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Jan-03-12
 | | Benzol: <Richard> Thanks for that link to the Queenstown Classic. I tried to give the admins a heads-up earlier but I'm not sure they took any notice. :( Anyway it will be interesting to see how the tournament progresses even if we can only see it from Auckland.
Cheers matey.
:) |
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Jan-03-12
 | | Richard Taylor: <Domdniel> Thanks for the kind words! I'll comment more anon... |
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Jan-03-12
| | Richard Taylor: <Benzol>
Good! Also the Australian Open is on. Steadman is playing. Some of the top games are live I think. Ganguly is coming to ACC and H-Pak I think. Edward said he met him a few years ago and he effectively invited Edward to play in India in the Commonwealth tourney. Who was the correspondence player you mentioned when we were talking about Purdy? Was it O'Kelly? I have book by him I got about 1980 ("Assess Your Chess fast") which is good but a bit puzzling in its -well in why it is the way it is: but in it there is a great game by him against Salm who also played Purdy, and in fact I studied that game Salm played. He played the Dragon. I used it against Roger Perry who is a Dragon man. Game was a draw. But last time I faced his Dragon I lost a quite exciting game. Before that a few years back I prepared a Levenfish (Fuatai showed me it once!) It has surprise value...I tried to follow Sarapu game but got mixed up... and lost. But back to Queenstown I am hoping that Luke Li, Hans Gao, Alan Ansell and other NZ players will do well. Some of the games may well be live. |
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Jan-03-12
| | Richard Taylor: Australian Open live games here - on now as I post
http://www.boxhillchess.org.au/gcc_... |
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Jan-15-12
| | Benzol: <Richard> Just had a look at Helen Milligan's first round game at Queenstown and she just got steam-rollered. It was horrible to see. |
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Jan-16-12
| | Richard Taylor: <Benzol> Yes - I was watching the game. I saw that she had made a mistake. I saw it immediately she played Ne7 I think it was. The GM also had f4 instead of Qh5 but either way she was soon lost. She plays the Flohr-Zaitsev as Black (Kasparov-Karpov in the 1990 World Champs) but was rusty on the exchange but c3 by White is probably unusual. Possibly a line the GM had in his repertoire and even knew the trap she fell into. She could probably have played Be6 or b5 to stop Nc4 but as it was she seemed to panic. With careful play there should be nothing to fear except a long complex game! But things like that have happened to me. The top GMs all cleaned up today except that young Andrew Brown of Australia got a draw vs. Ganguly. I think Brown is an IM. I one tourney he achieved performance of 2900! The GM sorted Daniel Shen out. But I can understand. These top GMs are very good! They are not over 2500 for nothing! And it is quite hard for psychological reasons also. Against those GMS - go crazy and attack etc and try sharp or unusual lines ... (you might get lucky, you have nothing to lose but your chains! Go down in flames!) and all the other games play carefully and according to Holye is the ticket! Milligan played too passively as did Shen today.
Janisz put in a reasonable account of himself in his game. I'm watching e.g. Bobby Cheng and Luke Li to see how they go. |
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Jan-16-12
| | Richard Taylor: I much prefer the local tourneys - I looked at that Tata Steel (?) tourney on live now; and what do I see - all the same old faces. Massively boring and the games are not very interesting...better to watch Milligan or Dan Shen get pummled etc! Or Andrew Brown fight against Ganguly (It was draw). Real stuff! |
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Feb-04-12
 | | morfishine: <Richard Taylor> I wanted to apologize for the comment I made 11-months ago and for procrastinating so long in offering it. You had followed up with a positive comment at the POTD which I ignored. That was unacceptable. Perhaps coming out of the long and dreary POGO game, nerves were frayed and tempers were short. |
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Feb-05-12
| | Richard Taylor: <morfishine> Thanks but I don't recall the comment! What is the POTD? |
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Feb-05-12
| | Richard Taylor: Oh, you mean problem of the day! POGO ... when I was young (200,000 years ago!) we had Pogo sticks you jumped on it was a craze here in NZ for a while probably came from the US like Hula Hooping... |
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Feb-06-12
| | morfishine: Actually it was the World vs Natalie Pogonina game and I had overreacted to a comment you made about the game. Childish on my part. A few days or weeks later I flubbed a POTD and you posted it took guts for me to admit it. I should've responded.
I don't like to leave things hanging like that
Thats all, Morf |
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Feb-14-12
| | Richard Taylor: <morfishine> I cant recall it or find it but thanks. |
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Mar-02-12
| | Richard Taylor: I'm annotating for Chess Chatter our local weekly chess club mag (ACC) and I started using NZr Bill Forster's brilliant GUI system called Tarrasch - Google it. It is free but donations are accepted. It is so far very easy to use unlike Fritz. Associated with it is the free version of the Komodo engine which is among one of the best chess computers there is (but one can use any computer as long as it is UCI). More anon. |
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May-06-12
| | Benzol: <Richard> I'll look up that chessbase story about Stuart Conquest. Talking about Luke Li in the Gao - Krstev game leads me to relate something I heard last night at the ACA annual general meeting. Tony Booth was telling me that apparently Luke has been selected to play board 5 in the upcoming Olympiad. His selection hasn't gone down so well with Bob Smith and Paul Garbett who might have filled the spot themselves. Maybe the selection committee felt the need to start blooding some younger players. |
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May-07-12
 | | sofouuk: <Richard Taylor: <drik> You mouth the most awesome crapulous and viscous drivel since God deigned to shovel guts up inside Homo Wankus...Nunn is a hopeless slobbering Pommy bastard who since his stroke and his galloping dotage cant even remember how to move the chess pieces.
