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 227 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Dec-26-15		Annie K.: A few response options: 1. What's 'benevolence'? 2. What's 'munificence'? 3. What's 'Christmas'? ;D Ackshly, the weekend is Friday-Saturday (as always), so it might even be counted as two days. :)

Dec-26-15		tpstar: <Annie> Happy Holidays! Hello to your cats. ;>D

Dec-26-15		Annie K.: Thanks, <Tony>, to you too! :)

Dec-26-15		Domdaniel: <Annie> OK. (1) Benevolence is what happens when Benjamin ('Ben') wishes ('volence') to do something. If Ben wishes, it's ... (2) 'Munificence' is similar, except the protagonist is Paul Muni, star of 'I Was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang' ... (3) Um, uh, Christmas? OK. "It was Christmas in prison/ And the food was real good/ We had turkeys and pistols/ Carved out of wood/ And I dream of her always/ Even when I don't dream/ Her name's on my tongue/ And her blood's in my stream... wait awhile, eternity..." (John Prine)

Dec-27-15		Catfriend: Another good source to learn about Christmas is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTG...

Dec-27-15		Annie K.: Hi <Catfriend>!!! =) Thanks, guys, now I know a lot more about Christmas... ;s

Dec-29-15		Domdaniel: <Hey, Annie...> Christmas isn't bad, rilly. Honestly, it's not, like, a major tribulation. Not a serious ranger-class endurance test. Not that major. But. People with kids seem to derive vast enjoyment from the Sanity Clause routine. I observe this, annually. Me, I concede that it is pleasurable to find a present for somebody's kid, and watch 'em unwrap it. Better still if (a) it's a chess book, and (b) they're thrilled. But still. Even so. The best thing about Xmas is that it ends. I just got home after my Christmas stay with relatives (Barry & his family, Flor & hers...) - and it's good to be back. Now I just havta get thru the new year thing.

Dec-29-15		Annie K.: Heh, yeah, that much family can get a bit too hard on the aural system, not to mention the nervous one. ;s For that matter, I am also usually likely to have a merry Xmas, given that I don't have to do all that shopping&noise stuff at this time of year! :p Good luck with the New Year thing... that goes with Dan, then? ;s

Dec-29-15		Domdaniel: <A> - <that goes with Dan, then?> Yeah, I guess... but now that you mention it, I haven't made any actual plans. Maybe D has, I dunno -- he was also in Dublin and is now back here. Previous years were easy: a parent to be visited or at least phoned. Now, I dunno. I'm actually kinda in favour of just ignoring the NY moment -- and I'll be playing chess anyhow in the Mulcahy Tournament, Jan 1-3, so staying up very late would not be a good idea...

Dec-29-15		Annie K.: Oh, good luck with the tournament! :)

Dec-29-15		Domdaniel: <A> Thank you. I just got a few chess books... my new chess library... and I'm trying to rebuild my openings yet again. No, I don't think I'll be trying 1.e4... "Inspiration does come - but only if it finds you working" - Brian Eno, after either Einstein or Picasso.

Dec-31-15		SwitchingQuylthulg: <Annie> Happy New Year! :)

Dec-31-15		Annie K.: <Switch> cross post! =) Also Happy New Year to <Hanh> and her family! :)

Dec-31-15		chancho: http://dilwale-boxofficecollection....

Dec-31-15		visayanbraindoctor: Happy New Year <Annie>!

Dec-31-15		Alien Math: Happy New Year <Annie K.>!

Dec-31-15		WinKing: Happy New Year to ya <Annie K.>!

Dec-31-15		twinlark: Happy New Year, Annie!

Jan-01-16		Benzol: Happy New Year to you as well. Cheers Annie. :)

Jan-02-16		visayanbraindoctor: <Annie> As a cat owner, you might find this interesting. http://pets.thenest.com/animal-did-... <All cats are in the Felidae family. It's not wrong to call them felids. Within the felidae family are two living subfamilies: Pantherinae (which includes jaguars, lions, leapards and tigers) and Felinae (which includes cougars, cheetahs, lynxes, ocelots and house cats). There was a third Felidae subfamily -- Machairodontinae, which included the smilodon, aka the saber-toothed tiger> First cat? <Pseudaelurus was a prehistoric cat that lived in Eurasia and North America roughly 20 million years ago.> Turns out cats can't taste sugar. <all cats are obligate carnivores (they have to eat meat), many are social, and they're often nocturnal. No members of the Felidae family have taste receptors for sweetness.> When was the cat domesticated? <The domestication of the house cat came much more recently. Scientists used to think the Egyptians were the first people to domesticate cats, roughly 3,600 years ago; but new evidence puts domestic cats in the Fertile Crescent perhaps as long as 10,000 years ago.> Wikipedia article on the first cat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseud... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:...

Jan-02-16		Annie K.: Hi doc, glad to see you drop by here! :) I knew that cats can't taste 'sweet', so there's no point at all in giving them sweets, never mind that chocolate is toxic to them (and to dogs too AFAIK). Lately I've been enjoying the intelligent behavior of my cats, and started wondering, on a tangent - we know that human children raised by animals (a.k.a "the real Mowglis", and there have been many documented cases), sadly, will never attain fully human intelligence, even if/when recovered by humans, since their brains were not stimulated in childhood to the degree they would have been in a human environment... but what I've been thinking is, could it be that, conversely, animals raised and living in human company may also become more intelligent than their wild counterparts? Seems quite possible. :)

Jan-03-16		visayanbraindoctor: <"the real Mowglis", and there have been many documented cases), sadly, will never attain fully human intelligence, even if/when recovered by humans, since their brains were not stimulated in childhood to the degree they would have been in a human environment... but what I've been thinking is, could it be that, conversely, animals raised and living in human company may also become more intelligent than their wild counterparts?> Now that you say it, yes. Human training during a pet's babyhood and childhood may result in new neurosynaptic pathways that may effectively increase the intelligence of pets. https://ph.video.search.yahoo.com/v... If seals can be trained to play the sax and paint, I wonder if cats can be trained as well? I do know that even lizards can be trained to do what can pass off as intelligent behavior. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bn... In the chess world I believe that there are two archetypal examples, Morphy and Capablanca. They may have learned chess at an age where the Central Nervous System is still undergoing myelinization, and probably still forming new pathways. I think it's possible areas of the brain not normally assigned to chess got hardwired into chess, allowing them to use more of their brains in chess thinking than normal people, which would partially account for their genius in chess. Yes I agree that pets may actually be more intelligent as adults than their counterparts in the wild.

Jan-05-16		Catfriend: <VBD> This depends on the growing-up of the pets. Some researchers have found that over-pampered pets don't solve puzzles as well as their brethren in the wilderness. In extreme cases (particularly if home-raised from birth without a mother) even motor skills were compromised. See some work by Dr. Monique Udell. The archetypal "young genius" in chess is probably Reshevsky.

Jan-07-16		visayanbraindoctor: <Catfriend: <VBD> This depends on the growing-up of the pets. Some researchers have found that over-pampered pets don't solve puzzles as well as their brethren in the wilderness.> It's possible that these puzzles have similarities to real life situations in the wild? A wild animal would probably be expected to solve such puzzles more proficiently than those raised in the house. Then again, wild animals would probably do worse in puzzles which are more familiar with a human household environment. I see your point though. A household raised cat would probably act 'dumber' in the wild compared to those who grew up there.

Jan-07-16		Annie K.: Yes, this would all depend very much on just what the tester's idea of 'intelligence' for the animal might be. :) <Catfriend: <See some work by Dr. Monique Udell.>> Link, or it didn't happen. ;p

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