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| Dec-26-01 | | Smartypants: Man this guy SUCKS!!! He almost never wins a game! But he sure does get around.... |
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| Dec-19-02 | | pawntificator: And he's still alive today. |
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| Dec-19-02 | | ughaibu: I tried a search but got a no results reply. Where did you find it? Apart from that I disagree with Smartypants as I think without losers there are no winners so each is equally important in the creation of a beautiful or amusing game. |
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| Dec-19-02 | | pawntificator: I just slowly scrolled through his games until I found one. There aren't very many. I saw another couple of them in the 1980's, but I wouldn't say NN's opponents were famous. At least, I have never heard of them. |
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| Dec-19-02 | | ughaibu: On the other hand NN is famous and I've played a few games with him myself. Perhaps I should upload some? |
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| Dec-19-02 | | skakmiv: Yes, please... hehehe |
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| Dec-19-02 | | Kulla Tierchen: Alekhine both recognized to a great extent and deplored the reality mentioned by ughaibu: "I would be happy to create all alone, without the necessity, as occurs in a game, of considering my own plan together with my opponent's, in order to produce something of value. Oh, that opponent, that partner who is linked to you!" |
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| Dec-19-02 | | ughaibu: Perhaps Alekhine should have devoted himself to problem composing. I think the direction he chose suggests that he valued the competitive component above the artistic. |
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| Dec-20-02 | | Kulla Tierchen: Having played through several of his games of late, I differ strongly on this. There are many beautiful games from his pre-championship days. He loved chess and was always at it, as a boy under the covers at night, and to the moment he died analyzing a game. There are world champions such as Capablanca and Botvinnik ("Young man, I never play chess for fun.") who did not love chess or appreciate its beauty. Alekhine was not one of them. Perhaps he loved alcohol too much, but that is another story. As for problems, he certainly could have solved them. Look at white's 36th move in this game: Alekhine vs Tartakower, 1922 |
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| Dec-20-02 | | ughaibu: Naturally Alekhine played at quite a different level from mine but speaking as both a player and problem composer (of shogi not chess) I can say it is completely clear that the nature and degree of artistry available in normal play is less than that available in problem composition. Very often the player's intended beautiful idea never comes to realisation due to the conflicting ideas of the opponent, of course a great many beautiful and shocking moves and ideas do appear but these are subordinate to the general schemes of winning or losing the game. In problem composition the defense is designed by the composer to work with the attack in creating play purely for it's aesthetic effect, winning or losing is not part of the situation, this gives the composer the freedom to explore the most extraordinary ideas such as rarely if ever even occur in normal play. This is the plus side to composition from the artistry view point, on the other hand there is no winner, no loser and consequently the competitive nature of composition is much subtler than that of play. This is more or less what I was trying to say, if Alekhine really valued the artistic element above the competitive he would have been better satisfied by composition, however his intense competitiveness and relationship with alcohol suggest to me that he wasn't someone to whom satisfaction was available. |
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| Dec-20-02 | | Sylvester: Maybe Alekhine didn't think making up problems was really chess. It seems like shooting a basketball in a empty gym, you can make a lot more trick shots and stuff, but it feels like you accomplished more if you make them in games with other guys trying to stop you. |
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| Dec-20-02 | | ughaibu: Sylvester: That's more or less what I'm saying. The long and short of it is that I cant imagine Alekhine ever lost a game in order to increase it's beauty. |
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| Dec-20-02 | | PVS: I think that for a combination or an entire game to attain chess beauty, it must flow from within the formal requirements of chess. That is I do not think any move that is inconsistent with the purpose of the game (checkmating the enemy king) could qualify as beautiful. This is part of the challenge. This precept must have guided Alekhine and Tal. I am not so sure about Bronstein. Styles dictate which options a player takes, but in those cases the player is still making the moves most likely to attain victory. |
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| Dec-20-02 | | Ghoul: Beauty cannot be artificial. |
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| Dec-21-02 | | Kulla Tierchen: Vladimir Nabokov, the twentieth century's most impressive Russian novelist (although his best works were from his English period), composed many chess problems. He wrote that most chess players were only mildly interested in problems, and would be utterly baffled if asked to compose one. He is the author of the recently filmed novel Zashchita Luzhina, and best known for Lolita and Pale Fire, both of which I unreservedly commend to lovers of literature. |
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| Dec-21-02 | | ughaibu: Ghoul: Your statement is completely meaningless as far as I can see.
PVS: I mentioned elsewhere Botvinnik's analysis of Geller in which he pointed out that Geller's competitive results were sometimes damaged because he could not resist the beauty of an idea. One doesn't know the result of the game in advance, so it can easily happen that the player producing the ideas eventually loses the game. |
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| Dec-21-02 | | PVS: ughaibu: I am afraid that in addition to being unable to grasp the meaning of Ghoul's pithy statement, you did not grasp part of my post either. I might not have been clear, but my point was not the Geller point, that is a matter of self-discipline. My point is more broad. Very few players merely play the best move, Fischer at his peak being the possible exception. Players today do tend that way more than in the past, but there are still stylistic differences, e.g. Shirov and Kramnik. All players have a style in which they are most comfortable because most skilled. Once in a blue moon Petrosyan played a Tal type game, but if he had tried it as a regular thing, he would have fallen out of the top ten. Tal would have been committing professional suicide had he tried to emulate Reshevsky in 1958. Players' styles can change over time, most commonly calculating tactical types like Tal and Kasparov become more quiet as their mind no longer functions with the power it did at twenty years old. |
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| Dec-21-02 | | ughaibu: PVS: Thanks for the reply, I get your meaning and have no disagreement with it. |
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Feb-06-03
 | | Sneaky: <February 6th, 2003> The great N.N. has finally been honored with "Player of the Day" status at chessgames.com! And it's about time. You can't knock this guy!! He might not win a lot, but you have to admire his perseverence. |
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| Apr-23-03 | | Bears092: ...and his longevity...
412 years, and still truckin' |
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| Apr-24-03 | | PVS: Most of us are NN. |
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| Apr-24-03 | | ughaibu: So let's take pride in our victories over Alekhine, et al. |
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| Apr-24-03 | | PVS: In all candour, Alekhine was a bit under the weather. |
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| Apr-24-03 | | ughaibu: Well that was our plan wasn't it? Otherwise why did we take him drinking? As far as I recall he only wanted to talk about chess and fat women, not the most brilliant conversationalist. |
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| Apr-24-03 | | Cyphelium: Indeed he wasn't, though the Josephine Baker impersonation he did before he passed out was kind of funny-ish. |
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