My best wishes to Daniel Freeman on his continuing journey; Chessgames.com is an excellent legacy. RIP, <User: Sneaky>, you were always one of my favorites, though I never knew...
"The worship of Caissa is, however, so alluring, so fascinating, that the mind, after an interval of repose, returns to it with renewed vigour, greater hope, and redoubled energy, intent on wresting the palm of victory from the majority of opponents. "
*** The Gentleman's Magazine, 1881
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I played competitive chess as a kid inspired by the 1978 match Korchnoi vs. Karpov, and chessgames.com has renewed my enthusiasm for the game. I play occasionally at lichess.com, with more or less accuracy.
I think the greatest players are/were Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov, Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker, Morphy, and Anand,, but my favorite players are Tal, Nezhmetdinov and Bronstein.
Right now, though, Magnus Carlsen is the king of Caissa. Both his chess and his enigmatic persona wear the crown to perfection. Only 28, he tops the FIDE ratings chart as well as the live rapid and blitz charts. He has dominated the intensely competitive chess tournament scene for the past 10 years, and has defeated Vishy Anand (twice), Karjakin, and most recently, Caruana. He is the reigning, defending, undisputed, World Chess Champion of the world.
I admire his incredible positional judgement and ability to get wins from seemingly dry situations. His mastery of the middle-to-end game transition is second to none. He has also been, at the same time, the undisputed World Champion of classical, rapid, and blitz time controls. This guy is the real deal and in contention for the GOAT.
Others:
I love Anand's dynamic chess career and sterling personality; he’s been a noble chess king.
Hikaru Nakamura plays the American maverick to perfection, though never quite able to reach the crest. He’s like a modern day Frank Marshall.
Morozevich reminds me of a less stable version of my artistic chess heroes.
Ivanchuk epitomizes that category of player who gets lost in the labrynthian depths of Caissa, reflecting back all the beauty and suffering that goes with her, both on and off the board.
I played a simul against Nigel Short at the 2012 London Chess Classic, and after 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.g3 Nc6 4.Bg2 g6 he played 5.d4, looked at me, and said, "You didn't pay attention to my lecture, did you?" Hours prior at a live-broadcast analysis session I attended, Short had detailed the problems associated with playing the ...e6 ...g6 Sicilian setup against a KIA setup prior to white's d3, allowing white to play d4 without losing tempo, creating long-term dark square weaknesses for black. Being schooled* by a super-GM is the highlight of my chess "career".
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*The game was abandoned at move 33 because I had tickets to Red Fang, a local Pacific North West heavy rock group I know, who happened to be on tour in London that evening - I could not miss them, their manager got me on the door list. I fought a reasonable game and had a potentially salvageable endgame, though I surely would have lost under the pressure of a quickening pace. Red Fang rocked.
Other interests include:
Family, Martial arts, business, music, reading, food, drink, people, heavy rock, guitars, poker, exercise, performance, competition, action, breathing, lounging, being lazy, gardening, movies, sleeping, and working outside in bad weather.
*********Useful Chess Links*********
Chessgames.com links:
Search Kibitzing
chessgames.com chessforum
Chessforum Configuration Page
ChessGames.com Statistics Page
Memorable Quotes chessforum
Tournament Index
PGN Upload Utility
Pun Submission Page
Game of the Day Archive
Fischerandom Chess Generator
Menu Configuration Page
Gift Membership Page
Gift Membership Page (The Rinus Scholarship)
Biographer Bistro
User: ChessBookForum
Memorable Quotes chessforum
Politics, economics and religion, AKA The Rogoff Page: Kenneth S Rogoff
Excellent feature article about the incredible and undefeated Chessgames.com correspondence team The World, written by our own User: hms123: (p. 32-35) http://content.yudu.com/A1t744/Ches...
Basketball: Jeremy Lim
Odd Lie
Louis Stumpers
All about *burp* Beer
FEN Diagrams: FEN Help Page
Chessgames daily puzzles: Game Collection: Monday Puzzles, 2011-2017
Positional games: Game Collection: Positional Masterworks
Controversies: Game Collection: Apocalypse now - Chess, Controversy and charges
By Rook or by Crook: Game Collection: By rook or by crook: Chess players and the law
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External sites:
Play online chess:
Blitz/Rapid:
https://lichess.org/
http://www.chess.com/home/
http://www.chesscube.com/
Correspondence:
http://gameknot.com/
http://chessworld.net/chessclubs/as...
http://www.queenalice.com/
Youtube Links:
Live blitz commentary and game reviews:
http://www.youtube.com/kingscrusher
http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNe...
Name pronunciation by User: Annie K. :
http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnieK1...
Historical chess documentaries posted by User: JessicaFischerQueen:
http://www.youtube.com/user/jessica...
http://www.youtube.com/user/chessdo...
Live feed:
http://chessbomb.com/site/
Live Ratings:
http://www.2700chess.com/
Improve your chess:
http://chesstempo.com/
http://www.chessvideos.tv/
http://chess.emrald.net/
Chess news:
http://www.chessbase.com/
http://www.chessvibes.com/
http://www.chessdom.com/
http://susanpolgar.blogspot.com/
http://www.chessintranslation.com/
Chess Federations:
FIDE: http://www.fide.com/
USCF: http://www.uschess.org/images/splas...
Game database: http://www.365chess.com/
Namilov Endgame Tablebase: http://www.k4it.de/?topic=egtb&lang...
Various chess stats:
http://timkr.home.xs4all.nl/records/
http://members.aon.at/sfischl/stat....
http://www.truechess.com/index.html
http://www.truechess.com/web/champs...
Historical Chess archives:
http://www.chessarch.com/excavation...
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...
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Amazing game collections:
Game Collection: Chessgames Games
Game Collection: Budapest Miniatures
Phony Benoni's Game Collections
suenteus po 147's Game Collections
kevin86's Game Collections
SwitchingQuylthulg's Game Collections
TheAlchemist's Game Collections
MorphyMatt's Game Collections
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Awesome profiles on this site:
Lots of game collections here: User: Benzol
Photos: User: brankat
Game Mapping Project: User: Bridgeburner
User: Domdaniel
Lots of useful links: User: hms123
User: morfishine
User: TheFocus
Tons of Robert J Fischer here: User: jessicafischerqueen