| Jan-13-05 | | azaris: IMlday misses a petit combinaison to lose a piece against everyone's favorite chess author. |
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Jan-13-05
 | | IMlday: Well, I was staying at his place during the tournament; not exactly great conditions for playing to win eh? Plus, halfway through the tournament the latest installment of James Clavel's brilliant series of Asian novels came out and I simply got prepossessed, fell into the novel, and didn't pay any attention to the ongoing futurity event, where the appearence fee was greater than the 'prizes'. I lost my last three games, not paying attention, not caring--I already had a profit on the trip. This is a problem with 'Futurities' needing foreign competitors: sure the events make titles, but it was pretty phoney eh?
I was leading but lost all last three rounds, not paying attention at all.
In a random challenge match I would probably beat Eric 7-3 in 1984 strength, if I were paying attention. I wasn't in that U of Chicago event.
That is probably why I was invited in the first place. |
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Mar-05-05
 | | Eric Schiller: I agree, I didn't expect to defeat, or even draw, against Day. 7-3 would have been about right, regardless of rating. I just won with a tactic. I had a really rotten tournament overall, but my games against Day and Keene were exceptions. |
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| Jun-01-05 | | mynameisrandy: Hey, I'm in the middle of reading Clavell's Shogun. It's incredibly compelling. Are they all this good (and long)? Could make for a great summer reading plan. |
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Jun-01-05
| | IMlday: Yes, they are very good and very long.
Since you're starting with Shogun you can read them in historical order though they weren't written that way. |
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| Jun-08-05 | | Chesschatology: I read Shogun when I was 13 and boy did it make a bloody, sensual, glorious change from the lit. I was used to... and the Geisha girls... my only regret at the time was that the book's epic scale made it difficult to lift with one hand. |
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Jun-08-05
| | IMlday: I think it is possible to get addicted to consuming English script as a normal fact of life. Playing a tournament where it is unavailable can produce withdrawal symptoms. At Olympiads in such foreign locations
I've been reduced to Danielle Steele or Jack Higgins, trading for what you can get, just because it was in English and I needed my fix. Travelling internationally nobody wants to carry the weight of books they have already read, so trading becomes normal, and the thicker the book, the better! My all time best trade was at Haifa '76 when Manny Raynor of Wales had Dune vol. 3 he had finished. Another delight was the Dubai duty-free shop in 1986 where copyrights were ignored and lots of best sellers only available in hardcover in North America were available in paperback there. At Yerevan, '96 there was one (exactly one) used bookshop with a shelf of English-language books. It did a brisk turn-over during the Olympiad. |
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| Jun-08-05 | | Chesschatology: I think that I actually got interested in chess books more for the language than the chess moves. When I was 15/16 I used to read dozens of them (there was a good library at my school) and the only positions I'd pay attention to were the ones in the diagrams and a couple of moves afterwards, within my visualisation potential (I can't see very far when I'm also having to read notation!). As a result I think I developed a far better mastery of talking about chess than playing it: i.e. "talked a good game". But the language of chess can be quite beautiful. Fisher is without doubt the Hemmingway of Chessic prose stylists ("best by test"), Golombek the Bertrand Russel, and Tal the P.G. Wodehouse. I don't think Kasparov is particularly eloquent in text, but one of his best is fantastic "Fisher seemed to me a mythic creature like a centaur...half human and half chess." |
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| May-28-06 | | Drifter: Wow. Mr Day has a huge ego. |
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May-29-06
| | Eric Schiller: <drifter> Hardly! IM Day is one of the most welcome figures on the chess circuit, a man with a fascinating life story and hardened but informed political opinions. Sharing a room with him last year at the Staunton led me to many facts and resources I hadn't encountered, especially over 9/11 and its investigation. Spend a few hours with Day and you'll be entertained and informed. I look forward to seeing him again this summer at the Staunton. Take a look at his games from last year's event and you'll see the sort of uncompromising play every chess fan loves! |
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