User Profile: Annie K.

Annie K.
Member since Apr-02-04 · Last seen May-20-13

Annie Kappel
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. :)
---
<My City of Moscow skits:>
<<<<<<>>>>> Kramnik's Party -> City of Moscow
<<<<<<>>>>> Sochi 2008: An F-Files Production -> City of Moscow
---
<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
---
<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
---
<<<<<<< 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.

Any other questions, feel free to ask. I might even answer. ;p

>> Click here to see Annie K.'s game collections.

   Current net-worth: -68 chessbucks
[what is this?]

   Annie K. has kibitzed 4788 times to chessgames [more...]

   May-19-13 jessicafischerqueen chessforum

Annie K.: <Jess: < It's high time for an audiovisual aid>> OK then - here's also a very useful quick guide to speaking fluent Chinese! ;) http://demots.co.uk/web/gfx/mo-chin...

   May-19-13 Annie K. chessforum

Annie K.: Heh, thanks <Ohio>! :)

   May-18-13 Domdaniel chessforum

...

   May-17-13 dakgootje chessforum

Annie K.: Well, that didn't go so well. ;s

   May-17-13 chessgames.com chessforum

Annie K.: You're welcome! Yes, r�t means meadow or grassland, so R�ti means something like "grasslander", a person from the savanna. :)

   May-08-13 Chessgames Bookie chessforum

Annie K.: <Bookie> a payoff on the pick-3 would be sortof very appreciated... ;)

   May-06-13 Computer

Annie K.: This just belongs here. ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkqi...

   Apr-25-13 crawfb5 chessforum

Annie K.: No contradiction, is there? ;)

   Apr-19-13 lotsapoppa chessforum

Annie K.: User: lol :D

   Apr-01-13 Carlsen vs Svidler, 2013

Annie K.: So... whose brilliant idea was to have this supremely important last round played on April 1...? ;s

indicates a reply to the comment.

Procrastinators' Club (planned)

< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 138 OF 167 · Later Kibitzing>
Jul-18-12		visayanbraindoctor: <dogs remaining an immature wolf> <<craw> agreed :) - and as <visayanbraindoctor> pointed out here a while back, humans are physically neotenic primates to start with.> These are not rare peculiar cases in our taxonomic family tree. There is a hypothesis that vertebrates arose by neoteny from tunicate-like chordates in the distant past. As a Biology major student once, I used to memorize the major characteristics of Phylum Chordata to which we and other vertebrates (animals with a spine and backbones) belong. These are pharyngeal slits (for gills, which persist in humans as the Eustachian tube from the ear to the throat), the endostyle (which persists in us as our thyroid gland), a dorsally located hollow central nervous system that is an in-pouching of the ectoderm layer, a post anal tail (which persists in humans as our coccyx), the notochord (remnants of which persists in us as our intervertebral discs). The notoCHORD is the stiff but non-mineralized tissue on which our vertebrae develops, and it is present in all chordate animals. It is so prominent in our Phylum's fossils and living creatures that CHORDates are named after it. In vertebrates, the notochord gets mineralized (with the bone mineral hydroxyapatite), and provides structural support for the adult. In some non-vertebrae chordates the bony mineralized vertebrae never develop and the notochord persists throughout life. It might be surprising to some but there are chordate animals in which the notochord disappears and the adults resemble soft bodied sponges- the Urochordata or tunicates. The wonder of it is that the young or larvae of tunicates do have notochord and look like small fish. One hypothesis is that the original chordates lived much like tunicates, with sessile adults and swimming young in order to propagate into new territories. Later some of the chordate lines underwent neotenous evolution and the adult retained characteristics of the swimming young, including the notochord (another way of looking at it is that the swimming young became sexually mature without proceeding into the adult sessile form.)

Jul-18-12		Alien Math: Think song could visit, Generation Procrastination (Original Song) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNN6...

