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 96 OF 274 · Later Kibitzing>
Jun-08-11		Domdaniel: Unfortunately, my voice resonates at exactly the same frequency as background noise. I'm sonically invisible.

Jun-08-11		Annie K.: I had a feeling there would be something like that, but it was worth a try... ;p

Jun-09-11		dakgootje: Interesting. I always resonate visually with the background - so there is a yet a photo to be taken which includes me. The pictures look like the rapture just occurred; person gone, clothes still their - but they have not realized yet they should fall to the ground. Hell with shaving as well for that matter. And, yes, my ancestors used their gifts to become assassins - which is the reason people used to think vampires existed.

Jun-09-11		Domdaniel: <dak> - < my ancestors used their gifts to become assassins > Don't tell me, these hashishins had the Dutch franchise for Hassan i Sabbah's chain of coffee shops?

Jun-09-11		dakgootje: Yes, uncle Hassan was a big fan of coffee - which is why our family tribe got known around the world for our fearlessness, ruthless kills, and hot beverages.

Jun-10-11		kingscrusher: Annie have you seen this cat video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkQ7... :)

Jun-10-11		Annie K.: <Tryfon> thanks. :) <dakkie> so, um, this sortof means I had better get that Euwe pronunciation right, yes? ;) I'm glad to hear you confirm the phonemes, your inflection guide is something I'll have to figure out yet. ;s <Jess> I got a request for Dzindzichashvili by PM, so I'll send you that one shortly ('cuz I happen to know how to pronounce it), and Pirc as well. Can has those two and the Bacrot take 2 (already sent you, along with some TOP SECRET material) next, when you have time? Kthxbai. ;)

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: Heh I know how to pronounce <Dzishisidifdsodfidvivoooollllei> too, since I have him pronouncing his own name. I've got hundreds of his various videos on my hard drive. HOWEVER! Can he be trusted to pronounce his own name?! He's become American! At any rate I look forward to your official release. Did you notice there's a current debate on the <Max Euwe> page about how to pronounce his name, with some links? How are you and <Dak> doing on that one? In that vein, there is this new web feature that is so appalling I can't describe it, or even show it to you. They configured their page URLs so you can't link them directly- to find the page I'm talking about you have to go to the homepage index- BY FORCE. Anyhoo it's a "chess history video" with a few photos and some voice over narration for several masters- including <Szabo>. I tried to link it here but like I said YOU CAN'T. So it has an electronic speech-to voice program. Highlights were "Szabo: SHAVE- OH" "Euwe: YOU" The text of this "video" was lifted word for word from part of the Wiki entry. I checked. So to sum up. The "creator" simply found 4 photos off the internet, then copy pastad a few sentences from Wiki and plugged them into a "Natural Speech" program. Using this "method" you could make two hundred of them per day. So the stakes are high! But the bar is low! This just highlights the necessity for someone (like us for example) to do it properly. They are DOIN IT RONG.

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: <Annie> Regarding the "Dawid/Dawida" "Karpov/Karpova" mystery- I'm sure your comment on this in an EMU is right. Maybe Vlad could confirm- I'm spending a great deal of time listening to Russian voice-over narration and also typing on a Russian keyboard, and I'm certain that "when to add the extra <a>" at the end of a name has to do with some idiomatic/grammatical convention. I'm manually translating part of a Russian book right now and sometimes they spell it "Nezhmetdinov" and sometimes "Nezhmetdinova." I'm fairly certain this doesn't indicate that <Nehz> had multiple sex change operations. However, I'm not an expert on Russian. But Vlad is!

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: Speaking of "DOIN IT RONG," it's somewhat comforting to hear that the Russkies mispronounce non-Russian names just as humorously as we do. WE ENGLISH SPEAKERS ARE NOT ALONE.

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: Here's an example I have on the plate right here- Google Translate produces "Amazingly creative approach is different from nezhmetdinova." In the context of the passage, I now have to change this to English idiom. The writer means "Nezhmetdinov's amazingly creative approach sets him apart (from other chess masters)" I wonder if you have to add the "a" on to the name if it comes last in the sentence in the original Russian syntax?

Jun-11-11		Annie K.: <Jess> quickie note cuz I'm officially asleep - just woke up and checked in on IPhone - but AFAIK the '-a' ending can mean "him", "his", and/or "of" - either by itself, or along with other inflections of the related grammatical parts. As the facebook relationship status option sez: 'it's complicated'. Heh - back to sleep. Laterzzzzzzz

Jun-11-11		Annie K.: PS - <HOWEVER! Can he be trusted to pronounce his own name?! He's become American!> If he doesn't say it the way I do - then he obviously can't be trusted! And somebody should really notify the police. Case closed. Zzzzzzzz

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: LOL! I hope you and other kitehs have great sleep. I can't wait to open your latest emails- I'm saving them like a Christmas present which I'll open if I ever finish translating this passage today. Two and a half pages and it's at least eight hours work, but I'm finding gold. Previously untranslated gold, since the book I'm working on has never been translated into English, and it contains much TOP SECRET information about <Nezh> from his pal <Mikhail Tal>.

