User Profile: Annie K.

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Annie K.
Member since Apr-02-04

Annie Kappel
This profile needs an update badly, but I don't have the time... :)
My YouTube channel, featuring pronunciations of non-English chess player names: http://www.youtube.com/user/AnnieK1...
I'm 45 y/o, of Transylvanian origin, living in Israel since childhood. I speak English (no, really), Hungarian (great language!), and Hebrew (if I must, which is often, for some reason).
Afflicted with an uncontrollable sense of humor and other highly controversial characteristics.
I learned chess as a child, but had no further opportunities to practice the game. Returned to it seriously around 2004, and have been hanging out here since.
Note: if I am not home (i.e., here), you can probably find me at the Domdaniel chessforum, the SwitchingQuylthulg chessforum, the visayanbraindoctor chessforum, or the chessgames.com chessforum! :)
---
<My City of Moscow skits:>
<<<<<<>>>>> Kramnik's Party -> City of Moscow (kibitz #752)
<<<<<<>>>>> Sochi 2008: An F-Files Production -> City of Moscow (kibitz #774)
---
<Game Collection: My GotD Puns>
<My favorites:>
All Your Baze Are Belong To Us - L Baze vs T Palmer, 2004 - GotD Mar-21-10
Y Yu No Claim Repetition? - Yu Yangyi vs M R Venkatesh, 2012 - GotD Jun-30-12
He Who Has E Tate is Lost - E Tate vs Y Shulman, 2001 - GotD Sep-22-16
How Many Roads Must Aman Walk Down? - S Shankland vs A Hambleton, 2014 - GotD Dec-23-16 (besides the obvious reason for the pun - a long King walk - note also the terms 'shank' and 'amble' embedded in the player names)
So me the Wei - W So vs Wei Yi, 2013 - GotD Jan-29-17
This Won't Borya Ider - B Ider vs Wei Yi, 2014 - GotD Apr-01-17 (follow-up to previous day's GotD, 'This Won't Borya')
Injun vs Engin' - Anand vs REBEL, 1997 - GotD Jan-06-2018
---
<My other (linkable) site contributions:>
* The Player Names Pronunciation Project: http://www.chessgames.com/audio (or look for names with a loudspeaker icon in the Player Directory)
* Created on my suggestion: Biographer Bistro
* The first (now retired) Carlsen Dancing Rook: https://web.archive.org/web/2013040...
* The Caruana Dancing Rook:
http://www.chessgames.com/chessimag...
* The Hou Dancing Rook:
http://www.chessgames.com/chessimag...
---
<<<<<<< MAJOR CHESS SITES <<>>>>>>>>>
<< Correspondence chess <<<<<<>>>>>>>>
< ChessWorld -> http://www.chessworld.net
ChessWorld is my new main chess playing base. It's a rather restrictive site for non-paying members, but one of the best sites for paying members. The full features include excellent interface options and first class study and analysis resources. Nice community, likeable admin. Paid membership recommended.
< Update: while I will leave the original entry for ChessWorld as-is, I have by now been a member of the site for 2 years, and am now an admin there. I still think the site is one of the best, and the <other> admins are nice. :p >
My ChessWorld profile: http://www.letsplaychess.com/chessc...
< Queen Alice -> http://www.queenalice.com
Queen Alice is a charming site - well behaved players, decent admin, site design visually very pleasant. It is also completely free. Unfortunately, it lacks team play, the interface and resources are relatively simple, and it can be frustratingly slow (loading times). Nevertheless warmly recommended.
My QueenAlice profile: http://www.queenalice.com/player.ph...
< GameKnot -> http://gameknot.com
GameKnot is technically an excellent site, however I would not recommend it to the serious player who is looking for a site to settle in, due to an anti$ocial admin with ju$t one $ingle intere$t in hi$ $ite... oop$, $orry about the typo$.
My GameKnot profile: http://gameknot.com/stats.pl?annie-....
<< Other chess sites <<<<<<>>>>>>>>
< FICS - the Free Internet Chess Server -> http://www.freechess.org
FICS is a great site to play chess at various faster time controls. There are a few difficulties getting started with it - first, it can be hard to find an email they will accept for registration; and second, there's a lot of site code to learn. But it's worth the hassle. :)
< ChessCube -> http://www.chesscube.com
ChessCube is quite good for fast time control games - provided you have a strong computer with broadband, as the site is entirely Flash based, which means it takes considerable computer resources to load. The site is nominally free, but heavily commercialized with all sorts of frills that can be purchased on it.
< Emrald Chess Tactics Server -> http://chess.emrald.net
Emrald is not a playing site - it is an invaluable tactical training asset. The only problem with it is also the difficulty of finding an "acceptable" email address to register with; but once past that hurdle, the site deserves nothing but praise.
It's a completely free site. You can play (practice) there as a guest, but they recommend registering, so that their program can keep track of your progress, in order to assign you puzzles best suited to your current level. I strongly second that recommendation. Register and always play logged in! It will make a huge difference in the site's ability to help you improve. An issue that scares some people off Emrald is that your progress is tracked via a "rating system", and because of the high importance they assign to speed, if you are not used to finding tactics fast, your rating will be very low at first - and many people are simply embarrassed to play logged in for that reason. Don't let it bother you! If you let embarrassment hold you back from letting the site help you improve to the best of its ability, you are only shooting yourself in the foot, and nobody else really cares that much anyway. ;p
A few of the people I've recommended Emrald to, had dropped it after a brief trial with remarks along the lines of "Oh, it's a blitz training site. I don't play blitz, so I don't like their obsession with speed." That reaction is absolutely wrong - and it's also one that many people who try the site out for only a short time are likely to have, if only because players who are used to being rated, say, 2000 and above, at corr. chess sites, are going to be annoyed and put on the defensive about finding themselves rated as low as 1200-1300 at Emrald, and will wish to dismiss the "insulting" site.
Yes, the Emrald rating system is heavily influenced by speed. But thinking that the site's purpose is blitz training is a complete misunderstanding of the lesson taught. The real purpose of Emrald practice is not to improve your blitz skills, but to train you to recognize dozens of tactical themes and opportunities AT A GLANCE - which will not only save you time in games of any time control, but is often the only way you will catch them AT ALL. Those brilliant tactical shots that can be seen in anyone's collection of "most memorable games", are often moves that will either occur to you as soon as you glance at the position, or you will miss them altogether. That's what Emrald really teaches - tactical chess intuition.
<Intuition in chess can be defined as the first move that comes to mind when you see a position. --- <Viswanathan Anand>>
<Personally, I am of the view that if a strong master does not see such a threat at once he will not notice it, even if he analyses the position for twenty or thirty minutes. --- <Tigran Petrosian >>
<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>
^ TL;DR.