Jul-20-12		Annie K.: Oops, I forget to check in here for a couple of days, and look at the traffic! <Switch> OUCH... how did you come across that game? ;s <Thanh/Hanh> thanks - I believe procrastination is a multigenerational virtue, and those kids can't just claim it all for themselves! ;p <visayanbraindoctor> so, all sorts of lifeforms found physical traits, that originally only got them through the immature phase, more successful when retained into maturity... the implications of the "how and why" of these trends, in fact the whole area of neotenous evolution, is something I haven't really heard about anywhere before, and it's fascinating. Thanks much! :) Cue Alphaville's 'Forever Young' here ... ;)

Jul-21-12		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie K.> Evolution is theorized to work through already existing anatomical structures. In neoteny existing structures in the young that prove to be useful are 'logically' retained into the adult. An interesting thought is that unfortunately, this also means that some ancestral structural vestiges may also be retained even when they prove to be more harmful than beneficial. In the medical field, I believe that the most troublesome of these vestiges is the design of our pulmonary system. Our lungs are located below our mouths and noses, which means that drainage by gravity of pulmonary secretions is mostly physically disallowed. This was perfectly alright if we assume that our primate ancestors walked on all fours, in which case pulmonary secretions would tend to drain out by gravity through a mouth or nose below to or on the level of the lungs. As it is, humans tend to retain pulmonary secretions whenever something goes just a bit wrong. The retained secretions often become a smorgasbord for microbial pathogens. This translates to humans being especially prone to pneumonia. Exercise in analysis: What other mammal group do we share this particular pneumonic curse? Anyone guess? Clue: What other mammals have their noses structured above their lungs?

Jul-21-12		SwitchingQuylthulg: <Annie K.: <Switch> OUCH... how did you come across that game? ;s> One of the guilty parties for some reason decided to advertise :-)

Jul-21-12		Open Defence: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz2g...

Jul-21-12		Annie K.: <visayanbraindoctor> anything that walks upright, mostly the primate family, would be the usual suspects. :) <Deffi> hmm, if things like that happened with any regularity at matches, chess might get far better TV coverage for sure... :D Though personally, I would consider it a case of wrong priorities and a lack of proper concentration ability. These kids ain't got no attention span. :p <Switch> aha, thx... ;)

Jul-21-12		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie K.> You're most probably right, for upright walking primates. I was surprised when I read an article in the net on dolphins often acquiring pneumonia. Thinking it over, it sounds logical enough. As Cetaceans evolved away from their traditional Artiodactyl morphology, their noses migrated to the top of their head and became blowholes. Every Cetacean today has its nose above its lungs. That should make them prone to humanity's pneumonic curse. BTW whales are now classified as belonging right in the middle of the even hoofed ungulates, the Artiodactyls. The order has now been renamed into Cetartiodactyla in some of the newer Biology literature, from Cetacea and Artiodactyla. Within Cetartiodactyla, the whales are more related to the Hippopotamuses and then to the ruminants (such as cows, goats, deer) than to camels and pigs.

Jul-22-12		Annie K.: <visayanbraindoctor> - just call me Annie. And btw, could you please pick a shorter nick I could call you by? :) <Cetaceans> makes sense. And then there are the giraffes! And as non-mammals go, there's the crocodile family, alligators, caymans... All animals who spend much of their time submerged in water, yet air-breathers. Come to think of it, the hippo does a lot of that too, which may explain why they also turned their noses up ;) and thus resemble the cetaceans more closely than groundhog Artiodactyls.

Jul-24-12		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie> VBD will do. I do not think there has been any study on pneumonia in animals in general. But I would not be surprised if it turns out that the animals that you mentioned are more prone to pneumonia than usual. Another similarity with dolphins that we have is that we both have the diabetes curse. I was amazed to have read an article in the internet describing diabetes in dolphins. The theory behind it is based on our large brains. Dolphins and humans have the largest brains in the animal Kingdom (per body weight). It so happens that the mammalian brain cannot metabolize fatty acids as an energy source (they do not cross the blood brain barrier), unlike striated muscles (our voluntary muscles and our heart which usually 'eat' fatty acids). Thus mammalian brains are normally obligate glucose feeders. The larger the brain, the more the animal has to make sure there is always glucose available in its bloodstream. Diabetes may be a manifestation of the body's physiologic mechanism of providing adequate glucose to our brains going haywire.

