My YouTube channel, featuring pronunciations of non-English chess player names: http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnieK1...

I'm 38 y/o, living in Israel and hoping to ummigrate* to Canada eventually. I speak English (no, really), Hungarian (great language!), and Hebrew (if I must, which is often, for some reason).

*reference: Domdaniel chessforum

Afflicted with an uncontrollable sense of humor and other highly controversial characteristics.

I learned chess as a child, but had no further opportunities to practice the game. Returned to it seriously around 2004, and have been hanging out here since. :)

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<My City of Moscow skits:>

<<<<<<>>>>> Kramnik's Party -> City of Moscow

<<<<<<>>>>> Sochi 2008: An F-Files Production -> City of Moscow

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<My puns that have been used for the Game of the Day:>

Warning: Gedult Content - Roterman vs D Gedult, 1967 - GOTD Feb-24-13

Show Stopa - J Stopa vs D Kuljasevic, 2007 - GOTD Nov-27-12

Turkish Delight - Strickland vs The Turk, 1820 - GOTD Nov-22-12

Judge Judy - Judy vs Lady B., 1853 - GOTD Aug-19-12

Y Yu No Claim Repetition? - Y Yu vs M R Venkatesh, 2012 - GOTD Jun-30-12

All Your Baze Are Belong To Us - L Baze vs T Palmer, 2004 - GOTD Mar-21-10

Enders' Game - Uhlmann vs P Enders, 1985 - GOTD Mar-13-10

Tony Award - T Palmer vs R Present, 1986 - GOTD Oct-24-09

Login Problems - I Kurnosov vs V A Loginov, 2002 - GOTD Aug-15-09

An Happel, a Day - H Happel vs L Day, 2001 - GOTD Jul-27-09

Kuemin Get It! - S Kuemin vs R Staechelin, 2005 - GOTD Jul-12-09

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<My other (linkable) site contributions:>

* The Carlsen Dancing Rook: http://www.chessgames.com/chessimag...

* The Player Names Pronunciation Project: http://www.chessgames.com/audio

* Created on my suggestion: Biographer Bistro

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<<<<<<< MAJOR CHESS SITES <<>>>>>>>>>

<< Correspondence chess <<<<<<>>>>>>>>

< ChessWorld -> http://www.chessworld.net

ChessWorld is my new main chess playing base. It's a rather restrictive site for non-paying members, but one of the best sites for paying members. The full features include excellent interface options and first class study and analysis resources. Nice community, likeable admin. Paid membership recommended.

< Update: while I will leave the original entry for ChessWorld as-is, I have by now been a member of the site for 2 years, and am now an admin there. I still think the site is one of the best, and the <other> admins are nice. :p >

My ChessWorld profile: http://www.letsplaychess.com/chessc...

< Queen Alice -> http://www.queenalice.com

Queen Alice is a charming site - well behaved players, decent admin, site design visually very pleasant. It is also completely free. Unfortunately, it lacks team play, the interface and resources are relatively simple, and it can be frustratingly slow (loading times). Nevertheless warmly recommended.

My QueenAlice profile: http://www.queenalice.com/player.ph...

< GameKnot -> http://gameknot.com

GameKnot is technically an excellent site, however I would not recommend it to the serious player who is looking for a site to settle in, due to an anti$ocial admin with ju$t one $ingle intere$t in hi$ $ite... oop$, $orry about the typo$.

My GameKnot profile: http://gameknot.com/stats.pl?annie-....

<< Other chess sites <<<<<<>>>>>>>>

< FICS - the Free Internet Chess Server -> http://www.freechess.org

FICS is a great site to play chess at various faster time controls. There are a few difficulties getting started with it - first, it can be hard to find an email they will accept for registration; and second, there's a lot of site code to learn. But it's worth the hassle. :)

< ChessCube -> http://www.chesscube.com

ChessCube is a relatively new site. Quite good for fast time control games - provided you have a strong computer with broadband, as the site is entirely Flash based, which means HEAVY on the resources. If you have an older computer or limited net access, don't even bother to register. Note for ChessCube players: I'm finding that the site works best (i.e. is least buggy) with Google's Chrome browser. If IE, FireFox, or Opera are giving you trouble, try accessing the site with Chrome (despite its not being one of the browsers recommended by them).

< Emrald Chess Tactics Server -> http://chess.emrald.net

Emrald is not a playing site - it is an invaluable tactical training asset. The only problem with it is also the difficulty of finding an "acceptable" email address to register with; but once past that hurdle, the site deserves nothing but praise.

It's a completely free site. You can play (practice) there as a guest, but they recommend registering, so that their program can keep track of your progress, in order to assign you puzzles best suited to your current level. I strongly second that recommendation. Register and always play logged in! It will make a huge difference in the site's ability to help you improve. An issue that scares some people off Emrald is that your progress is tracked via a "rating system", and because of the high importance they assign to speed, if you are not used to finding tactics fast, your rating will be very low at first - and many people are simply embarrassed to play logged in for that reason. Don't let it bother you! If you let embarrassment hold you back from letting the site help you improve to the best of its ability, you are only shooting yourself in the foot, and nobody else really cares that much anyway. ;p

A few of the people I've recommended Emrald to, had dropped it after a brief trial with remarks along the lines of "Oh, it's a blitz training site. I don't play blitz, so I don't like their obsession with speed." That reaction is absolutely wrong - and it's also one that many people who try the site out for only a short time are likely to have, if only because players who are used to being rated, say, 2000 and above, at corr. chess sites, are going to be annoyed and put on the defensive about finding themselves rated as low as 1200-1300 at Emrald, and will wish to dismiss the "insulting" site.

Yes, the Emrald rating system is heavily influenced by speed. But thinking that the site's purpose is blitz training is a complete misunderstanding of the lesson taught. The real purpose of Emrald practice is not to improve your blitz skills, but to train you to recognize dozens of tactical themes and opportunities AT A GLANCE - which will not only save you time in games of any time control, but is often the only way you will catch them AT ALL. Those brilliant tactical shots that can be seen in anyone's collection of "most memorable games", are often moves that will either occur to you as soon as you glance at the position, or you will miss them altogether. That's what Emrald really teaches - tactical chess intuition.

<Intuition in chess can be defined as the first move that comes to mind when you see a position. --- <World Champion Viswanathan Anand>>

<Personally, I am of the view that if a strong master does not see such a threat at once he will not notice it, even if he analyses the position for twenty or thirty minutes. --- <Tigran Petrosian >>

<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>

^ TL;DR.