Name: James Kulbacki . I prefer to go by "Jim".Home: Cheyenne, Wyoming USA
Rating: about 1900, peak rating: 2155
Current USCF status: http://www.uschess.org/msa/MbrDtlMa...
Favorite player: You fill in the blank, chess players are my family!
By the way, "Resignation Trap" is an anagram for Tigran Petrosian.
Before my first chess tournament, I came thoroughly prepared by reading Reuben Fine's "Basic Chess Endings" and a few other books by him which I could find in local book stores.
The result of my first tournament was a much-needed heavy dose of reality: four losses and one draw for a provisional rating of 992. I was disheartened, but I kept going to tournaments, as they provided me with a refuge away from the drudgeries of high school and my miserable family.
I also came to the conclusion that my World Championship title had to be postponed until 1981 at the earliest!
Conventional learning methods have rarely worked for me. Fate keeps pulling silly jokes on me: I studied works by Reuben Fine, and I ended up playing like Larry Fine. Larry Fine is the person on my avatar, for more information click here: http://www.stoogeworld.com/_Biograp... .
I specialize in collecting biographical and autobiographical books about chessplayers. I have at least one book on each of the following players:
Michael Adams , Vladimir Alatortsev , Alexander Alekhine , Viswanathan Anand , Adolf Anderssen , Yuri Averbakh , Yuri Balashov , Sergey Vesevolodovich Belavenets ,
Alexander Beliavsky , Joel Benjamin , Pal Benko , Sidney Norman Bernstein , Arthur Bisguier ,
Joseph Henry Blackburne , Efim Bogoljubov , Isaac Boleslavsky , Viktor Bologan , Mikhail Botvinnik , David Bronstein , Jose Raul Capablanca , Magnus Carlsen ,
Rudolf Rezso Charousek , Maia Chiburdanidze , Mikhail Chigorin , Alexey Dreev ,
Fyodor Ivanovich Dus Chotimirsky , Billy Colias , Edgar Colle , Harlow Bussey Daly , Arnold Denker , Roman Dzindzichashvili , Max Euwe , Robert James Fischer , Salomon Flohr , Semyon Abramovich Furman , Nona Gaprindashvili , Boris Gelfand , Efim Geller , Aivars Gipslis , Svetozar Gligoric , Viktor Arsentievich Goglidze , Eduard Gufeld , Asa Hoffmann ,
Maria Ivanka-Budinsky , David Janowski , Xie Jun , Gata Kamsky , Anatoli Karpov , Garry Kasparov , Paul Keres , Alexander Khalifman , Ratmir Kholmov , Alexander Konstantinopolsky , Viktor Korchnoi , Alexander Kotov , Vladimir Kramnik , Viktor Kupreichik , Bent Larsen , Emanuel Lasker , Grigory Levenfish , Andre Lilienthal , Anatoly S Lutikov , Vladimir Andreevich Makogonov , Geza Maroczy , Frank James Marshall ,
Henrique Mecking , Vladas Ivanovich Mikenas , Anthony Miles , Paul Morphy , Miguel Najdorf , Rashid Gibiatovich Nezhmetdinov , Aron Nimzowitsch , John Nunn , Vasily Panov , Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian , Vladimir Petrov , Harry Nelson Pillsbury , Judit Polgar , Lev Polugaevsky , Lajos Portisch , Viacheslav Ragozin , Samuel Reshevsky , Richard Reti , Peter Arsenievich Romanovsky , Akiba Rubinstein , Anthony Santasiere ,
Carl Schlechter , Jennifer Shahade , Alexey Shirov , Nigel Short ,
Vladimir Simagin , Vasily Smyslov , Ivan Sokolov ,
Boris Spassky , Jonathan Speelman , Rudolf Spielmann , Howard Staunton , Leonid Stein , Wilhelm Steinitz , Alexey Suetin , Laszlo Szabo , Mark Taimanov , Mikhail Tal , Siegbert Tarrasch , Savielly Tartakower , Richard Teichmann , Jan Timman ,
Alexander Kazimirovich Tolush , Olaf Ulvestad , Milan Vidmar , Daniel Yanofsky , Frederick D Yates , Alexander Zaitsev , and Elmars Zemgalis .
If you have questions about these players (or others, for that matter) just ask! If you wish to contribute a book to my collection, please do!
As for the surname <Kulbacki>, for many years, I thought that it originated from the Polish word "kulbac" = "saddle" in English. However, a few years ago, out of curiosity, I found a website with my name on it, and I put it through an online Polish-to-English translation service. Its translation of "Kulbacki" (and I am a little embarrassed to admit this): "Halibut" !! See: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kulbak... . For many years, I had always called weaker chessplayers "fish", but now I use "patzers".
Away from chess, I provide vehicle transportation for railroad employees, driving for Express Shuttle, Inc., along the I-25 corridor, from Casper, Wyoming to Denver, Colorado. If you click on one of these webcamera sites, there is a slight chance that you will see my black 2005 Suburban moving along: http://www.wyoroad.info/highway/web... in Casper. Or http://www.wyoroad.info/highway/web... in Bordeaux (a very windy place where many trucks get overturned).
For the weather in Cheyenne, just click here: http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin... .
On March 17, 2007, I was a participant in the Wyoming Championship....of Burrito Eating! This was no ordinary burrito, it was a "Gutbuster" which weighs three pounds (1.36 kg). I finished fourth overall (no prize). In the following video, you can see me in the upper right of the screen (male-pattern baldness, white shirt), trying to scarf down this monstrous meal: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCeJ... . There was no entry fee, and the burrito was free as well!