Jul-25-12		Annie K.: <VBD> thanks. :) Speaking of lung diseases and ruminants, we also share tuberculosis with cattle, as I recall. Likely because this is a bacillus that requires large host populations to thrive, such as can be found in cattle herds, and larger (and sedentary) human settlements. The diabetes connection is very interesting as well.

Jul-26-12		visayanbraindoctor: Observations suggests that all domestic animals (not only cats) are selected for by humans for neotenous traits. Why? Because they look 'cuter'. All baby mammals and birds have distinct faces that make them look cuter- shorter muzzles, less projecting and more rounded facial features, floppy ears. In domestic animals, many of these traits are retained into adulthood. Neoteny among birds may also be involved in the evolution of flightless birds. For example: http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag... The emu's profile above is quite similar to any avian chick.

Jul-26-12		Alien Math: <Observations suggests that all domestic animals (not only cats) are selected for by humans for neotenous traits. Why? Because they look 'cuter'.> Wonder of the cattle yak water buffalo, depend on country them are considered domestic animals, pets or more, Had not think of before the types of animals that gather sickness like humans, is of interest

Jul-26-12		chancho: <Annie> Just noticed that it's your birthday. Happy Birthday!!

Jul-26-12		WannaBe: Happy Birthday <Annie>!!

Jul-26-12		crawfb5: <Annie> I've been too busy elsewhere to pop in here much, but saw that it was your birthday, and wanted to wish you a happy, easy day.

Jul-26-12		dakgootje: Heyhey, happy 'certain number'th birthday miss annie :) You are already halfway to '2x certain number'! Which also means you are just halfway that! By Nuklu, you sure don't even look like a third of the previously unmentioned bigger number!

Jul-26-12		Thanh Phan: Happy Birthday <Annie K.>! Wishing you another good year :)

Jul-26-12		Annie K.: Thanks, all! =) I've had a great birthday - and that's just at work, the restaurant will be tomorrow evening. :D The folks at my work went all out this year, they organized a collection and bought me a prezzie! This is usually not done just for birthdays, so I was really surprised. Is it heresy to say I like my job? ;)

Jul-26-12		jessicafischerqueen: <Annie> Happy Birthday! Sorry to be so heinously late with greetings and also my turn to EMU- I've been obsessively trying to finish an <Alkhine> film and this one is still going to take a long time to complete. I can actually use <SonyVegas pro> video editor now, which took a long time to learn. However the subject of <Alekhine> is labyrinthine, so the research is taking way longer than usual. I have saved all the great DEEP BACKGROUND materials you've sent me on our TOP SECRET project, wonderful stuff and thank you for doing all that research. Invaluable to the project, obviously. What did you get from your workmates? Did you has cake too? I'm glad you like your job <Annie> I like mine too. Certainly makes life better eh?

Jul-26-12		Alien Math: Happy Birthday! <Annie K.> Hope are not late! glad like your job

Jul-26-12		twinlark: All the best for the next year, plus the rest that come after!

Jul-26-12		Annie K.: Hi <Jess>! :) No worries - have fun with Alekhine, I figured I'd stay out of the way there, since 'how to pronounce his name' is pretty much the only thing I'm sure I know about him. ;) Can has cookies and ice-cream, but I brought them myself, as per local custom, which says the birthday boy/girl/something like that, treats Everybody Else to something yummy. Reciprocation will be when Everybody Else hold their own birthdays, so other than well-wishes, and some balloons and decorations, nothing else is normally expected. That said, I got a nice cosmetics kit and a cute and super-comfy set of pajamas, without permission to wear them at work, alas. Oh well, maybe next year... :D

Jul-26-12		Annie K.: Thanks, <Hanh> and <Larks>! :) <craw> so, what could possibly be more important than hanging out at ceegee, anyhoo? ;) <dakkie> you don't mean I look about your age, do ya? :D

Jul-26-12		hms123: <Annie> I am confused by all the maths going on. Happy over 20 birthday!

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