Fusilli Member since Aug-09-04 · Last seen Oct-07-25 Mariano Sana, Argentinian by birth, in the US since 1995. Naturalized US citizen. I hold a PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and I am an associate professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University: https://as.vanderbilt.edu/sociology.... Previously, I was at Louisiana State University (2003-2009). My published academic work can be seen here: https://vanderbilt.academia.edu/Mar.... My review of Gary Alan Fine's "Players and Pawns" is here: https://www.academia.edu/69647923/P.... My avatar comes from a cartoon of mine drawn by a friend. My username, besides the pasta, is my late cat's name (he died in March 2021, age 19), inspired by this cartoon: https://condenaststore.com/featured.... My first tournament was at age 12 in 1979. I finished 8th in the Argentine junior championship in 1985. So, I was good enough, but not great. (That same evaluation might still be apt today, on a good day.) Unfortunately, no game scores survived from those years. I started to play again after grad school. I play between 0 and 4 tournaments per year. I won the Louisiana State Championship in 2007. I lost the first game and then won six in a row. This was my last round win, where I got lucky after playing the opening pretty terribly: J Rousselle vs M Sana, 2007. I also won the under 2200 section of the US Open in 2014. Again, Swiss gambit. Lost the first one, then won five in a row, lost game 7 (M Sana vs J Sheng, 2014, a rather atypical game), and won games 8 and 9. My last round win was featured as a Tuesday puzzle: K Gulamali vs M Sana, 2014. (Try it! Black to play at move 29. But you can also do black to play at move 22 as a principled-move puzzle.) I'd say that I am essentially a good but inconsistent player. My playing style is a mix of strategic and tactical. I'm usually very willing to sac a pawn or allow positional weaknesses in exchange for active piece play. For years I hovered around 2200, down to mid 2100s a few years ago after a disaster and a 50-point loss at the 2019 World Open. (Aging and MS fatigue had much to do with that.) On good days, I have had nice wins: T Bartell vs M Sana, 2009, R Burnett vs M Sana, 2012, M Sana vs C Blocker, 2014, M Sana vs R Burnett, 2015. But on a bad day, I can play horribly and lose against whoever is sitting in front of me. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2011, but it didn't cause me trouble until 2018/9. I have a weak right leg (I often use a cane now) and I fatigue easily. Medication, well-timed naps, and exercise help. I play blitz games on chess.com under the username RealFusilli. My participation on this website goes through ebbs and flows, and the majority of my posts are about chess. I often post on my own forum just to keep records for myself. Everyone is welcome to visit and share! (But please don't post about politics here.)

Fusilli has kibitzed 6255 times to chessgames   [more...]

Oct-07-25 Hikaru Nakamura    Fusilli: Back in the day, I would sometimes resign by picking up my king and placing it in front of my opponent. And one day I read that a GM (I think Sosonko) did the same thing, while saying, "here's, it's yours." So, sure, one for the crowd, why not.      Sep-15-25 L Mendonca vs M Yilmaz, 2024    Fusilli: <perfidious> <There have been POTDs presented by <cg> which have featured positions which were analogous to practical games rather than guess the move> Not sure I follow. To me, Guess-the-Move games do reflect practical play, since you have to make every move, ...      Sep-12-25 Leon Mendonca   Fusilli: Mendonca, no doubt originally spelled with a c-cedilla instead of a c, is a Portuguese surname, a reminder that Portugal colonized parts of India since as early as the 16th century.      Sep-12-25 A Mittal vs Y K Erdogmus, 2025    Fusilli: <FSR: Insane! The kid is a genius! I say he's a future world champion.> I share your enthusiasm but not your evaluation. The combination is absolutely beautiful but not hard to see for a strong player. It's a straight set of forced moves. I think it would be a Friday puzzle ...      Sep-10-25 Fusilli chessforum    Fusilli: <OCF> I'm kind of proud of myself I got it. The word puzzle was apt! Where did you source it from?      Sep-07-25 Karpov vs K Rogoff, 1971   Fusilli: Vintage Karpov gives a lesson on superior positional play. Every piece going to the right square at the right time. Or pretty close to that.      Sep-07-25 S Marangunic vs K Rogoff, 1971    Fusilli: <FTB> OK, here we go. I thought 16.Bxf6 was dubious. Why give up the bishop pair in a fairly open position? 16.Ne3 looks better to me. I was wondering what could be wrong with 23.Nb5. It turns out that after 23...Bf8 24.Rxd7 Rxd7 25.Nxa7 meets ...Bc5 followed by ...Rd2, which ...      Sep-07-25 Fridrik Olafsson    Fusilli: <perf> oh, right, I see      Sep-06-25 Peter Enders    Fusilli: <He died on his birthday :( > Very sad. It reminded me of this demographic research article I saw decades ago: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/143... Abstract: <This study of deaths from natural causes examined adult mortality around the birthday for two samples, ...      Sep-03-25 So vs D Gukesh, 2025   Fusilli: <beatgiant> Because I didn't see it? Or I like complicating things, especially my life? Who knows!

