This is what I like to do, and do, when studying and trying to improve my piece coordination, aiming for <full board control> -- great to hear you have been so active, with correspondence, as well.

I remember vividly that we talked about this type of training, as you recalled, from our studies at the then <Max Euwe Center>.

Considering this is now some 15 years ago, in itself quite remarkable...

It's middle of the night here, dutch time 02.30 am, gotta walk my doggie now, but the conversion was quite the challenge, to avoid traps and as I said, making it appear "smoothly".

<Jess>, I wanted to ask, since I referred to the Vancouver Area in a previous post, if you are back there?

If you want to keep it secret I understand.

<Lotsapoppa>

<The Bird is the Word>

lolol I surely remember that...

The situation quickly devolved once we understood that 25 posts made up one forum page, and that the length of the posts made no difference...

Yes, it was all downhill from there as <chessmoron> and <I> went after <Chess Classics>, who had the most popular forum at that time. Remember him? He was a school kid and a very fine cg.com member.

How did we do this? Spamming, of course... I posted the word "quack" in my forum many thousands of times, one after the other...

<chessmoron> retaliated by posting chess problems and then "answering them" in the next post, using a sock puppet...

<Chess Classics'> immortal post from that era: "You jerks! I used to have the most popular forum around here!"

And then the end....

<Daniel> got wind of this and took SEVERE ACTION although not nearly as severe as when he forced <domdaniel> to delete every single dirty pun he and I had put in his forum. It took <dom> weeks to get rid of them all...

First, <Daniel> canceled the "Most popular forum" from the Statistics page.

Then he emailed me and said "If you post 'quack' one more time I am going to lock your forum and make you clean up every one of the thousands of 'quacks' you already put in there...

I have no idea how <Daniel> threatened <chessmoron>, but it must have happened because the "fake chess problem spamming" in his forum stopped... with suspicious suddenness....

I'd largely forgotten about that, but it's all true!!

Haha - I did not remember Daniel cancelling the popular forum stat- what a rowdy mob we turned into, drove Daniel up the wall, it seriously got out of hand, yes I remember the Quacks coming in dozens a day, didn't take the site owners headaches away...

Ah, still rolling on the floor laughing... Feels good!

Must admit though that I did not partake in the <race> if I remember correctly, and got quite annoyed by the QUACKs as well, the dirty puns though was not really necessary, was it? I mean the reaction... Daniel was really having enough with some if not all of us, add to that all the "frog"bert fights at the Carlsen page...

<Birdmentor>

At the time you and I first got to know each other, I believe <Branko> was already mentoring me, like he did for virtually every new member.

I was indeed a privilege to know him! A kind, expansive man with a sense of humor, strong chess player and strong analyst. I believe Branko lived in Vancouver, although I did not. I was nearby though. But soon I left for Quebec and lived there a very long time- and then spent 14 years in Korea. Now I am in a small farm village in B.C.

HOWEVER I have no cows!

Quite right we were immature madcaps and certainly there was no excuse for me and <Dom's> hijinks. <Dom> was always a rebel, and he was dead set against any form of censorship. He actually came up with the idea as a "test case" to see how far the posting guidelines would really be enforced.

I don't know if <Daniel> didn't notice at first, or if he noticed right away and then let us hang ourselves good and proper before swooping in with a good thrashing!

I suspect the latter... the dirty pun contest lasted weeks until <Daniel> lowered the boom. <Dom> complained a bit to <Daniel> about how big a job it was to delete all of them, and he kept "hedging" by telling <Daniel> he had "finished" and then <Daniel> would check and never fail to find the lingering dirty puns... and <Dom> would still resist with a "well this one's not THAT dirty..."

Eventually every last one of them was gone and that was the end of it..

LESSON LEARNED

But for how long --- I remember that phrase, it made you laugh, it involved a "bucket of cold water" if you get my drift... No one else gets it that's for sure - even if they "search kibitz", which I can't, no need, it is all stored "somehow" in that spongy matter.

But you and Branko were by far my closest friends here, no contest, with also some serious ups and downs, but I seem to remember the ups far more easily, plus they outweigh the downs a thousandfold.

Did you get back from Korea prior to 2020?

I still remember us talking about your trying to get the VISA , the walks with <Fatso>, just prior to your move to Korea, -- I was attempting a little retro calculation, but never mind, you got back safely, which is the most important.

I'd love to live on a farm, as close to nature as possible.

US Championship (1946)

<Jess> <the admin manual>

On the subject of volunteer editing, what a brilliant instruction manual has been written for volunteer editors!! - I am reading it the last few days, the <chessgames editor's guide>, and was wondering if you know who wrote the concept for that, I assume Daniel back in the day... And related to that, I recall you perhaps in response to someone mentioning that at the height of volunteer activity there were over 50 active ones?! - I was curious as to what period/year that was. And did you use the editor's guide yourself?

- - - - - - -

And a while ago I cleaned my email account out entirely, which cost me weeks I think, but I saved a dozen from that entire period, including one from you, and one from Branko. Both wonderful.

Yours is an email from 4 oct. 2007, and my question is, do you still use that account?

Thing is there are two subjects, nothing too weighty or anything, that I would like to tell you about in private, if that's ok.