Any other questions, feel free to ask. I might even answer. ;p

>> Click here to see Annie K.'s game collections.

   Current net-worth: 990 chessbucks
[what is this?]

   Annie K. has kibitzed 8212 times to chessgames [more...]

   Sep-15-20 S Mariotti vs A Geller, 1990

Annie K.: The Black player in this game has been corrected from Efim to Alexander Geller. Thanks. :)

   Sep-14-20 chessgames.com chessforum

Annie K.: <MissS> ah, yes, the key term "I challenged her" - that pretty much describes the previous post too, which was a blown out of all proportion tirade about the severity of the Player of the Day (not the entire homepage as claimed, which I check on almost every midnight, ...

   Sep-12-20 Champions Showdown Chess 9LX (2020)

Annie K.: Note: if you can't see the games, please set your game viewer to pgn4web (in the box under the game score) - but remember to set it back to our default viewer Olga in the end, as it is about to be upgraded soon, and will be the best of our viewers. :)

   Sep-04-20 Chessgames Bookie chessforum

Annie K.: The logs have been checked, and the top places are cleared. Congratulations to winner <moronovich>, the other 5 qualifiers, and the rest of the top 10! :) We have opened the Fall Leg, so if anything turns up, betting can start immediately, but we have no official schedule for

   Aug-01-20 Biographer Bistro

Annie K.: <Tab> The WCC pages are tied in with some special functions, and changing them can cause far-ranging problems at this time (remember when merely changing the WCC page titles caused stats to disappear from the pages of participating players?), so let's take this up again after

   Jul-29-20 Ding Liren vs Leko, 2020

Annie K.: Identical to K Stupak vs E Shtembuliak, 2020 .

   Jul-24-20 Annie K. chessforum

Annie K.: A fun conversation from 2016... :) <Daniel:> I’ve come to learn a lot about what sports broadcasting must be like. Actually I learned about it long before CG when I worked at a newspaper. If there is a sporting event you MUST be excited about it, from a business ...

   Jul-22-20 Biel (2020)

Annie K.: It gets worse - the chess24 intro says "In case of a tie for first place chess960 rapid games will be played", but in fact the official site specifies that the chess960 tiebreaks in question are the ACCENTUS 960 games - which have already been played on the 18th, the event's first ...

   Jul-21-20 Csom vs A Yusupov, 1982

Annie K.: The only requirement for this excellent pun is to pronounce Csom correctly. Which means, as "Chom". :)

   Jul-17-20 K Pedersen vs G F Kane, 1972

Annie K.: <jith> thank you for the always helpful directions. :) So all 12 Pedersen games we have in Chess Olympiad Final-A (1972) games are about to be reassigned from Eigil to Karl.

indicates a reply to the comment.