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< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 21 OF 112 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jan-02-11    Fusilli: <dak> The opening Botvinnik chose is tricky. With White you run the risk of falling into a passive position if you don't play it right. Of course, that wasn't Botvinnik's problem. :-) Good luck with the rest! Jan-02-11    dakgootje: I thought my.. his.. our! position was nice but we just traded down to a near-endgame position [current task is finding move 18] which is not one I really fancy. d4 Was his idea! Not mine! Now we've got an isolated d-pawn, nice going Mike. And they say my team-mate is the better of us two! Preposterous! Little more room and activity though, so supposedly it is fine. Somehow.. Back to the drawing board. Jan-02-11    dakgootje: Heh, I lost a point. Twice in row. And on both occasions I thought the move was quite okay. What is really wrong with 24. Bc4? We've got pawns hanging left and right and at least Bc4 gets rid of the ..Rd5 threat. Besides, in either variation the queens probably get exchanged on d6 so it is not like moving our queen once more is that much of a gain. Actually, I initially had not seen the d5-square so I wanted to play 23. f4 but a better look -after I lost the first point- revealed nasties after 23. ..Rd5. Jan-02-11    Fusilli: <dak> When you say you "lost a point", do you mean you got 2 instead of 3? That means you still made a good move, only that MB's move was better. I got plenty of 2-point moves, and still made it past 110 (with two blunders which got me punished to the tune of -3 points each time!) Jan-02-11    dakgootje: No, my dear Fusilli. The solution to the mystery is much more elemental. When I lose points, I actually get -1; I'd be a happy man if I'd consider scoring 2 on a move instead of 3 as a loss of a point. Or, if not happier, at least I'd undoubtedly be a better chess-player. I'm good at reading Sherlock Holmes though - so I've got my qualities. ps:Team-mate Mike stumped me a couple of times with his moves [e.g. I thought 26. Rc1 simply lost a pawn and dismissed it fairly quickly] pps: 'Fairly quickly' is measured in the International Sluggard Scale; not the Imperial Scale of How Art Blitzing Bullets. Jan-02-11    dakgootje: WE ARE NOW FOLLOWING Botvinnik vs Levenfish, 1937. YOU ARE PLAYING THE ROLE OF BOTVINNIK. Your score: 108 (par = 97) -- Did take a fairly long time though.. But I am satisfied :D Blundered once as well - I wanted to play 47. Ke3 because I could not really find a bust in either Ke1 or Ke3 and thought I could get out in the latter option. -3 Said I could not. So I could've scored 114 for eternal glory while now.. I still performed above my expectations ;) Jan-02-11    Fusilli: <dak> Awesome! Isn't GTM fun? Jan-02-11    crawfb5: <<C> That's a good score on GTM! You should go back to competition too!> Thanks, but OTB is impractical at this time. I try to keep my hand in with CC at a few sites. Jan-02-11    Knight13: <Fusilli> Thank you for the wish. What's your favorite color? Jan-03-11    Fusilli: <K> It depends for what... For tango I tend to favor black and other dark colors. My wardrobe has a variety of colors, with dark colors found more often than light colors. But my house is painted in bright colors. For example, the dancing room we have painted red, and the dining room salmon, and I love it. I would say that in general I prefer the warm palettes (such as red, salmon, brown) to the cold palettes (such as most blues). Was this a more complicated answer that you expected? If you want a single color, I'll go for red. Specifically, the second red on the top row here: http://vickiwelsh.typepad.com/field.... Jan-03-11    jessicafischerqueen: <Maerial Combat> Thanks so much- that's very valuable information to me about <Rossolimo>, especially since you provided the source. Jan-03-11    dakgootje: <Isn't GTM fun?> It is! But it does take a lot of time :P That said, I'm planning on doing it more in 2011 ;) Jan-03-11    Fusilli: <dak> A couple years ago I took a few lessons with GM Kaidanov. He asked me how I studied and sadly the only systematic thing I did was to play GTM once in a (long) while. He encouraged me to do it more often. Didn't happen, I must embarrassingly admit. But, like you, I do plan to go back to it in 2011! Jan-03-11    dakgootje: Did one today actually! Korchnoi - Timman, 1988. Scored 66 on a par 56, so that is quite okay. Could've been much better though as I played much faster than yesterday. So had a -2 and a -3 along with some normal lost chances. Suppose you can score a 75 