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 126 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Jan-15-12		kingscrusher: Annie, I have done a pronounciation video where you can gather insights if you want to do videos on "Fianchetto" and "Pirc". Haha - it's caused a riot already in just less than an hour :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRQs... I don't know why - do you have any ideas why?!

Jan-15-12		kingscrusher: <jessicafischerqueen:> I love all your history videos - sorry just reading this stuff further done Annie's page. I am in shock!. Really it is just because I did live commentary videos that my channel profile was built over the years. You do really great history videos getting into the personalities of the players and the cultural and historical contexts.

Jan-15-12		kingscrusher: Annie you might get some new Youtube subs from that fun video anyway - I did recommend your channel in the description for properly pronouncing chess player names.

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: Thanks <Tryfon>- I left a heinously late message for you over at your forum as well. What about doing another pronunciation video on the "Fawn pawn"? Game Collection: Fawn Pawns Game Collection: More Fawn Pawns <"Naming Notes"- Some refer to this as a <Pawn Nail>, or a <Thorn Pawn>. The noted youtube chess video annotator Tryfon Gavriel- known as <Kingscrusher>- calls them <Thorn Pawns>. However, Tryfon has a heavy English accent, so we thought he was saying <Fawn Pawns>.> In fact, you mention the <Thorn Pawn> as a positional asset in literally hundreds of your videos, from the beginning of your channel to the present day. It's the reason I got interested in them in the first place.

Jan-15-12		kingscrusher: <jessicafischerqueen:> Yes next Sunday maybe I can cover 3 words: 1) The 2) Thorn pawn 3) Zuichenzug I really think this could be an exciting new avenue for my channel - but I could also link to Annie's videos if they cover these important words.

Jan-15-12		Domdaniel: <Jess> There are all kinds of factors to consider if CG took over. I have the impression they're not totally unwilling, just reluctant. But it needn't require much work for CG: the Caissars could fit into an off week in the chessbookie setup. Blind/blank voting would improve things, yes. Unlike world games - where the aim is to find the best move, not to express democratic opinions. If Cg took over, though, the whole thing would get bigger - perhaps leading to hundreds of nominations in some categories. It might be necessary to limit the shortlist to those with the most nominations. And, of course, all rules etc will have to be carefully clarified and posted in advance. Including such things as self-nomination, self-voting, tactical vote-switching, and so on. One other point: originally, all the GOTD puns were CG creations, but now many are made up by members. It might be good to reflect that in some way.

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: <Dom: chess player> It would be way better if it were bigger, and I bet many more people would participate, making the awards more representative. The "friends" factor would diminish. I'm not sure what you mean by your last point? How does it pertain to a future CG-run Caissars? Do you mean that members should be involved in suggesting the rules and regulations? Or do you mean that there should be a "consultation period" during which members express their opinions on various rules proposals in pun form? A kind of "squid pro quo"?

Jan-15-12		WannaBe: If Daniel Freeman doesn't want to run it, I think <Annie K.> & <jessicafischerqueen> should co-host, kinda like World Cup Soccer where S. Korea and Japan did that. They have good ideas on how to improve things, and the work can be split evenly, plus with <jessicafischerqueen> in S. Korea and <Annie K.> in Canada (?) the hour differential will work out perfectly. I know doing it alone, there are hours and hours where I am sleeping or working, that I can't constantly 'monitor' stuff, or what-nots.

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: <MannBee> I think <Annie> is right about CG needing to step up and run this. I bet Daniel will do it. That said, I second your choice of <Annie> if CG won't step up next year. However, I must say that I would be a terrible co-host. A Caissar co-host shouldn't be someone who routinely has half of the website on her ignore list. I sugget <hms123> as a second candidate. He is stern, but unfair, which is what you really need in an administrator.

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: <MannBee> just to be sure, you are not actually going to leave the website right?

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: <Tryfon> that would be magic, I'll certainly tune in to that program live if you do it.

Jan-15-12		WannaBe: <jessicafischerqueen: ... He is stern, but unfair, which is what you really need in an administrator.> Okay, if you say so...

Jan-15-12		WannaBe: Leavin' the site, not I, but someone else is...

Jan-15-12		Domdaniel: <Jess> The GOTD pun thing wasn't part of my 'argument' such as it was. Just a stray idea, like maybe formally honoring the coiner of the pun, where known. I say this as somebody who has never had a pun accepted. Un peu obscur, on dit.

Jan-15-12		jessicafischerqueen: <Dom> aha that makes perfect sense to me now. That's an excellent suggestion, and I would assume they would follow your orders on that. Startling to me that they haven't used one of your pun submissions? Why not post some of them over in my forum, or here, or at frogspawn?

Jan-15-12		hms123: <WannaBe> <stern but unfair> is my middle name. That's what the <m> in <hms123> stands for.

