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 116 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Oct-21-11		Annie K.: ...and just what did the old meddler think he's been trying to do for the last ten minutes already? - fumed Looc. Sheer annoyance gave him an extra energy boost, and he finally caught up with the last of the racers. Casually tossing the rider aside, he picked the horse up and slung it over his shoulder. Ahh, this was much better now! With the extra weight, he felt almost as if he was back in the familiar gravity of his home for the last five years - the hi-grav planet S'platt, where he'd been an exchange student. At last, rid of the queasy feeling that he was about to float right off the ground if he didn't crouch low enough, he put on a burst of speed, and easily overtook the horse racers, then passed the other participants, reaching the finish line with his closest competitor barely in sight. 'Congratulations, young Looc!' boomed the voice of the judge through the loudspeaker, 'You win this season's Royal Race! And your prize will be...

Oct-22-11		SwitchingQuylthulg: ...a free dinner in the Hydra's Head tavern.' So there is such a thing as a free dinner, Looc mused. Such a pity I only have one stomach. He wasn't feeling the least bit peckish, and the prospect of running into the Bugblatter Beast again did little to improve his appetite; even so, free K'run-chee skulls are free K'run-chee skulls. And so Looc made his way back in, the horse still on his shoulders. To his relief, the Bugblatter Beast was nowhere to be seen; the barhydra...

Oct-22-11		twinlark: ...was busy mixing cocktails with squirts of exotic venom from each head to enhance the flavour of the gargle blasters the patrons were queuing for. Looc sidled up to a cyborg at the bar and absent mindedly knocked her off her stool with the horse that was still draped over his shoulder. "Er, sorry!" he blurted. Trying his best to recover a disastrous introduction, Looc racked his mind for inspiration and introduced the horse as Chip, after his favourite pet moon monkey. Picking herself off the floor, the cyborg dusted herself off, and seizing the moment, casually flicked Chip off Looc and out the bar's swinging doors. "I've always wanted to knock a Chip off someone's shoulders," she said...

Oct-22-11		Annie K.: 'Looc' said Looc, unobtrusively gripping the edge of the bar tightly, to keep his fear of floating off at bay, 'that's me - making females' dreams come true since 18,724! So, babe, uh, ever had any dreams of intergalactic domination?'

Oct-22-11		twinlark: "Well..." she murmured, finger tips flicking glowing icons on her left wrist, "I've composed an 11-dimensional chess sui-mate in obverse reticulate 6.4*n ply, and if it's sound, I take out the Local Group Sam Loyd Trophy that's been running for the last 46 years." A holo resembling the illegitimate offspring of a DNA-helix and a Magarathean n-space pineapple appeared in front of him, swirling with virtual technicolour y-swarm algorithms. "What do you reckon, sailor?", she looked at him through her eyelashes, "husky enough for you?" "Uhh..." Looc's brain tried to moebiate to cope with the apparition, "unnhh..."...

Oct-22-11		SwitchingQuylthulg: ...'nngh', he finished lamely. Cyborgs are capable of reading minds. It's nothing but another silly rumour, of course; experts on urban legends all agree it was made out of whole cloth by a man called Zorlusa, who had lost all his money playing poker and tried to gain his revenge on the game by scaring off all the players. In other words, there's no reason to expect it to be true; and yet it is, albeit to a limited extent. That is to say, cyborgs are capable of reading the minds of those who feel a compulsive need to move their lips as they think. It was therefore probably just as well that...

Oct-22-11		Annie K.: ... Looc was still munching on a K'run-chee skull. Not to mention the fact that he hadn't actually been thinking, to start with. Well, not with his head, anyway...

Oct-22-11		Annie K.: Sigh um, no comments, guys? And that was a real softball for a plot twist I threw you, too. OK, OK, I'll fetch it myself... ;p <... Well, not with his head, anyway...> However, his biocalculator, a delicate organ located just above his leftmost lung, was working feverishly. Most members of his race did not possess such a faculty; but Looc's father had been a traveler in his younger days, and he had brought home with him a wife from Few-d'Ahl, the neighbor planet. She was a S'kwee-shea female - a member of the dominant race of Few-d'Ahl's northern hemisphere, a race of natural mathematical geniuses - and her son had inherited her aptitude for complex calculations.

Oct-22-11		twinlark: You waited till 3am my time to spring that one! Back to the story: The sound of the biocalculator manifesting through his mouth as an imitation of a stunned mullet with vocal chords finally trailed off as the results were downloaded to his wetware. Coughing to reactivate his vocal chords, he ventured, "If the archbishop's plinth is separated from the chancellor's orthogonal matrix, that opens a 9th dimensional rank to at least two of the rooks on the gamma axis. This provides a 97% probability of success of sui-mate in 17." "Not just a pretty face," she admitted, casually lifting Looc's 300 kg frame onto the bar and triggering an uncalculated budgie-like squawk from the surprised lad. "What do you say we..."...

Oct-22-11		Thanh Phan: A nice read :) Thought this a good place for the cat picture http://www.impactlab.net/wp-content... They have 9 lives, curiosity, and you wonder where they are half the time.. lol

Oct-23-11		twinlark: Hey! I wondered where my cat got to that day.

Oct-23-11		SwitchingQuylthulg: ...'...talk a bit more about this intergalactic domination thing? You think you could really pull it off, eh? You have a plan?' Looc had never known it was technically possible to sound sarcastic and seductive at the same time, but the cyborg was managing it somehow. 'Mmh, yes. But it's, um, a secret plan,' Looc mumbled, licking jelly off his lips. 'It would have to be, now wouldn't it? Would take one Spispopyd Soulholdings plc of a man to do it out in the open. Now that man, <he'd> really be something.' 'Er, um, it's really just the plan that's secret. The actual operations...' 'He'd be a brain-dead show-off,' she continued, apparently ignoring Looc. It was then that Looc noticed a weight on his shoulders, and it wasn't Chip.