Jun-11-11		dakgootje: <your inflection guide is something I'll have to figure out yet.> :( Don't really know of an other way to explain it..

Jun-11-11		dakgootje: Your inbox, it has been mailed! Might help, might not -- but it's worth a try :)

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: <dak> in this hour of dire need, when all manner of Dutch as a second language speculation abounds on the sacred <Mach 7 Euwe> player page, your help is all that's standing between us and a world that says "Max You."

Jun-11-11		dakgootje: I know. Once upon a time I was wealthy -- but I spend all my millions trying to keep that terrible scenario from happening.

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: Well done <dak>. I can only speak for myself, but I'd spend a million of your dollars just to get one single person to pronounce "Euwe" properly.

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: <Annie> just opened presentz- thanks a million for them. I will take care of all business later today, including Moe Green, Hyman Roth, and the heads of the Five Families. Let's just say they will all face the music for trying to block our plan to move to Vegas and take over the casinos. lol in English we also use the TOP SECRET method of dating- if an English book refers to the "19th century" it means the years 1800-1899. I will reply and send kitehs later today with new TOP SECRET instructions. Finally, I'm never tired of making any kind of videos. Quite the opposite. I'd like to make them all day every day on all kinds of things and never go to work again. That said, however, if you got in to making them yourself for your new hit Chess TV channel, that would be a million times better- if you had fun doing it to. It's not hard, it only took me a year to figure out how to work the machine. I'm terrible with such things though. At any rate that's all up to you- I'll offer some tips and advice- there's a good Movie Maker tutorial I can pass you and I have to pass it to <pgp> as well. First thing is to find which Windows Movie Maker you have on your computer already (it comes with the set!) and then download the only decent build- Windows Movie Maker 6.0 It's fast, free to download etc. etc. Maybe that build is already on your puter. Sometimes it's tucked away- type "windows movie maker" in the pc search box and it should show up on your screen. It's usually in "C drive/program files/windows movie maker" Once you find it, hover your mouse over it till you see a little pop up with the specs- it will say which version it is on your computer. Ok back later in EMU format (now in color!)

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: PS really thanks for that work- it sounds utterly fascinating to me. I can't wait to hear the TOP SECRET story about how chess helped the TOP SECRET guy escape.

Jun-11-11		Annie K.: <Jess> I just had a session with Vladimir today, in which we finally cleared up, ONCE AND FOR ALL, not only the infamous Alekhin/Alokhin controversy - at first Vladimir was, like, "Alokhin is a common name and I don't care how he wanted it pronounced!"... but then I showed him, not only the <Russian Wikipedia> entry where it states clearly that 'Alokhin is RONG', but also the Russian video where the Russian narrator calls him 'Ale<e>khin - after which he reluctantly conceded that maybe the guy had a right to decide on his own name. Vladimir didn't get where he is today by not respecting <Russian> sources. :p Oh, yeah, I was saying... we also cleared up ONCE AND FOR ALL, the even greater mystery of the Cheshire Y, the now-you-hear-it-now-you-don't 'y' in 'Al<y>echin! Also in Bogolyubov, which was where we actually had this discussion, after he coolly pronounced it "Bogo-LOO-bov", and unrepentantly insisted on this pronunciation even after I objected that the whole world knows the name as Bogol<y>ubov, or even Bogol<j>ubov! 'There is no y there' he sez. After many shocked protests by me ('But, but...?!'), he finally caught on: 'Oh, you mean the <L>!' (me: 'Huh?') 'It's a soft L' he explains. 'There's a big difference between L and L in Russian, you know!' I couldn't hear a difference to save my life. :s So we repeated the "pair" a few more times. I still couldn't hear much of a difference, but he assures me there is one; the "hard L" is pronounced, well, harder, while the "soft L" tends to lean a bit in the general direction of 'y', which can be more or less audible, depending on the speaker - but this 'y', actually an integral "shading" of the 'L', is what the confused Western ear apparently tends to interpret as a 'y' coming <after> the 'L'. Well, I'm glad <that's> cleared up - maybe some day somebody will explain it to me. :s ;p kmorelater...

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: Bloody western cloth ears. Brilliant work <Annie> and please extend my gratitude to <Vlad>. I'm imagining the look on Richard's face when I explain his future task...

Jun-11-11		jessicafischerqueen: I wish I had access to a Russian gentleman too. Maddeningly, depending on style and when it was written, Russian letters and words have various spellings (sometimes) and even various versions of the actual letters. It took me two hours this morning to figure out that "sodium" meant "game." I was confused because usually "game" is translated as "party" in Russian (and other languages too). Why don't WE call chess games parties? They're pretty fun after all. At any rate of course it isn't really "sodium" it is some other mysterious word but the GOOGLE coughed up sodium and it wouldn't budge. So I had to use "other means." It's awfully smart for a machine, this Google translator though. I was about to put a hammer to it when it kept giving me "AIM" in capital letters. Only after translating the rest of the passage did I figure out that had to mean "International Master."

Jun-11-11		dakgootje: There are sites for russian brides - perhaps there is one for russian gentlemen as well!

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