4?

If we have

1. c4 d5
2. e4 ...

No problemo. Some times it takes DAYS to fix this computer after a power outage. I imagine serious owies for big servers. Blown up circuits. Old Testament wrath of God. Total chaos.

And usually the BIOS gets blown away as well. Which means complete memory loss of all settings and the method to boot the computer up.

It kind of acts like old age!

I was reduced to reading my email.

He has now left it to me in his will. Anyone wishing for a GM or IM title or a free ride on a UFO can have it for £5000 sterling or equivalent. No euros, please.

<1. Over the past five years, which top-20 player was least likely to have a "bad draw" in games against other top-20 opponents (meaning the game was agreed drawn within 30 ply of the novel position)? There is a clear winner in this category…

2. Over the past five years, which top-20 player played the deepest novelties on average against other top-20 opponents (looking only at move depth)? His novelties averaged almost 30 ply (Move 15), a full ply ahead of anyone else.

3. Conversely, which two top-20 players deviated from theory earliest (on average) in their games against other top-20 opponents during the past five years? Their novelties averaged less than 24 ply.

4. In these elite games between top-20 opponents since 2006, which player was the most likely to get their novelty in first? He played a novelty in a remarkable 65% of such games, far ahead of the rest of the crowd.

5. In these elite games, which player was least likely to play a novelty, instead sticking to known theory until the bitter end? He played a novelty in only 41% of such games between top-20 opponents since 2006.

6. What is the only ECO code with nine or more "elite" games since 1980 where the draw rate was 100% in those games?

click for larger view

Played in game 16 of their 1985 match, Karpov tried to hold onto the pawn and was crushed as White - the famous 'octopus' game. But it turned out a Hungarian named Dely had played it in the 1960s, so it was called the Kasparov-Dely Gambit for a while.

There are many such examples. So, when you talk of a 'novelty' is it literally the first time a move is played? Or its introduction to current use at top GM level?

Some people annotate games by pointing out the first 'non-book' move. Sometimes this is the first move not in MCO, or not in their computer's opening book, or not in the CG database. You'll almost always find that it's been played before, somewhere.

Also, top GMs would draw even more games if they weren't willing to play dubious moves in the late opening and early middlegame. The old Lasker ploy - unbalance the game, even if it creates a weakness. Ivanchuk finds daft TNs regularly, along with some brilliant ones. But it can be hard to tell which is which.

I find Sonas's analysis very innaresting. But look at his first graph, showing, roughly, the % of draws between top-20 players from 1980 to 2010. Look at the curve, and the actual data points, between 1980 and 1985.

Sonas has it holding steady around 60%. In fact it rose sharply for four years, from about 58% to 70%. His 60% is an average, but with way too much smoothing.

The rise in those years has what mathematicians call a DNIS: a Damn Nearly Infinite Slope.

Another point. Who, or what, is a top-20 player? How many games did they play between themselves 30-40 years ago? All-elite tournaments are common now - with almost 100 players rated over 2700. In 1980, Karpov was about 2690, and well on top of the list. About 2570 was top 20 material.

The total number of such games is an important part of the data. The fall and rise of the world championship cycle between 1993 and 2009 is also important -- when there's a proper WC cycle players (eg Anand) reserve their best innovations for title matches. But with no cycle the moves get tried in tournaments.

Then he found God, and I went off him for a few years. I tuned back into His Bobness in the 90s, but I'd missed a few songs in the meantime.

Now I find his religious stuff quite impressive, but his grasp of human psychology leaves a lot to be desired. He thinks the woman in the song will never change?

Is this the same guy who wrote 'Positively 4th Street' and 'Idiot Wind'?