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| Sep-03-08 |
| Petrosianic: <Huebner's 2 victories in the German championship were separated by a gap of 32 years (1967 & 1999).> That beats Geller's drought in Soviet Championship victories (1955 and 1979). Unfortunately, national championships just aren't held in the same esteem they used to be. Top players rarely deign to try for them. I think Larsen went over 30 years without playing in the Danish Championship. Once he became a world title contender, it was just beneath him. At the turn of the last century, it was different. Same with Anand. He won the Indian Championship 3 times, but the last time was in the 1980's. He stopped trying once he became a world class GM. Of the World Champions, Euwe had the most national titles, with 13. Capablanca and Kramnik have none at all. Alekhine won the 1st Soviet Championship in 1920, but never tried again, and never went near the French Championship. Sad in a way. |
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| Oct-01-08 |
| Cactus: <Petrosianic> I think an exception is the Soviet championships, seeing as the top Soviet players were the top players in the world for the longest time. |
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| Oct-01-08 |
| Petrosianic: That's true, although there was some incentive there. The US and Soviet Championships were also Zonal tournaments, so anybody with any hopes for the world title had to play in them. |
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| Oct-02-08 |
| Brown: Was it the <Soviet> championship in <1920>? |
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| Oct-02-08 |
| Petrosianic: The 1920 tournament is retroactively called the 1st Soviet Championship, but at the time it was just called something like the Russian Olympiad, or something like that. |
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Oct-02-08
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| whiteshark: <Brown>: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia... :D |
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Dec-13-08
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| whiteshark: "Cologne native Robert Hübner, for example, once ranked third in the world, stopped playing for the German national team in protest against doping tests. He refuses to accept the rules of modern sports, because he does not consider chess a sport. Instead, Hübner believes that it belongs in the "realm of cultural assets." He considers doping tests to be a bureaucratic show of power, and he believes that the tests are degrading and deprive the individual of rights and responsibilities. Drug tests will be introduced into Germany's federal chess league next year, and when that happens, says Hübner, he will give up his career immediately." http://www.spiegel.de/international... leaving after the 2000 Istanbul Olympiad: http://www.olimpbase.org/players/7v... (where FIDE tried doping tests for the first time, I think) |
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Dec-13-08
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| whiskeyrebel: Man, he hit the nail right on the head. Good for you Mr. Huebner, I wish more people had the testicular fortitude to stand up to humiliating pee tests. |
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| Mar-07-09 |
| TobusRex: Heubner's stance on "doping tests" is very principled and admirable. Is he still active as a player? The last I checked, some years ago, he was still active in the Bundesliga. |
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Mar-07-09
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| Karpova: He played in the Swiss Chess League in 2007 and 2008. |
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| Mar-07-09 |
| Aspirador: <Huebner's stance on "doping tests" is very principled and admirable.> "Principled" is a flexible word. I would say that Hübner has always been very egocentric and was never playing with a full deck. |
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| Mar-07-09 |
| TobusRex: Whoever came up with the idea of drugtesting for chessplayers is the one not playing with a full deck. What drug is proven to allow one to play better chess? If you know what it is, let me know, my game needs all the help it can get. |
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| Mar-07-09 |
| Aspirador: <TobusRex> I'm clearly not an expert but amphetamines might. It's not so out of line. |
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Mar-07-09
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| acirce: <Robert Hübner [...] stopped playing for the German national team in protest against doping tests.> Good for him and yes, indeed principled. If you hate the rules so much, don't play. Don't do like Ivanchuk, who played but didn't want to follow the rules. |
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Mar-07-09
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| acirce: <Aspirador> Yes, they might indeed. I've never understood this idea that doping tests in chess are so absurd. |
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Mar-07-09
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| KingG: <Aspirador> I agree. For example the mathemetician Paul Erdos claimed he was incapable of producing any decent mathematics if he wasn't on amphetamines. <Erdös threw himself into mathematics more completely than ever before. He began taking pills, lots of them. He started with anti-depressants and then moved on to amphetamines. Whenever he met childrenepsilonsErdös liked to amuse them with a trick. He would fish a bottle of Benzedrine out of his pocket, throw it up in the air and catch it at the last possible moment.Erdös's drug use worried his friends. Once Ron Graham tried to get him to quit by betting him five hundred dollars that he could not stop taking pills for a month. Erdös went cold-turkey for a month. Accepting Graham's check he said: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month." He began taking amphetamines again and mathematics once more progressed at his frenetic pace.> http://bookbuzz.com/MBIO_About_Erdo... |
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| Mar-15-09 |
| mack: Innaresting tail-end of a conversation here. A couple of weekends ago I returned home at about eight in the morning, having not slept for about forty hours. As you may have guessed, amphetamines were to blame. I had taken all sorts of things - a bit of MDMA and a couple of lines of coke, as well as the daily helpings of booze and fags. The main culprit, however, was speed. I'd consumed obscene amounts of speed (all very 1990s, I know) and was wholly unsure as to whether I'd sleep ever again. (I should point out right here and now that this is not some sort of macho story about how cool drugs are. I am simply a desperately unsatisfied person with few responsibilities.) Needless to say, I was in a bit of a state -- so much so, in fact, that I decided to start playing online blitz, something I really try to avoid these days. The point is this: I played sixteen games, with a record of +14 -1 =1. I was playing on chesscube and so sadly (and infuriatingly, for scientific purposes) the game scores were not automatically saved. I remember that opponents ranged from about 1780 to 2100, though. My overwhelming feeling is that amphetamines were exceedingly beneficial for my game - combinations were easier to calculate and presented themselves more easily in the first place; intuition seemed stronger. I remember an increase in exchange sacrifices on my part, and that I was also acutely aware of positional ideas based on light/dark square domination. The experiment must be repeated under more controlled circumstances. |
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| Apr-25-09 |
| WhiteRook48: see Huebner vs K Rogoff, 1972 and you'll get very strange blunders |
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Jun-22-09
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| Karpova: <Hübner, he said, was clearly an exceptionally clever man, but an incident involving the plastic frog in gondoliers hat and striped jersey at the end of Keenes bath had shown that he suffered from the standard German lack of a sense of humour. Keene had indicated the frog with the words, Look, Robert Der Toad in Venedig.
Hübner, a fluent English speaker, had just looked blank, and had difficulty even when the joke was explained to him.> From page 20 of "Ex Acton ad Astra", Kingpin, Spring 2007 Link: http://www.kingpinchess.net/wp-cont... |
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| Jun-22-09 |
| returnoftheking: Haha brilliant read, and although maybe a little over the top, it is casting our esteemed kibitzers Eric Schiller and Ray Keene in a much deserved light. |
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Jun-23-09
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| HeMateMe: Huebner is a strange guy. He lost two Candidates matches on tie breaks, and I think he resigned a third because he just didnt feel like playing. Seven years near the top. Thats about how long most top players have, and Huebner couldn't seem to make the most of his opportunities. |
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Jun-23-09
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| talisman: <Karpova> that was an interesting article. Who is the author? |
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Jul-02-09
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| whiteshark: <kingpin> - never spoil a good story for the sake of truth. |
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| Aug-02-09 |
| kurtrichards: GM Robert Huebner,in 1993, served as a second to GM Nigel Short in his attempt to win the WCC against GM Kasparov. |
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| Nov-06-09 |
| WhiteRook48: happy birthday! |
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