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 51 OF 112 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jul-02-15    Fusilli: Yesterday I lost to Del Rey a very complex game where there was only one major mistake (and not so obvious when it happened... the computer is the one pointing it out). Two more games to go and then I'll fly back home. I will upload the games with the GMs (Cifuentes and Romero Holmes) and the IM (Del Rey) when I get home, and maybe one or both from the last two rounds if they turn out to be interesting. These are the current standings: https://info64.org/xxv-open-interna... Jul-04-15    wordfunph: amigo <Fusilli>, happy birthday! Jul-04-15    SwitchingQuylthulg: <Fusilli> Happy birthday! Jul-04-15    Fusilli: <wordfunph> <switch> Thank you! I just finished playing this tournament in San Sebastian: https://info64.org/xxv-open-interna.... +4 =3 -2. Not bad, considering that the two losses were to a GM and an IM, and I drew another GM. I'll submit those three games and one or two more to <CG>. Jul-04-15    moronovich: Happy Birthday <Fusilli> ! And good to hear you are satisfied with your play and result. Seems like you still got it in you ! Jul-04-15    Fusilli: <moronovich> Yes! It was a lot of fun to play. San Sebastian is a beautiful place, the Basque are great people, and I got to see and hang out with my friend Mariano Grynszpan, who traveled from Argentina with wife and kid. I hope to repeat and play another tournament in Europe next summer! Jul-13-15    Pulo y Gata: And belated happy birthday, Fusilli! You have an impressive profile. I have happy memories working with some Argentinians in the past. They were lovers of good work, good fun, and good times. Cheers, mate! Jul-13-15    Fusilli: <P y G> Thank you! I don't care about getting older, I always love my birthday! True what you say about Argentinians! Where are you from? You have an awesome Borges quote on your profile. Jul-14-15    Pulo y Gata: Fusilli, I am from the Philippines. I think I could spend my life just reading the works of Argentine literary masters, Borges first among them. One of my wish (*Sana) is to travel throughout Latin America and from each country read the foremost literary works (in original language, if it still possible for me). *Sana is an expression of a wish or longing for something in my native language. Jul-14-15    Fusilli: <Pulo y Gata> I love Borges. "Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote" and "Man on Pink Corner" are two of my very favorite Borges short stories. The former can be read here: http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/bo.... The latter can be read here: http://www.uncharted.org/frownland/... (It's "Hombre de la esquina rosada" in the original; translated as "Streetcorner man" here.) Who is your preferred Filipino author? I confess to be thoroughly ignorant about Filipino literature... Jul-15-15    Pulo y Gata: I've read both stories before and I specially like "Man on Pink Corner"-- I also like "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel". But I only have a couple of his collections, one compiled before his death, and another short collection - so I'm not yet deep into his oeuvre. For Filipino authors who write in Tagalog (our common language), I prefer Edgardo M. Reyes, Norman Wilwayco, and Lualhati Bautista. For Filipino authors writing in English, I am interested on the development of writing of Miguel Syjuco, and find F. Sionil Jose's writing excellent. I'd recommend Jose's Po-on (Dusk in other editions) to anyone. I have to say that for a Filipino I haven't read local writers as extensively as foreign ones, and this is an omission I am trying to remedy for some time now. Jul-15-15    Fusilli: <Pulo y Gata> I am putting F. Sionil Jose on my to read list. Cheers! Jul-16-15    Pulo y Gata: Fusilli, Enjoy reading! Cheers! Jul-28-15    crawfb5: Looks like the missing Prague 1946 games are in, so I will start adding them to the collection, fixing missing rounds and dates, etc. I hope to have it ready enough for comment within a week. Jul-29-15    Fusilli: <Crawfb5> Great news! Thank you for the update! Jul-31-15    Fusilli: I was planning to play the US Open in Phoenix (the 4-day option, August 6-9), but kept putting it off. Now the airfare is sky high. Arghhh. I don't know, maybe Priceline... Jul-31-15    WannaBe: The way gas prices are fallin', may be cheaper to just drive... (But definitely longer and harder on the body). But you definitely get to see a lot of the country that way, and plenty of time to contemplate your openings, too. Jul-31-15    Fusilli: <WB> nearly a 24-hour drive according to Google! I used not to mind long-distance driving, but now it's not an option because of the time involved... Have you ever driven from southern CA all the way to the south or southeast? Jul-31-15    WannaBe: <Fusilli> In my younger days, I've done CA to South Dakota and a few years later back to CA. Now my longest driving trips are San Francisco area <--> LA. It's "nice" in the sense that I get time alone to meself and do some thinkin'. But the last time I did it, I went south on July 3 and returned July 5. Traffic was horrible, because it was a long weekend. Took me extra 2 hours each way. Ugh! Jul-31-15    Fusilli: <WB> I agree that road time is nice time for thinking. I like listening to books on tape too. Music is fine, but at some point I need silence. I've done Baton Rouge - Philadelphia three times I think, Nashville - Bar Harbor (ME), Nashville - Boulder... all of them 20+ hour drives. But I don't think I'd be up for such long drives now... Aug-05-15    crawfb5: I think Game Collection: Prague 1946 is more or less ready for comment. It took a little longer than anticipated. There were some round and date issues I needed to untangle and I caught an annoying summer cold which slowed everything down. I will post a note in the Bistro. Aug-17-15    juan31: < Fusilli >. Estas cordialmente invitado al <♔ Game Prediction Contest for Sinquefield Cup 2015 ♔> En el forum de Golden Executive. Line-up: Carlsen, Caruana, Nakamura, Anand, Topalov, So, Grischuk, Giri, Aronian, Vachier-Lagrave. Seria agradable que asistieras. Saludos Aug-26-15    Fusilli: Going over John Nunn's Chess Puzzle Book (http://www.amazon.com/John-Nunns-Ch...). This one is from there: click for larger view Black to move Nunn says: <Black is winning in this position, but he has to take some care because of the possibility of being left with an h-pawn (or two) plus the wrong bishop (thus, 1...gxh3?? is only a draw). Black conceived the following winning method: 1...Bf4+ 2.Kh1 Kg3 3.Ng1 Be5 4.Ne2+ Kf2 5.Ng1 g3 6.Nh3+ Kf1 7.Nf4 h3 and mate the next move. Was this a good plan?> Any takers? The book is tough. This one is given level of difficulty 1, which is the easiest on a 5-point scale. Aug-27-15    optimal play: Instead of 3.Ng1 maybe white can force a draw with 3.Nf2 Aug-27-15    Fusilli: <optimal play> Yes sir!! 3.Nf2! forces the draw. I am loving Nunn's book. It has some pretty hard puzzles. I am at work now but I will post another one later on from home. Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 112) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 51 OF 112 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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