To put it kindly: "You and he are full of crap."> ... not impressive |
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May-08-12
| | Richard Taylor: <sofouuk> And you are? It would be nice to know who to abuse the shttties out of. I don't give toss what you think of what I say. So go away and crap yourself in a corner...
(Actually I thought it was a good shot at drik or whoever he or she or it is... |
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May-08-12
| | Richard Taylor: <Benzol> Luke Li isn't that good but he's young and will do some damage. Paul and Bob are getting too old...or maybe not...part of it maybe who has the cash... Ewen out the team with ACC players including P Wang up in large letters...all the rest in small!! I am really opposed to all that crap, and [it has been mooted at ACC meetings] that [ACC?] wants to put pressure on Luke et al to be loyal to ACC as they are giving money to the Olympiad... I don't know what Luke's FIDE rating is but I doubt he has overtaken Garbett and Bob Smith (Steadman hasn't been doing that well lately Ben Hague is winning everything, but again it all depends who wants to go and can and can afford it....)...to be objective they are in way more deserving. Luke has a lot of time ahead of him. Against that he could well do well.
Nic Croad (not an ACC player) is heading for an IM and I am very impressed with his play. Puchen Wang? I've never seen him at ACC. He may was well be an American. When he played me once he refused to analyse and I didn't like his attitude ..but maybe that is just me. I am not really that interested, I miss the days when Chess was just in NZ so to speak. We were relatively small groups, none of us very strong at chess, but there were so many characters and so on...I also miss the good old days when they used to have very friendly inter club matches (I never really took any notice which club own and don't care - why don't clubs cooperate?)...I used to like going to other clubs to meet other players etc And at Howick-Pak it was very friendly with the weekly cup of tea and biscuits! But now for me it is all too professional.
I miss Peter Stuart's magazine. He did brilliant job, mixing local and international chess. |
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| May-30-12 | | cormier: FRANKFURT (Reuters) - None of the eight countries on the waiting list to join the euro currently meet the requirements to do so, the European Central Bank said on Wednesday - assuming, that is, that they still want to. Before the debt crisis took off, European Union members not yet part of the common currency were queuing up to join. But as the crisis has spread, rocking even core euro zone economies like Spain and Italy, those still on track to adopt the currency have begun to have second thoughts. Six of the eight candidates on the list to adopt the euro - Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden - have not yet fulfilled the prerequisite of joining the exchange rate mechanism II (ERM II) for more than two years, the ECB said in a report. While Lithuania and Latvia can tick that box, Latvian Finance Minister Andris Vilks told public broadcaster Latvian Television on Wednesday the country would only join once the euro zone's debt crisis had subsided. The Baltic nation had initially wanted to join the euro in 2014. "If the difficult period is behind the euro zone, then we will join. If the difficult period is not behind it, then we won't join," he said. "We may not join if our expenses are too high or if there's an unclear situation." "The main (thing) is to understand that Latvia will never join the monetary union with unclear game rules," he said, adding that he expected the euro to survive the crisis but that it could end up having fewer members. "There will be either stabilization or a real division," he said. |
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| Jun-04-12 | | cormier: 1 day after violent clashes erupted at a neo-Nazi march in Hamburg, Germany's top Jewish leader urged Germans to declare their country “a fascist-free zone |
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Jun-11-12
| | Benzol: <Richard> Your FIDE player card link http://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?... |
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Jun-17-12
| | Richard Taylor: <Benzol> I saw that. Do I need it? Do you have one? I successfully stayed home and didn't play the ACC Champs. I would probably have been in the B Grade. That's o.k. as some of my most interesting games have been played at that level. I got rid of FICS as it is big distraction. (Also I was losing most of my games, as I have been OTB...) Only problem now is the cold!! Cant afford to run a heater. Talking of which Chess tourney fees seem to be increasing...and the trouble is as the fees go yo so do the main prize monies and it gets harder and harder to win anything! But each day I study chess while I have lunch so that gives me enough "Chess". People think that we are a playing a game but my son doesn't really like chess that much (he likes playing over games much like one reads a story so he is only interested in how it goes, not why so much which is fair enough) and I study it knowing I will ever improve at my age but continually fascinated by the ideas in chess... |
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Jun-18-12
| | Benzol: <Richard> I don't have an FIDE card. I don't really think I need one either. Sorry to hear you can't afford to run your heater. Dad has our one going just about 24/7. I'm shuddering to think about the next power bill. Nic Croad has got 2 IM norms. I don't think it will be long before he gets the title. Puchen has pulled out of the upcoming Olympiad. Paul Garbett is going to replace him. The NZ team this time is stronger than some of the ones that have been sent previously but I don't think it is the strongest team we could have had. It'll be interesting to see how they fare. |
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| Jun-18-12 | | cormier: <<<<<<<<<<<<<<Spreading Lies>
De-Bunking Myths About Christianity>
