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 117 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Oct-29-11		crawfb5: First rule of Book Club: <Don't talk about Book Club!> The Science Channel has been advertising a new series produced by Ridley Scott called <Prophets of Science Fiction> (http://science.discovery.com/tv/pro...). There will be episodes on Asimov, Dick, Verne, Wells, etc. It starts here in the US in early November. I'm not sure about availability elsewhere.

Oct-29-11		Annie K.: <Jess: <<Annie> what's the good word?>> Hmm, I'm told it may be "please". ;s In other news, I just started answering your latest, should be along after a few more coffees... :D The SF references were mostly to 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' by Douglas Adams, with some Star Wars added for flavor, and possibly <Switch> may have been trying to segue into Tolkien's 'Lord of the Rings', but I can't be sure because I haven't read it. :p That was fun! Glad to hear you are HP1 positive. =)

Oct-29-11		jessicafischerqueen: How embarrassing- not only have I read Hitchhiker's Guide and Lord of the Rings, I've also seen all the Star Wars Movies. I'm not discounting the possibility here that I may be plain dumb.

Oct-29-11		Annie K.: <Jess> nah. :p I've always been meaning to read LotR... I started it twice, akshly, but in both cases decided I didn't have time for a new obsession just when it was starting to get interesting. There will be a third time, one of these days... ;) Meanwhile, u haz mail! :)

Oct-29-11		SwitchingQuylthulg: <Annie> You've read the chess version on the Moscow page, though ;-)

Oct-30-11		Annie K.: <Switch> yup! :) It had the considerable advantages of being much shorter, and featuring already familiar characters. ;)

Oct-30-11		Thanh Phan: <Annie K.> You have the Moscow characters? Oh a book reading hint, if you skip the First Chapter, your chances of finishing a book increases, at least for me, lol

Oct-30-11		Annie K.: <Thanh> heh, that's true for some books! :) <Switch> was referring to this: City of Moscow

Oct-30-11		WannaBe: Ad hoc committee, see my profile.

Oct-30-11		Thanh Phan: <Annie K.> Woo what a head spinning referring to, that you talk about, those are the stories, that if you miss the First chapter! you will forever be wondering what they are talking about. Thanks for sharing :) even if I was late for today's chat with someone, lol

Oct-31-11		Annie K.: <Thanh> glad to hear you enjoyed it. :) Did you read the whole Moscow page, or just the LotR parody yet?

Nov-01-11		Thanh Phan: <Annie K.> Have read the LotR parody, was working on the rest of page when the day started and had to look busy and leave, guess I enter time pressure and my reading suffers~ Found an article - Neanderthals were enjoying the finer things in life 250,000 years ago http://io9.com/5854582/neanderthals... They appear to still be advanced even if the species died out Take care ~Thanh

Nov-01-11		Thanh Phan: A finding of a blog with SF stories until 1999 http://coderyder.wordpress.com/sf-s... thought you would like

Nov-02-11		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie K: 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.> I have read something on it. It seems that genetic studies indicate that Eurasians (Europeans and Asians) have an admixture of about 5% Neanderthal genes that are not found in Africans. It was not only the Neanderthals that had less frontal bossing and thus more prominent supra orbital ridges compared to modern humans. I have seen the skulls (admittedly only in the internet) of Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and most of the Australopithecus species; and they have progressively lesser frontal bossing as one goes back in time. <Your ancestors were monkeys> In taxonomy, Hominidae is the taxonomic family in which the following existing genera belong: orangutans (Pongo), gorillas (Gorilla), chimpanzees (Pan), and humans (Homo). The now extinct Australopithecus genus also belongs to this family. Further up the taxonomic scale is the superfamily Hominoidea to which all of the above plus the gibbons (family Hylobatidae) belong to. The layman's term for all of these, except humans, is "Ape". Now many people see this in any Biology textbook and immediately say: "Taxonomy is silly, it means we are monkeys!" "No," the learned Biologist says, "we are a kind of ape. Ape is different from monkey." "What?! It's the same thing. What a horrible thing to say- that we are apes. No way!" Whatever.. there is also no way to deny human morphological similarities to other members of our taxonomic family. Our hands down to fingernails are almost the same. It does not stop on the superficial anatomy. Gorrillas, chimps, and humans have the same ABO blood type system, meaning exactly the same 'A' and 'B' antigens are found in all three genera. I have even read somewhere that it's almost impossible to differentiate human from chimpanzee blood on the basis of antigens. I guess that in an emergency, one can well transfuse human blood into chimps and chimp blood into humans (preferably of the same blood type). [If you're a zookeeper who is taking care of an injured chimp with type A blood that gets splashed on your shirt, and there's a murder victim with type A blood nearby, try not to get arrested by the police. They might test the blood on your shirt, find it's type A, and haul you off to jail. (",)] And of course, it doesn't stop there either. It seems genetic mapping has shown that human and chimp genes are approximately 99% the same. Most pairs of mammalian species that are more than 2% genetically different can interbreed with each other. I wonder if someone had tried breeding humans with chimps before, shocking the thought may be. Aside from Family Hominidae, the other most intelligent family in the animal world is the Family Delphinidae - the dolphins. Many dolphin species, from what I have read, are also capable of interbreeding and, unlike the apes, have produced many natural hybrids in the wild.