Jan-15-12		SwitchingQuylthulg: <Domdaniel: Blind/blank voting would improve things, yes. Unlike world games - where the aim is to find the best move, not to express democratic opinions.> I'm not sure about that at all. In fact, it might well make things a whole lot worse. This is because blind voting would make the position of any organized or semi-organized party <much> stronger. Under the current system, the rest of the site can quite easily defeat an unworthy bloc candidate by uniting their forces behind somebody else; that can't happen if people don't know who that somebody is. Instead, their votes will be spread all over the place. Think of a real world election, with all the big parties submitting loads of candidates... • The Somewhat Reasonable Party (41 candidates; 386 427 total votes; 38.64% of all votes; 9 of 22 seats in the Senate) A - 21 000 votes (elected) B - 20 000 votes (elected) C - 19 000 votes (elected) D - 18 000 votes (elected) E - 17 000 votes (elected) F - 16 000 votes (elected) G - 15 500 votes (elected) H - 15 000 votes (elected) I - 14 500 votes (elected) J - 14 000 votes K - 13 500 votes (sundry other candidates) • The Slightly Reasonable Party (33 candidates; 301 662 votes; 30.17% of all votes; 7 of 22 seats in the Senate) A - 20 000 votes (elected) B - 18 000 votes (elected) C - 16 000 votes (elected) D - 15 000 votes (elected) E - 14 000 votes (elected) F - 13 666 votes (elected) G - 13 333 votes (elected) H - 13 000 votes (other candidates) • The Also Somewhat Reasonable Party (36 candidates; 288 404 votes; 28.84% of all votes; 6 of 22 seats in the Senate) A - 22 222 votes (elected) B - 18 888 votes (elected) C - 16 161 votes (elected) D - 15 151 votes (elected) E - 14 141 votes (elected) F - 13 579 votes (elected) G - 12 357 votes (other candidates) • The Not At All Reasonable Evil Thug Party (1 candidate; 23 507 votes; 2.35% of all votes; no seats in the Senate) A - 23 507 votes (no other candidates) Now imagine this was the Caissars... It could all too easily happen in a "blind voting" system.

Jan-15-12		Domdaniel: <Quylthulg> Indeed ... but doesn't Arrow's Theorem demonstrate that all possible voting systems are flawed, in that they can produce winners whom nobody actually wants? I had that experience as a member of a film festival prize jury once. None of us agreed about anything, so the prizes went to "I can live with that" options. I'm also reminded of a certain Team White vs Team Black game, with blind voting. After white played 1.e4, the votes on the black move were something like: 1...a6: 13 1...c5: 12 1...e5: 11 Of course, if this information had been public, the Sicilianistas would have gained votes from ...e5 and others -- anything to defeat the 'silly' St George. But the silly St George went on to a creditable draw. I do see your point. There are pros and cons either way ... and in a hothouse like CG no system is ever truly closed. Information leaks out, like, er, hair from a black hole. Maybe I meant Hawking radiation. I've used up my Daft Analogy Quotient for today.

Jan-15-12		Domdaniel: <kingscrusher> Excellent idea that, covering <The> ... "At last, Ye Olde Englishe Definite Article explained" ... with footnotes on 'vuh', 'thee', 'ze', 'de', and <trouble at t'mill>. Is a pawn worth a glossal stop?

Jan-15-12		Annie K.: What... on... Earth... is going on here?! :D Heh. Um, Tryfon... u r doin it rong. R-O-N-G, K? ;p Thanks for advertising my channel - it's a good thing you, and Jess, and another chess channel or two help spread the word about it, since I don't actually do a damn thing to publicize it myself. :D Did I mention fian-"english ch"-etto and "Perk" are wrong? Well, they are. Also, it's "zwischenzug". :p Thanks, anyhoo! ;) I haven't done zwischenzug yet, although I do intend to do a separate playlist for chess terms - I've been asked about FIDE's full name (French), fianchetto (Italian, etymology directly related to English word 'flank'...), ;) so terms like zwischenzug, zugzwang, zeitnot (German), j'adoube (French again), and whatever else I can think of, will go there. Um, eventually. ;)

Jan-15-12		Annie K.: <WannaBe: <Leavin' the site, not I, but someone else is...>> Someone or other is always "leaving the site". Some do it every other Monday and Thursday. For those, it's most likely just yet another sympathy-getting ploy. Wolf, wolf... yawn. <Dom: <Un peu obscur, on dit.>> The best ones go right over their heads, eh. ;s

Jan-15-12		Annie K.: <The Caissar discussion group> ;) I'm pretty sure Daniel will agree to take over the Caissars. He'd better, anyways. :p My impression was rather that he wanted to make it clear that he was not going to give in to a certain demographic's "campaign" to intervene or take it away from <WannaBe> by force, but with that out of the way, and with the initiative coming from <WannaBe> himself, he should be amenable. And if he does take it over, then I'm gonna stop worrying about the details right then and there, because he is the most competent and ethical administrator I know, and I'm confident that he will have everything figured out, if not by the first time, then surely by the second. The guy is smart. :)

Jan-15-12		WannaBe: <Annie K.> Is that why the bookie game have a betting limit? Because they thought of everything on the first go-around, after they 'took' over the game from <cu8sfan>? As I've posted in my forum, there are always room for improvements, I wanted the ad hoc committee to vote on issues of proposed improvement, but that was rejected. They didn't want to vote. (I don't know if this mean they didn't want the responsibility, or what-nots...) We proposed less categories, that was rejected. I am not doing the award anymore, is because I got tired of being 'picked on' from both sides. And I am doing this on my own volunteered time. If I do 'this', it's wrong, if I do 'that' the others voice their complaint... Nor do I want members here to read through 30 articles of 'rules' just so they know 'how' to vote. Anyway, just like a year ago, thanks for letting me vent again. Promise this will be the last vent I do. =))

Jan-15-12		Annie K.: <WannaBe> so what's wrong with the betting limit? :) I find it very sensible - keeps new players from blowing all their c$ right on the first bet of the leg, and losing interest as a result. Also, as I recall they had actually started with somewhat different rules, and then tweaked them after a while, based on the experience they gained running the game. That's what I'd expect here too. Thanks for all the work on the Caissars all these years. I just think it's gotten too big to continue as a private enterprise by now. :)

Jan-15-12		OhioChessFan: I have a problem with the betting limit too. Why should someone with a $3000 stake be allowed to bet more on a single game than someone with 1000? Talk about the rich getting richer.......I am not sure but I <think> some people have figured out how to game the system by borrowing enough money to make the bigger bets that wouldn't otherwise be available.

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