without too much of a fuzz. Jan-03-11    Fusilli: <dak> Yeah, I'd prefer it to tell you that you are at certain level of playing strength, rather than giving you a single number and the par (which I believe is just the average of those who tried). Bruce Pandolfini's solitaire chess in Chess Life does just that. It tells you what your level is (in equivalent rating level) depending on how many points you score. But I gave up on it because he likes to bring up games from the romantic era (Morphy and such), heavy in (often flawed) sacs and tactics, and few people play like that anymore. I prefer GTM because you can choose the players of your liking and they are more strategic games. For that, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Karpov rock... or at least they are my favorites. If I want to spice it up with tactics, Bronstein or Larsen are perfect choices, and obviously Kasparov or Alekhine. There is a Petrosian - Polugaevsky, won by Petrosian, that is pretty good, but I don't remember the year. But all of the super GMs are well balanced players, anyway. Jan-03-11    dakgootje: I generally forget playing styles - so usually I use the random-GTM option :) Perhaps I shall do another one this evening ^^ Jan-03-11    dakgootje: Heh.. I actually random-GTM'ed into Radjabov - Goguadze, 1996. On the one hand my score was decent [missed some points because my attacking-plan turned out to be slightly different] with 58 on a par-51. On the other hand.. Radjabov was only... 9? at the time. No fun when a 9-year old probably makes the better moves :P EDIT: And for some reason my 'overall' rating is still <average> despite having 1x average, 1x needs work, 1x outstanding, 1x very good and 3x good. Would expect a 'good' overall would you not? Heh, and all because of a 2008-GTM when I scored 50 on a par-60 at a Kasparov game.. Jan-03-11    Fusilli: <dak> Not sure what you are talking about. Is there an overall GTM ranking? Jan-03-11    dakgootje: yapyap! GTM -> Special Functions -> Review all Your Scores ----- <results> ----- You have taken 8 quizzes to date. OVERALL RATING: AVERAGE Jan-03-11    crawfb5: <M> If you go a GTM game and look below the board and move choice section, you will see an option called <Special Functions>. Within <Special Functions> there is an option to <Review all your scores>. This holds all your old scores along with the dates you took them. You <can> clear them all out, but this keeps the system from giving you a game you've already tried. At the bottom of the review page you get a summary that looks something like this: <You have taken 214 quizzes to date. OVERALL RATING: GOOD> Jan-03-11    crawfb5: I see <dak> beat me to it. I was doing a lot of GTMs in 2008 and then got distracted with other things. The Botvinnik game was the first I'd done since then. I find it easier to see where a plan is heading once the GM has started it off than I would coming up with the plan by myself, but that's just part of why he's the GM and I'm not. Jan-03-11    Fusilli: <dak> <C> Ah, look at that. I got this: Tal vs Smyslov, 1959 May-26-07 55 34 OUTSTANDING! Spassky vs Petrosian, 1966 Jul-30-07 84 72 GOOD R Akesson vs P Dias, 2001 Jul-15-08 43 40 AVERAGE Smyslov vs Botvinnik, 1955 Oct-01-08 53 46 GOOD Vaganian vs Ulf Andersson, 1968 Jul-18-09 90 70 VERY GOOD Petrosian vs Polugaevsky, 1970 Dec-14-09 76 63 VERY GOOD Botvinnik vs Levenfish, 1937 Dec-29-10 113 98 GOOD You have taken 7 quizzes to date. OVERALL RATING: VERY GOOD It seems that my best try was my first! And it seems I have done this a lot fewer times than I thought... However, once I let my cg.com account expire and my records may have been erased, because I am positive I tried Kasparov-Beliavsky once. Jan-03-11    Fusilli: New Year Resolution: I *will* do many more GTMs this year, and I *will* get another "outstanding"! Jan-03-11    crawfb5: <M> Here are the last few "outstanding" ratings I got back when I was actively working on GTM. If I could do it on these games, surely you can. As always, I live to serve... Lesiege vs Zaremba, 2001 Jun-25-08 32 19 OUTSTANDING! T Luther vs O Touzane, 1994 Jun-25-08 25 12 OUTSTANDING! D Baretic vs T Timman, 1974 Jul-27-08 37 23 OUTSTANDING! Jan-04-11    dakgootje: Heh, or just pick any low-mover. With a bit of careful thought you can score high. Tarrasch vs Gunsberg, 1890 Oct-04-08 15 5 OUTSTANDING! S Bogner vs K Szabo, 2007 Jan-03-11 13 6 OUTSTANDING! Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 112) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 21 OF 112 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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