acirce Member since Feb-22-04 <I'm always hearing (and reading) that "If the players of yesteryear could only catch up with opening theory, they'd be as good or better than today's players". The funny thing is that the many years (usually decades) of study that modern players put into opening theory should not only count towards their strength, but that study and practice contributes vastly to their understanding of the middlegame and even some endgames. The silly idea that you can just 'catch up' in opening theory ignores the vast undertaking that this would involve, especially to absorb the vast number of openings and opening variations necessary to a complete chess education.> -- John Watson

acirce has kibitzed 27696 times to chessgames   [more...]

Apr-01-13 World Championship Candidates (2013)    acirce: Holy @#$%.      Dec-16-12 Karpov vs Kasparov, 1987   acirce: <I have to admit that Karpov's uncertain play in this game disoriented me and created a rather bad psychological effect before the match in Seville. I stopped treating him with proper respect, I ceased fearing even his favourite positions where his opponent had chronic weaknesses,      Dec-15-12 Karpov-Kasparov World Championship Match (1984)    acirce: Karpov himself explained that when signing he thought Kasparov too would accept the fait accompli and sign it as well. Meanwhile, a little later, while Karpov made public statements that he wanted, even demanded, the match to be restarted, there was this official statement from ...      Dec-10-12 London Chess Classic (2012)    acirce: <what in the world was kramnik thinking? playing against someone who'd be satisfied with a draw and he tries the berlin wall variation of the spanish game? players have shown time and again that they'll play the lame Re1 variation and then you have virtually no hope to get a ...      Dec-10-12 Judit Polgar vs Aronian, 2012    acirce: Well, I don't think that was a drawback in this case. As soon as 8..d5 was played, my thought was "Ok so they both just want to draw and go home".      Jul-20-12 Dortmund (2012)    acirce: <I've always played won endgames poorly and couldn’t even tell you why myself. Perhaps I relax too soon. It’s when the evaluation isn’t yet clear, or , that I play ...      Jul-08-12 Kasparov vs Karpov, 1984    acirce: 33.Qe5 was played, not 33.Qf4 as given here.      Jul-01-12 Nigel Short    acirce: Cool. No problem. No, fairly sure I didn't intend it as a "sneer" - it's just remarkable that he finished last in Linares - when it had 14 participants - in the same year as he beat Karpov, no? (Which was also in Linares incidentally, not long after the tournament.) I mean, the win ...      Jun-14-12 Tal Memorial (2012)    acirce: <Nothing against Kramnik, but he is too cautious to win an event named for Tal.> I know it's cheap to point out the obvious, that he is now in fact in shared lead, but he's also won it twice before. Once with a 1.5 points margin..      Jun-10-12 Radjabov vs Kramnik, 2012    acirce: Well, it wasn't a Falkbeer. Falkbeer is 3..e4. This was just a way of playing the Modern (2..exf4 3.Nf3 d5) but without allowing 3.Bc4.

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