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 112 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Sep-24-11		technical draw: <My Buddhist ex> Coincidence, I also have a Buddhist ex.

Sep-24-11		Annie K.: <Dom> Heh. Well, at least you heard news! And I suppose fellow members of the feline appreciation society are Bast Friends? ;) Anyhoo, let's not confuse a religion's <monks> with mainstream practitioners of the religion. Not all Buddhists are monks, any more than all Christians are, of course.

Sep-24-11		solskytz: Hey Annie, first of all I read your bio and it's nice to meet another Israeli chess player here - of course I no longer live in Israel... and it's quite possible that my info isn't up to date, as my last Israeli tournament was played in 2003, before they started to count rapids. Now let me tell you a story: in 1997 the Israeli federation made an average of the rating of 300 FIDE - rated Israelis. They then made an average of the same people's Israeli rating - and they saw that on average, the FIDE rating was 30 points higher than the Israeli rating. As a result they decided to increase the Israeli rating of everybody in Israel by a factor of 30 points. This was when I first broke 1800 - but then the next Israeli rating list was published and because of some very successful tournaments I got a rating of 1877 - something really to be proud of for such a late starter as myself.

Sep-24-11		Domdaniel: Sounds all too familiar, that. In the 1980s, the Irish Chess Union had separate rapid and standard rating lists - I was only 1800 rapid when I was 1950 standard. Then somebody in Denmark told me 'it was well known' that Irish ratings were undervalued. So a 2000 Irish was about 2150 FIDE (and I know many people who bear this out - though it could be an effect of FIDE ratings being taken from higher-class events, while local ones include everything). But meanwhile my ICU rating fell into the 1700s, due to idiotic losses without enough high-profile wins. I also think everyone is stronger, on average, post-computers. And inflation affects the higher reaches, but there seems to be a deflationary effect under 2000. This is unsystematic, but I don't much believe in the accuracy of rating systems anymore. The math is sound, but the margin of error is huge. Any system where you can select opponents or games for rating leads to massive inflation, of course.

Sep-24-11		Annie K.: Thanks, Itzhak. :) That's the first I hear about that bit of local chess history - the only administrative rating adjustment I've heard of up to now, was the controversy when FIDE raised the ratings of all women players by 100 points, except the Polgars'. <I got a rating of 1877 - something really to be proud of for such a late starter as myself.> Indeed. :) I'm a late starter too... and debuted at 1733 just last year, after having played for years online only. This rating came exclusively from rapid games, though.

Sep-25-11		solskytz: I don't know if there's really any difference in playing strength between rapid and standard - I notice that people perform pretty much the same in different time limits. I play in chesscube.com - would be nice to see you there from time to time

Sep-25-11		Annie K.: Well, it's easier to get away with not-quite-sound opening move orders and combinations in rapid, as the opponents usually don't dare to take the time to sit and figure out how to punish them properly, so they usually just allow a transposition back into a main line. ;) I have an account at Chesscube, rated about 1800 as I recall, but the site takes too long to load for me, and the lag is too annoying... I just play at FICS now, where my standard rating is also 1800 (could have gotten higher probably, but stopped playing standard time control games), and blitz rating about 1500, give or take 50 on any day, which works out because the FICS blitz pool is known to be underrated.

Sep-25-11		solskytz: That's a good point about rapid, with regards to non-orthodox openings, punishment thereof... that's probably why I like rapid and blitz better... I don't like guys sitting there figuring out how to punish me for my bad ways... doesn't sound like fun... anyways - well sure, I also play on the FICS from time to time - but usually on the chesscube. My handle is solskytz on both and my email is solskytz@gmail.com - let's blitz some

Sep-25-11		Annie K.: I don't really like to play against friends and acquaintances, sorry. Informal OTB is something else - that's fun - but not online. :)

Sep-25-11		solskytz: Just saw you crush a FICS 1776 very convincingly. Chapeau!

Sep-25-11		Annie K.: Heh, thanks, but he was just a n00b who happened to win his first game... the real 1700's are a lot tougher to beat. ;)

Sep-26-11		solskytz: oh, I see - quite an important distinction to make. I'm usually in the 1700s myself, heh heh

Sep-26-11		Shams: <Anyhoo, I found an innaresting word today: henotheism ... it means belief in a number of gods, more than one but less than many. Neither monotheist nor polytheist. Most Judaeo-Xtians are henotheists without knowing it.> Yes, this word is in "The Superior Person's Book of Words" which must be under a cereal bowl somewhere in your flat. In addition to offering the correct definition, two alternates are supplied: 1) the belief that God is a hen 2) the belief that Henny Youngman is God. "Take my only begotten son...please?"

Sep-27-11		Domdaniel: <"Take my only begotten son...please?"> In 'Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said', by Philip K. Dick, there's a description of an artwork called "The Ascension into Heaven of Richard M. Nixon" ... in which, we are told, God can be seen welcoming his second only-begotten son.

Oct-02-11		Pyke: Hi <Annie K.>, I've just read your comment over at the chessgames.com forum and somehow it made me think of the following skit. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HC8... Yes, I DO like Mad Tv ...

Oct-02-11		Hugin: "You might belong in Gryffindor, Where dwell the brave at heart, Their daring, nerve and chivalry Set Gryffindors apart"

Oct-02-11		Annie K.: <Hugin> heh, thanks. "Fifty points to Gryffindor" is just HP-speak for 'well done/said'. :) <solskytz> I noticed. :) <Pyke> how odd... I can't see any connection at all? ;)

Oct-03-11		jessicafischerqueen: Hello! Happy halloween! It's ween month. I've been thinking about your last EMU, I'll be replying presently. I have a few queries as well.

Oct-03-11		Hugin: <Annie K.: <Hugin> heh, thanks. "Fifty points to Gryffindor" is just HP-speak for 'well done/said'. :)> No worries :) i just had to look the word up and found it under harry potter or something, and posted the poem pretending i've ever saw harry potter hehe.

Oct-03-11		Annie K.: <Hugin> I suspected that! :D Good research. :) <Jess> Happy New Year! =) No, srsly, we just had the New Year celebrations here, on accounta we're so speshul that we get a new year two months before everybody else. ;p Heh. Looking forward to mail, hope they are not working you too hard there! :)

Oct-04-11		jessicafischerqueen: Happy nude Deer! (a pun I made up not <Boomie> who claims copyright on it- please address all letters to my lawyer, <hms123>). They are indeed working me too hard, and they've started paying me in Gryffindor dollars. Should I be worried?

Oct-04-11		SwitchingQuylthulg: <jessicafischerqueen: Happy nude Deer! (a pun I made up not <Boomie> who claims copyright on it-> Incredibly enough, this is actually true! (<Boomie>'s original version was "Hippy Nude Deer"...) <Annie> Happy New Year! Seems to me as if you're three months early, not just two :)

Oct-04-11		hms123: <jess> Incredibly enough (A phrase made up by <Switch>), you will still get a bill from me even though you didn't do anything wrong. They have raised the price of <Matted Elk>.

Oct-04-11		jessicafischerqueen: It's a fair cop, <H>. Good quality is worth paying for, whether it be lawyers, fine wines, or comestibles. That's why I stick with <hms123>, <Morton's "Old Stoat">, and <Microwave sausage rolls>. These are best served together, equally suitable for a light tea in the garden or an old fashioned rogering with your girl down the Dog and Ferret.

Oct-04-11		jessicafischerqueen: Berlin Alexanderplatz

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