Nov-02-11		Annie K.: <visayanbraindoctor> yep. You're preaching to the choir here, regarding the existence of a rich fossil record documenting the path of evolution. :) However, I'm always happy to host such good and detailed explanations, in case any of my forum readers might benefit from the information. (",) - that's an interesting smiley you use, I suppose it's a "wink", more usually denoted by ;) ? Your version looks a bit like a yin-yang symbol. :)

Nov-02-11		Annie K.: <Thanh> thanks for that link. :) Yes, the Neanderthals being culturally advanced has been proven over 30 years ago, when archaeologists discovered Neanderthal burial sites containing flowers and other items, meaning they buried their dead ceremonially... also, they found skeletons and skulls showing evidence of survival of individuals for many years after sustaining serious damage - meaning that Neanderthals practiced medicine, and took care of their injured and crippled. This puts them on fully human level.

Nov-03-11		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie K.: when archaeologists discovered Neanderthal burial sites containing flowers and other items, meaning they buried their dead ceremonially... also, they found skeletons and skulls showing evidence of survival of individuals for many years after sustaining serious damage - meaning that Neanderthals practiced medicine, and took care of their injured and crippled. This puts them on fully human level.> I have read on this before and was amazed. Regarding our taxonomic affiliation with fellow Family Hominidae member, genus Pan, take a look at the side profile of an adult and a baby chimpanzee. Adult: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped... Baby: http://images.search.yahoo.com/imag... Do you notice any differences? Which of them resembles a human's profile more? And why?

Nov-03-11		OhioChessFan: <meaning that Neanderthals practiced medicine, and took care of their injured and crippled. This puts them on fully human level.> Or, you know, they could all just <be> human beings. I'm just saying. Sort of like that amazing transitional form that they figured out a year after I did, was just a lemur. I give this one a year or two and a very quiet mea culpa, but onward and upward, another amazing discovery to tout by that time.

Nov-03-11		Thanh Phan: Possible reasons some species goes Extinct? Kirby says "Hi" for 5 minutes and gets Falcon Pwnched http://youtu.be/0J8yTdj_6TQ lol

Nov-03-11		OhioChessFan: http://images7.fotki.com/v117/photo...

Nov-03-11		Annie K.: <Ohio> better stop smoking, then. ;) No, those discoveries are over 30 years old already, well-documented, and their authenticity is not in question at all. There is also no doubt that Homo Neanderthalensis was a separate, if closely related, branch. :)

Nov-03-11		twinlark: <Ohio> <Or, you know, they could all just <be> human beings.> This takes me back to one of our earlier discussions on the gourmet stroganoff page. If "modern" humans interbred with Neanderthals, it would indicate that Neanderthals were a subspecies of homo sapiens. I've sometimes wondered why modern humans are often classified as homo sapiens sapiens, and I guess the answer is that Neanderthals are homo sapiens neanderthalensis. I tend to think that the taxonomy of chimps is flawed, as they are obviously close relatives, as visayanbraindoctor has pointed out, with the same blood types, 99% DNA similarity and the fact that there are many species such as horse, penguins, fruit flies etc that have <more> genetic variation within their respective species than there are between humans and chimps. A friend once suggested, in the vein of Diamond's idea of the Third Chimpanzee, that humans should really be classified as something like Pan Africanus. Although all this would raise the question of where Neanderthals originated if they didn't originate in Africa, and why they were able to breed with modern humans.

Nov-03-11		OhioChessFan: <Although all this would raise the question of where Neanderthals originated if they didn't originate in Africa, and why they were able to breed with modern humans.> They were able to breed with humans because they were humans.

Nov-03-11		Annie K.: Yes, <Ohio>, that's what the <Homo> part in <Homo Neanderthalensis> means. :) They were a branch of the human species. <twinlark> as far as I recall, the Neanderthal line diverged from the Sapiens line at the Homo Heidelbergensis stage, so we have earlier ancestors in common; they didn't just "appear" from somewhere. ;) They were probably native Europeans, i.e., the descendants of European Homo Heidelbergensis groups.

Nov-03-11		OhioChessFan: I should have clarified to say they were both homo sapiens.

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