Procrastinators' Club (planned)

< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 263 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Aug-03-18		thegoodanarchist: <twinlark: Sneaky has a very large number of posts, over 13,000. I wouldn't have thought Daniel would have had the time. Anything is possible, and mysteries keep us alert...> Over more than 15 years, that is fewer than 3 posts per day...

Aug-03-18		twinlark: Hi <Annie K.> I hope I don't seem presumptuous or ignorant in asking- and I hope it's not too soon to ask - but what is happening to coordinate all the things that need to be covered? I see you, <Sargon>, <Stonehenge> and probably lots of other have stepped up. Was wondering if, for instance is there, or is there going to be, something like a clearing house or the like that lists everything that needs to be done that members can access? With the number of concerned members who want this place to survive and thrive and who are willing to pitch in, something that truly gladdens my heart, crowd thinking by the membership should cover all the bases eventually, so that they can be ticked off item by item, with something like a progress report on how things are going? I've seen monetisation being a lot of people's primary concerns for obvious reasons, but this site has so many elements it's mind boggling, and that's without even starting to think about the innovation process. Apologies if this has been asked and answered somewhere else. There's self interest in my query that I even once raised with Daniel. I've put in thousands of hours of work into bios since 2006, and clearly the other volunteers have put in what by now must amount to millions of hours. Most of the results of this work is stored as electrons on servers (something like anyway), and I had wanted to feel some confidence that all that work wouldn't be swept away if the worst came to the worst, which it clearly has. Although a disaster physically destroying the servers, assuming they are in one place, comes close in some respects. Hence my query about the kind of systematic response to this tragedy.

Aug-03-18		thegoodanarchist: <I've put in thousands of hours of work into bios since 2006, and clearly the other volunteers have put in what by now must amount to millions of hours.> Thank you so much, <twinlark>! And also thanks to the other volunteers.

Aug-03-18		WannaBe: Just wanted to drop by and say thanks to you, <Annie K.> and all others who have taken/picked up the work...

Aug-05-18		Annie K.: <WannaBe> thanks. <twinlark> sorry, I'm just not up to writing a report on all that right now. Things are moving a bit slowly, but we are not aimless. That's all I can say for now. In other news, Alisa told me that there wasn't and won't be a funeral (they opted for cremation); they are planning to have a memorial service, but no details yet. Lastly, I have been reading some of <Sneaky>'s posts, and I have positive identification based on a personal anecdote. <Sneaky> was Daniel.

Aug-05-18		Check It Out: I suspected as much. How clever was that? All these years... Let me know how I can help, there is a lot of documentation and community that is counting on the survival of this website.

Aug-05-18		Check It Out: Also, is the chess at chessgames dot com email being monitored?

Aug-06-18		twinlark: <Annie K.> I appreciate what you and the others are doing. You'll probably want to know some people have started listing what they see as priorities at Biographers' Bistro. Hope someone figures out how to switch off the "live" Biel game that comes on every day. It's like a distress signal.

Aug-06-18		Annie K.: <twinlark> I am aware of all that. Just difficult for me to decide how much I should take on myself to say publicly. But it would probably be a good idea to state this much: Daniel was not the only shareholder - he owned about 70%; all the others are longtime friends and associates. Daniel had a will that concerned cg. This I know, and made sure to inform all involved that I have been in touch with. But we are still working on locating it, hence the holdup on moving forward with everything else. <CIO> I don't believe anybody has access to chess@chessgames.com at the moment. This is a major problem. <Sargon> should be able to shut down the live relay. I have already asked Alisa to tell him about it.

Aug-06-18		jessicafischerqueen: Hello <Annie> and thank you so much in this dark time. <Doggimus> If you want to save your work, there is still time. It will take some further work but you'd be surprised how quickly you can do this. If you want to do it, go to this webpage: https://archive.org/web/ Now look at the box that says <Save Page Now> Now copy and paste the URL of one of the bios you wrote into the box. <Alekhine>, let's say. Alexander Alekhine Now click the box <Save Now> Next, bookmark the page you just saved. The bookmark title will automatically be created as such, at least on Google Chrome: <The chess games of Alexander Alekhine> Hey presto here is your bio, saved for as long as the <Web Archive> lasts: https://web.archive.org/web/2018080... This isn't just a copy of text- the page has some functionality. If you click on any of the links your provided in your bio, most of them should work. <zanzibar> will know more about these details. I recommend doing this, because you absolutely cannot count on cg.com recovering eh? Right now I am in the process of archiving the entire <Tournament Index>, while there is still time.

Aug-06-18		Joshka: <Annie K.> < positive identification based on a personal anecdote <sneaky> was Daniel> Hi Annie, Thanks for chiming in on this discussion. Your anecdote reveals to you they were one and the same. What's weird is that the "sneaky" I played on the ICC a few years back, said he was <sneaky> from chessgames.com. He's still on the ICC, and I've sent him messages but have gotten no response. So if your conjecture is correct, now I'll need to solve the dilemma on my personal experience with <sneaky> thanks!