By Father John Flynn, LC>
ROME, JUNE 15, 2012.- “Christianity is the main, central, most common, and most thoroughly and purposefully marginalized, obscured and publicly and privately misrepresented belief system in the final decades of the 20th century and the opening years of the 21st.”> These words come from the introduction to UK-born, and now Canadian resident Michael Coren’s new book “Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity,” (Signal).> The book covers topics ranging from the historical foundations of Christianity, to slavery, science and Hitler.> One of the chapters deals with the affirmation that atheists are intelligent, but Christians are stupid. At university, he explained, teachers often mock Christians as being credulous or gullible.> To refute this argument Coren cites a number of well-known Christian writers noted for their perspicacity and popularity. People such as C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, J.R.R. Tolkein, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Malcolm Muggeridge clearly demonstrated that Christians are far from stupid.> Another myth along similar lines is that Christianity is opposed to science or progress. Yet, Coren explained, we can find many examples of committed Christians who were prominent scientists.> Michael Faraday, he explained, was a pioneer in electricity and magnetism and also a firm Christian. Physicist William Thomson Kelvin was also president of a Bible society in Scotland. Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, came from a family of theologians and was a church warden for almost thirty years.> Christianity, he continued, “has been the handmaiden of science and scientific discovery.” People tend, however, only to remember Galileo and forget that Louis Pasteur was a Catholic, as was Alexander Fleming.> Coren cited other figures such as the Catholic priest Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaitre, who proposed the Big Bang theory; Father Roger Boscovich, a founder of modern atomic theory; and Gregor Mendel, a Catholic monk and the father of genetics.> When it comes to bringing about change and progress in society Coren’s book has a chapter on a number of influential Christians who made vital contributions. Anthony Ashley Cooper, for example was instrumental in bringing about changes in laws in 19th century England to improve work conditions and to protect children from exploitation.> In America Martin Luther King played a crucial role in achieving equality between blacks and whites. “King personified the black struggle to white America, and while he would never win over the extremists, his Christian commitment to non-violence convinced millions that change was long overdue,” said Coren.> |
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| Jun-18-12 | | cormier: <a follow-up of my last post> <<<<<<<<<<<<Nazi>
There is no better way of winning an argument than to accuse someone of being a Nazi, Coren commented in another chapter. Among the criticisms of Christianity is the accusation that Hitler was a Christian and that Christianity supported Nazism.> Coren pointed out that even if this were true it would prove nothing, as evil has been committed in the name of Christianity, just as it has been in the name of non-Christianity. “It demonstrates the fallen nature of humanity, and precisely why we need Christ,” he stated.> Given Europe’s Christian tradition it is not a surprise that most of the followers of Hitler were from Christian families, just as were many of their opponents and victims. Some right-wing organizations supported Christianity because they saw in it a way to maintain traditions, just as some Christians supported these organizations as a means of defence against Marxism.> Nazism, however, was different, as it took its inspiration from both left and right, Coren explained. He quoted a speech by Hitler in July 1941 in which the dictator proclaimed that: “National Socialism and religion cannot exist together.”> If Hitler was a friend of any belief it was paganism, Coren affirmed. Nazism, he observed, looked to some imaginary pure dawn before the advent of Christianity. In 1942, he noted, the New York Times reported on Hitler’s plans to replace Christianity with a “National Reich Church” to be doctrinally founded on his autobiography Mein Kampf.> Slaves>
Slavery is another subject that is used to criticize Christianity, Coren observed. Yes, Christians did support slavery in the past, just as many other people did. What we do need to do, he continued, is to distinguish between what is done because of, and in spite of, Christianity.> Slavery existed in most cultures, many of them non-Christian, in the past, he noted. It was Christians who were behind the anti-slavery movement in late eighteenth century England and later on, in America, it was Christians who campaigned for an end to slavery well before the Civil War.> Coren’s book touches on many other topics, including why Christians come under criticism for their views on abortion, the family and homosexuality.> Christians, he conclude, simply want to be allowed to take their place in the public square. Many, however, strive to exclude them and they are also “forced into virtual invisibility by lies and distortion.”> Those who would be critics of Christianity should at least pay it the basic courtesy of understanding its history and beliefs, before condemning it, Coren stated. Something that bears repeating often in many countries today.> |
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| Jun-21-12 | | cormier: <<<<<<<Gaza Strip militants barraged southern Israel with rocket fire on Wednesday and Israel retaliated with multiple airstrikes, as a brief cease-fire crumbled shortly after it took effect.>> i'm now more considering these peaces(cease-fire) like a world's(UN) laughing stock??> there are other unpeacefull countries down-grading themself???> and it's 2012 anyway> .... no one want to see this(these events) in today's time anymore> .... \\ // /, tks G> |
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