Oct-23-11		visayanbraindoctor: <Man From Earth> I managed to download this from the internet, and just watched it. It's theme is based on the fact that the ethical teachings of the Buddha and Jesus are remarkably similar.

Oct-23-11		Annie K.: <It was then that Looc noticed a weight on his shoulders, and it wasn't Chip.> It wasn't much help with his gravity-related difficulties, either. ---- Yeah, I know that's a cop-out, but I just got home from work, and I'm tired. I plead overperformance at previous turn. ;p <Thanh> heh, cute idea, thanks. :) <twinlark: <You waited till 3am my time to spring that one!>> Your complaint has been noted... ;) <Note to friends who sent me emails in the last days> - thanks, all very appreciated. :) However, now I have a whole bunch of emails <to answer> and it will take me a while! ;s Those I don't get to in the next few days, I'll try to catch up with by next weekend...

Oct-23-11		Benzol: <It wasn't much help with his gravity-related difficulties, either.> However, what was really weighing on Looc's mind was the thought of the legends of cyborgs that could trace their ancestry back to the robot in "Metropolis" or the droids in "Star Wars". Was she actually aware of this? Most people had heard of these legends but he felt it was a bit early in their relationship to broach the subject. He then noticed she was staring at him with a concerned look when all of a sudden...

Oct-23-11		twinlark: ...she sighed as his thoughts were flashing like neons inside the caverns of his mind, "Your ancestors were monkeys, and mine were Westinghouse toasters. Now do you really need help working out that ..."

Oct-24-11		Thanh Phan: Getting ready for Halloween! AWM - 114 - Monster In The Night pt.1 http://youtu.be/dykFbaJaXb8

Oct-24-11		Thanh Phan: Food remains in ancient cooking pots suggest farming caught on slowly ~ Residues in 6,000-year-old cooking pots point to a gradual transition to agriculture, contrary to received wisdom http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2...

Oct-24-11		Thanh Phan: The mitochondria are only passed down the female line, so can be used to trace the species back to an ancestral "Eve", the mother of all Neanderthals. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2...

Oct-25-11		visayanbraindoctor: <Thanh Phan> I think there are studies on the same theme involving the human Y-chromosome, which is only passed through males. From what I have read, the mitochondria studies have indicated that in general all modern humans descended from Africans. Most people of the European race mostly descended from only a few hundred emigrating ancient Africans about 40,000 years ago. So do most Asians. The 'Negritos' (aboriginal peoples of Asia and Australia) may be descended separately from earlier African emigrants as far back as 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. (Naturally, a lot of interbreeding has also occurred in the Eurasian continent.) It's interesting to see pictures of ancient human skulls in the internet. Even from the pictures (I have never seen one 'live'), one can discern that many of the skulls have reduced frontal bossing which results in a prominent supra-orbital ridge, a temporalis line that is more prominent and more medially located (which means that the attached temporalis muscle - for chewing - must have been more powerful), and the maxillary-malar-zygomatic bones seem to jut out making the face look more prognathic - like a muzzle. In general, these ancient skulls also hold less volume than the one you have above your neck.

Oct-25-11		Thanh Phan: <visayanbraindoctor> I have heard of that some or others tried to explain yet I was still confused after~ Thanks for providing more information on that, take care ~Thanh

Oct-26-11		Annie K.: <"Your ancestors were monkeys, and mine were Westinghouse toasters. Now do you really need help working out that ...> ...intergalactic domination scheme?" Looc hastily reached for the last K'run-chee bar, briefly remembering to be thankful that this was one of those years when Phew-d'All's major delicacy export was K'run-chee skulls rather than S'kwee-shea puddings (the fashions of the export industry being determined, of course, by which hemisphere had won the last war) - he had always had mixed feelings about the puddings. "Well, yes..." he mumbled, "but that's REALLY secret, ok? Hold on, I'll be right back." With that, he carefully climbed off the bar. Walking to the opposite wall of the tavern, he reached up to the hidden switch and turned off the transmission to <chessgames.com>. Static crackle, deciphered as Morse code for "The End". ~~~~~ <Thanh> thanks, I've read about the "mitochondrial Eve" hypothesis some years ago. Hmm, if you're interested in a very good take on the development of humans and their cultures, see if you can find 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. :) <visayanbraindoctor> regarding the supraorbital ridge (which is also a prominent Neanderthal characteristic), I seem to recall that recent research supports paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus's long-held pet theory of Neanderthal / Cro-Magnon interbreeding.

Oct-27-11		Thanh Phan: <Anne K.> Thanks :) After this cold or flu is over that I caught from a day in cold rain, will try to find a way to get that for further reading. Would trade some Chicken noodle soup for a K'run-chee bar! Until well, soup might be my main food supply ~ Green days ahead

Oct-28-11		Annie K.: <Thanh> Sorry to hear that, feel better soon.

Oct-29-11		jessicafischerqueen: <Annie> what's the good word? Very entertaining group story. My favorite part was missing every SciFi reference. You guys have really been going to town on the science fiction reading club- I can't think of a more pleasant activity than book club. You may be pleased, or horrified, to learn I've finally read POTTER:ONE. I know it's not SciFi but I sure liked it, I'm ready for POTTER:TWO- THE SEQUEL now. However, I'm embarrassed to report I still haven't read the SciFi story you emailed me three years ago. doh! I just reminded myself of it. Silver lining, now I'll go back and save it on my hard drive. STEP ONE: Find story Annie sent me. STEP TWO: Save to hard drive STEP THREE: ??? STEP FOUR: Profit!

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