Aug-06-18		Annie K.: <Jess> thanks for the Wayback recap. <Joshka> Daniel had a phone stolen about 2 years ago. He is probably still logged in to ICC on that phone. As for actually playing, he and I were both using a very cute app called ChessHeroz in the last years. He was using a "chessgames" account on it before his phone was stolen; so that is also a long-abandoned account. Afterwards he was using an account named "Daniel". We were on each other's friends list, so I have access to his games history (otherwise he would be impossible to find, since the app just says that there are too many Daniels to give the full list). His last games were 5 rapid games from the morning of July 24th, 1 loss and 4 wins. Due to the opponents' low ratings, I don't believe they are worth uploading, but I may post the better of them once I've had time to fix the unfortunately very poorly parsed PGN the app exports.

Aug-06-18		twinlark: <jess> Thanks. That's a lot of work (especially for you!), but at least it will be saved.

Aug-06-18		jessicafischerqueen: <Doggimus> It actually goes surprisingly fast- I urge you to save your bios and your games collections. I am also saving bios but I'm not overly interested in any of them after 1972.

Aug-06-18		Check It Out: <Annie K.: His last games were 5 rapid games from the morning of July 24th, 1 loss and 4 wins.> I find this detail heart warming and reassuring.

Aug-06-18		zanzibar: <Annie K> if you could contact Susan and/or Alisa about info for Daniel's biography, it would be appreciated. I think Daniel would want us to report on him in the same fashion as he encouraged us to do for all the other players here on <CG>.

Aug-07-18		AgentRgent: <Annie K.: <Sneaky> was Daniel.> Indeed. I deduced it several years back, and when I pressed him on it privately, he begrudgingly confirmed it. Obviously I kept his secret out of respect for such a fine man. Although life has pulled me away from CG.com for the last few years, news of Daniel's passing hit me like a punch in the gut. Although I'm certain you will, please convey to all his family how greatly appreciated he was by this community.

Aug-07-18		Tabanus: Hi <Annie K.> and thank you for everything. Here's an advice from old Tab: tell the real name, even if different from Daniel. It may be too early yet, but it's the best in the long run.

Aug-07-18		Tiggler: Dear <Annie K> I am reposting here a message that I put on <jessfq>'s forum a week ago, in case it becomes of interest to you when things settle down. Best regards from a long time admirer of Daniel and CG.com. jessicafischerqueen chessforum Those of us who care, a lot, may have to step up in another way. The finances of chessgames.com are not very solid, I imagine. Daniel kept it alive despite that by putting in very long hours for very low pay, so that he could pursue his dream and his self-asigned mission. He always resisted the idea of a subscription for all users, knowing that many would have to leave the site and that new blood would be more difficult to recruit. From time to time I've seen premium members gripe about the so-called free-loaders who were getting most of the site benefits without paying. I guess Daniel saw it differently: I think he viewed the premium membership as a way of letting the most active users who could afford it sponsor the site. Lord knows it is a very modest amount that we pay for that privilege. Some of us may have to consider what we might be willing to contribute to put the site on a more sound financial footing. That way the new owners, Daniel's heirs, may be less inclined to pull the plug. In my town, there would be no performing arts, quality live music venues, museums, zoos, botanical gardens, or anything to raise the spirits without charitable donors. Their nominal reward is to get titles like Benefactor, Sponsor, Supporting Member etc. If you and other influential long-standing members like <Ohio>, <AnnieK>, <YouRang>, <FSR>, and a dozen others (regardless of financial means) I could think of, think this is a worthwhile idea I would ask you to put it about and see if we can knock it into shape as a proposal to the site owners.

Aug-08-18		Joshka: <Annie K.> Well if someone stole my phone everything would be disconnected and reported, oh well. But I still get no response when I send him a private message, so it's such a shame. Thanks.

Aug-08-18		Annie K.: All the comments have been noted, with thanks. I confirm that <sneaky sqeeky> is indeed Daniel's mother. There's something I want to share with everybody here, that she said to me: <He was Daniel to me too.> I think this will mean a lot to many of us. I know it made all the difference to me.

Aug-08-18		zanzibar: Thanks <Annie K>.

Aug-08-18		Tiggler: < Annie K.: All the comments have been noted, with thanks. I confirm that <sneaky sqeeky> is indeed Daniel's mother.> In that case can she confirm that the date of birth on Daniel's bio page is wrong? Is Sept 30, 1967 correct? https://baldwincremation.com/catego... I guess an internet savvy person could well use a false birthday online, since that information is a route to identity theft.

Aug-08-18		Annie K.: Sept 30 1967.

Aug-08-18		Annie K.: Read his mother's post on the player page, <Tab>.

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