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Aug-07-15 | | offramp: Has anyone read that book, CASTLING THE MATED KING?
Although I am a big fan of Nigel Short, for his humour, and John Nunn for his high intelligence and Jon Speelman for his Talmudic look and depth, it is Gormally who is my favourite British Grandmaster. Both of us are from that much-maligned and daemonized race the London-Irish. We are unlucky enough to be paddies but not physically born in Ireland, so we are known to Irish-Irish as (gah!) Plastic Paddies. For those of you that don't know, my full name is Alan O'Brien. One of my middle names is Larkin. LET THOSE WHO HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTAND THOSE THREE NAMES. The upshot is, if you've read this far you can call me Al. |
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Aug-07-15
 | | Check It Out: Hi Al.
<LET THOSE WHO HAVE THE KNOWLEDGE UNDERSTAND THOSE THREE NAMES.> Hm...what does this mean? |
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Aug-07-15
 | | Check It Out: Aha, The Manchester Martyrs. |
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Aug-07-15 | | offramp: <Check It Out>, that's right. I was named for three Irish Republican Martyrs. To another Irishman the names would be instantly obvious, but to anyone else the names would seem innocuous. |
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Aug-07-15 | | zanzibar: Alan is nice enough, but you'll always be offramp to me. Or should that be Al, and off? |
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Aug-08-15 | | offramp: My friend Dieter calls me Autobahnausfahrt. |
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Aug-08-15
 | | perfidious: <offramp> All while remaining upwind of you, one supposes. |
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Aug-24-15 | | offramp: I did a drawing of this GM, at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?... |
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Aug-25-15
 | | moronovich: To me it is a good painting <offramp> ! Well done. |
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Aug-25-15 | | offramp: <moronovich>, Thanks very much! :-) |
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Apr-12-16 | | rgr459: This interview makes me grateful that I'm not nearly talented enough to make chess my living: http://en.chessbase.com/post/an-int... |
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Jul-01-17 | | Sally Simpson: Just finished reading 'A year Inside the Chess World'. "But essentially the essence of the book is trying to present the life of a chess pro who is struggling. We all know about the stories of Magnus and so on, but what about 99 percent of chess pros who are making a hand-to-mouth existence, who are surviving from week to week, maybe an article here, a chess lesson there. That’s what I wanted to convey to the reader, that it’s not all sweetness and light, that there’s this hidden struggle that we don’t always see portrayed by the chess media, who like to make out the life of a chess player to be one glorious cycle. And I hope I have achieved it in the book!" http://en.chessbase.com/post/an-int... One of the most chess depressing and very honest chess books I've read. No.
It is the most chess depressing and very honest chess books I've read. He really opens up and lays himself bare. A lot of the games he gives are his losses and the reasons why. |
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Jul-02-17 | | offramp: <Sally Simpson: Just finished reading 'A year Inside the Chess World'.>
He should have subtitled it <Down and Out in Coulsdon & Coventry>. As soon as I saw that book in Chess & Bridge on Baker Street I thought it had REMAINDERED written all over it. So I bought a different book and I'll buy Gormally's oeuvre in a few months' time. |
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Jul-02-17 | | Sally Simpson: Hi offramp.
I bought mine for £2.99 in a 2nd hand shop. It's been quite a while since I bought a new chess book. I honestly cannot remember the last one bought new and I have (again) 500+ of the things. I usually manage to pick up three or four every month on my travels. I sold 400+ of them in one go back in 1994.
I've bought one of my book twice from a 2nd hand shops. That always cheers me up. Danny's book is a good a read, very enlightening. I've shared a few pints with him in Edinburgh, great sense of humour but inside it seems like he was (or maybe he still is) going through a mid-chess crisis. |
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Jul-02-17 | | john barleycorn: <sally simpson> the terrible truth (imo) is that even you buy brand new it is second hand information by the time it is printed. then we have all those "how to beat "xyz" on a regular day" or "secrets of the "uvw" opening revealed" barker stuff by 3rd class (even lower) GM's who seemingly have all the time to put books together instead of having tournaments invites where they could prove what they are preaching. |
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Jul-02-17 | | offramp: <Sally Simpson: I bought mine for £2.99 in a 2nd hand shop. It's been quite a while since I bought a new chess book.> I've almost never seen a reasonable chess book in a second hand/charity shop. There was one shop I used to regularly visit that had, like clockwork, a different beginner's chess book every month. It seemed that there was some poor sod sitting nearby DESPERATE to learn chess but finding book after book just too difficult. On Edgware Road I once got a book by Polugaevsky; that was my best result. New books are a very dicey business. Recently I bought Cyrus Lakdawala 's book on Bent Larsen. That book is a disaster roughly the same as a Tunguska sellotaped on top of a Krakatoa. But you can't really take back books just because they are garbage. They have to be falling apart. |
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Jul-02-17 | | Sally Simpson: Hi offramp,
There are loads of charity shops in Edinburgh. A few keep chess books aside for me. Been lucky, the full set of Kasparov Predecessors for £10.00 and a doubler of Vol II a few days ago. Recently Wade's 'Soviet Chess', Botvinnik's best Games, Chernev's 'The Russians Play Chess' and Kosten's book on endgames (which will join the pile of other unread books on the ending.) Opening books, hundreds of the bloody things. I used to grab an obscure note and work that into my rep. These days I make it up as I go along following the tried and trusted motto - 'If in doubt get a piece out.' |
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Jul-02-17
 | | MissScarlett: Would stealing a Ray Keene book from a charity shop be considered a mortal sin or an act of mercy? |
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Jul-02-17 | | offramp: <Sally Simpson>, Flaming Nora. What a lucky git. Sorry, no offence. <'If in doubt get a piece out.'>
I have noticed that GMs don't care about theory any more. They wing it from about move 5, and they don't normally suffer disasters. |
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Jul-02-17 | | nok: <Would stealing a Ray Keene book from a charity shop be considered a mortal sin or an act of mercy?>
Just tear the cover out and ta-da! it's not a Ray Keene book anymore. |
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Jul-02-17
 | | MissScarlett: But are you taking the cover or the book? |
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Jul-02-17 | | john barleycorn: <offramp: ...I have noticed that GMs don't care about theory any more. They wing it from about move 5, and they don't normally suffer disasters.> absolutely, in line what Bronstein used to say: "Know your openings within the first 5 moves". After that it is kismet (ok, avoid the dragon and the Marshall) |
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Oct-18-18
 | | OhioChessFan: <Scarlett: Would stealing a Ray Keene book from a charity shop be considered a mortal sin or an act of mercy?> It's fine if you wrote it. |
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Oct-18-18 | | JimNorCal: <OCF>: it's fine if you wrote it Ouch! |
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Oct-19-18 | | JimNorCal: For any podcast listeners out there, check out The Perpetual Chess podcast. Dozens and dozens of interviews including one with GM Gormally. |
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