In Loire, many castles are splendid but you have to see at least Chambord (don't miss the walk on the roof) and Chenonceau (the outside is more beautiful than the inside if you don't have much time), to a lesser extent Azay-le-Rideau (same comment). Towns are cute: Saumur, Chinon, Amboise, Blois. Must confess that despite having been several times in the region, I never visited the tank museum, shame on me.

Don't know if you booked accommodation already, if not Fontevraud abbey is a fantastic experience: after it's closed to tourists you can visit the huge domain on your own. Good bistro too, to book in advance. (Not working for them either.)

I'm sorry but this isn't acceptable PGN:

1. d4 [%clk 0:15:20] 1... Nf6 [%clk 0:15:20] 2. c4 [%clk 0:15:27] 2... e6 [%clk 0:15:25] 3. Nf3 [%clk 0:15:36] 3... d5 [%clk 0:15:33] 4. Nc3 [%clk 0:15:40] 4... Bb4 [%clk 0:12:15] etc.

Chessable Masters Finals (2020)

I used this function here to enter the moves (import pgn, enter moves, then click on load):

https://www.365chess.com/search_pos...

Probably fabelhaft just wanted to have a good word about "blowing the whistle" so nothing personal.

Same for mine: I didn't mean to downgrade your compliment (thanks BTW) but it felt a bit strange to be classified as the best when there are so many great posters on this site, you included. Not really modesty, just wanted to put things into perspective to avoid users classifying you as impulsive. It's not language related because your English is fine, you're very enthusiastic which is appreciated. Maybe it's your young age ;) Or a Danish trait ;)

Many thanks for taking time for these good words, which I appreciate.

You should know this about me that it is a life credo for me to praise and acknowledge humans and opinions whenever I meet them on my way. If they deserve it, evidently. And I am uncompromisingly honest in these matters.

I think too many people are too unwilling to grant their fellow humans uplifting, encouraging words, as if something would detracted from them if they do it. For me it is actually an existentialistic question: do you want to be a generous or mean person?

There is, of course, a middle way called indifference and you know well as I that loads of posts here on CG should be ignored and forgotten.

I think you are a great poster on CG, simply because you appear sympathetic, honest and passionate about what you state. That is certainly not true for every poster here.

It was a joke, which I thought was fairly obvious. I'm quite used to posts like

<Do you cum every time someone other than Carlsen has a bad result?>

or

<If its not sucking Carlsen off, <fabelhaft> is not interested>

Sorry, but to me your post didn't appear as an <obvious> <joke>. Perhaps I don't have the intellectual means to detect your special subtleties, which, of course, is my shortcoming - but even so, I still fail to regard your response to my well-meant post as a particularly kind gesture.

<I think too many people are too unwilling to grant their fellow humans uplifting, encouraging words, as if something would detracted from them if they do it.> It's your enthusiastic nature that many here appreciate, I to start with. My view on compliments: there are different levels."Your post is great/interesting/etc." is always nice to read. "You are a great/interesting/etc. poster" is nicer but a step higher so should probably be occasional. "You are one of the greatest/etc. posters" or "This is the one of the greatest/etc. posts" is nicer still but other users might view it as a bias and lose interest. Maybe I'm wrong, just a feeling.

<And I am uncompromisingly honest in these matters.> Indeed, also appreciated. If I may just make a comment: sometimes honesty makes a better point with a diplomatic form. For instance Petrosianic countered L13's posts efficiently on Nepomniachtchi - Ding World Championship Match (2023). Actually I was about to answer but Petrosianic did it better than I could have had so I just watched the passing shots.

I know because I once made the mistake of having a direct go at a user, instead of being more diplomatic or handling it from a different angle. I said above it's not language related, actually it is a bit: in our native language we know the exact weight of words and phrases. In a foreign language we can miss exact vocabulary, context and culture, hence we tend to emphasise our message to make sure it comes across. And since our English is decent, yours certainly better than mine, nobody notices the gap.

Thanks for this thoughtful response which I appreciate highly.

I try to be measured in my usage of superlatives, not expressing the 3rd degree of them in particular. And I also follow your notions, on which I shall allow myself to think about, using a good amount of time.

Thanks for your remark on my membership. I should tell you that I was a premium member from 2004 till around 2021 with the alias Sokrates.

Some development in the conducting of CG, in particular the non-handling of some rogue posters, sickened me and made me leave the site for quite a while.

When I returned I changed the alias, which I was never fond of (it was chosen without much thought way back then) and I wanted to see if I could regain the motivation to post again. Posters like you, perfidious, keypusher, moronovich, metatron2, and other good posters helped that motivation and thus I decided to rejoin the premium members. Thanks, I do know that I can start my own forum - I had one when I was Sokrates - that'll probably be the next step.

Thanks for dropping by. It's funny, as soon as I posted about the profile page, I remembered we talked about Sokrates before and thought maybe you were aware about the chessforum since you used to be a premium member, but left the post just in case.

I did however remember you didn't know the acronyms GOTD and POTD so maybe not about chessforum either ;-) Would be nice to see you on these pages BTW, at least GOTD which is not as successful as POTD.

I agree on your user shortlist, would notably add Sally Simpson and goodevans (who is mostly on GOTD pages) and a few others on POTD which leaves less opportunities for interesting analyses. And, of course, Atterdag.

Looked at your bio: your lively and enthusiastic posts make you seem younger ;-) Since you were an art books publisher, I understand why you selected this avatar.

<In Loire, many castles are splendid but you have to see at least Chambord (don't miss the walk on the roof) and Chenonceau (the outside is more beautiful than the inside if you don't have much time), to a lesser extent Azay-le-Rideau (same comment). Towns are cute: Saumur, Chinon, Amboise, Blois. Must confess that despite having been several times in the region, I never visited the tank museum, shame on me.>

By the way, I did visit Chenonceau and walked the roof (and all the other floors) at Chamboard. They were extraordinary, but I think my favorite was Cheverny. The proprietor is quite entrepreneurial, I think mainly so he can keep his ~100 hunting hounds well-fed. I also had the pleasure of sharing Versailles with my parents-in-law, who had never seen it.

The tank museum at Saumur wasn't fancy, but it had an impressive and diverse supply of tanks, which after all is the point. There were some impressive dioramas, and Charles de Gaulle and Marshall Zhukov looked quite lifelike. But some of the tank crewmen were evidently old mannequins taken from department stores with distressingly hollow cheeks.

Thanks for the feedback, nice to hear you had a good time. Cheverny is beautiful too, as well as a must-see for Hergé (Tintin graphic novels) fans because the main castle of the series is directly inspired from it.