Plus a little bonus, that is if you haven't seen these yet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRC... - Alekhine interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAd... - Mikhail Botvinnik contra Euwe, blind speed chess

<TheBirdsMan by Alfred Hitchcock>

Yes the Editor's guide is a handy link to be sure. I would be surprised if anyone other than <Daniel> set that up. He may have gotten help from his partner, but I have no knowledge about this. Daniel loved the coding and the setting up of new features. Remember when you said his "chessgamesforum" was HARD WIRED to address coding complaints first? Heh... do you remember that? I still think about that and laugh...

Yes you may reach me at the same email as always- jessicafischerqueen@yahoo.com

If that's the account you got the email from, then it is indeed the one I still use. If the account said jessicafischerqueen@hotmail.com that was deleted more than 10 years ago because of the frisky viagra ad spamming. That was quite a scandal I can tell you. So could my mother! She wondered why she was getting viagra ads every time I sent her an email...

Yes I have downloaded many materials from the excellent <Endspiel>, some of which I have put into a chess documentary or two. I hadn't seen the two you posted though, which is grand thank you!

Or else I saw them so long ago I forgot about them. Either way, it makes no difference. I experienced them as new eh....

Goodness me I remember so many things, just thinking out loud here, and I was wondering, speaking of Dutch posters here at <chessgames>, if you remember the incredible <brawl> that ensued when I talked daily with <dakgootje>, mostly in Dutch, but also mixed with English, and <JoeWMS> was following those discussions at both our forums, misinterpreted my "translation" of the word <dakgoot>, and the rest is history... It drove me straight to the bottle, I left CG for a while, but in the end there was some clearing up of misinterpretations and I managed to pick up things up a bit later... Never mind, I just felt a little shudder even 15+ years after the fact...

I remember you called him <dagootke> - spelled like this - but most guys/girls used the abbrrrrrr-eviated <Dak>

The memories of those years 2005-2008 are like a <Giant Burlap Bag> that you put your arm in with your eyes closed....

Don't keep that arm in <for too long...>

Where are we? - Aha, <Aljechin> - his brilliant remark from that interview was, or is, "no need for prodigious line memorization skills, just look ahead" - paraphrased... I really dig that, he and Max Euwe must have been polar opposites, and they were quite good friends.

Just like <Magic and Bird>. <Bird and Magic> - it sounds great both ways.

<<<<<<< 1400 >>>>>>>

I guess I passed the 10,000 kibitzes mark around 2008; you were there quite a bit earlier if I R C -- which is quite a lot come to think about it, ten thousand messages... You are approaching 46,000 now

To answer your question- I <will> enjoy the editing access, I hope, once I get the hang of it, the acquisition of the correct <technique> - plus I really love doing some research, improving Bio's and such, a bit like a young assistant librarian on the move at 6AM, having gotten the spare key for the first time...

Nothing can replace a <for the first time> experience, it's like a <unique snowflake> - that was a kinda silly quote from a film I've watched too many times btw, it just popped up. heh

I do remember that, certainly, but not really that I coined that phrase first... That's why I left that part out there, for a bit...

My memory is not as clear on that as yours is-- you do have a remarkable memory.

I was in some sort of therapy called <Bad Cluster Elimination> - later turning out to be some kind of scam - but it was based on <novel> theories on how memories are stored in clusters, including sights, sounds and smells, and more importantly the feelings of joy and elation- or shame and failure on the other side of the spectrum- that sort of <hard wire> those experiences and memories of them, in your brain. These cannot be <erased>.

Now I get it, I had to let it marinate-- and it relates to the cluster theory I pushed earlier, in that I did remember your recollection as quoted, but I could not remember If 1) I had <read> it, nor if I had <reacted> to it, and 3) neither if I was the one who <wrote> that ... there just was a recognition, but because there was little to no emotional component in my cluster, it had faded...

For you however, it triggered a feeling and response because of what you felt at the time, something I did not feel, unless you would have told me then and there. It amused you...

Not to belabor this, but I clearly remember your response to me (you liked the "name") when I talked to you about the brothers <Nowee>, co-writing a western series of adventures that I adored as a boy, yet you were probably busy doing all kinds of stuff, while I was reliving some of those adventures as I typed at the time. It even spurred me on to relocate all those books/novels, gather them, and decided to read back some to help me relax and relive some great memories, similar in a way to what we are doing now...

But we both were very generous towards eachother, and I remember an exchange you had with <twinlark> about how people from CG are somehow categorized in certain groups, by you and him, and how they compared, whether they matched or not wasn't really the issue.

click for larger view

click for larger view

White to play (and win) in both diagrams

Working this out to a "T" is one stiff assignment, for example in the first diagram, only <4> moves win, whereas one quite tempting move for White, <draws> ....... Place the BK on <C4> - and <only one> move wins

Second Diagram: White to play, ought to win ... but (again!) place the BK on <C4>, and 1. Ne8-f6 <loses>, whereas with the BK on <C5>, 1.Nf6 does win

Since neither we, nor a machine on 30 seconds per move, "play perfectly", this is quite valuable practice, and fun as well, coz if you get stuck or even go bananas if you can't beat the darn abacus, there is a 6-men tablebase program that will show, rephrase, can help you along, discovering the correct approach and acquire the technique in order to convert these type challenges.

<TheHumorousAnteater>

F Amelung vs G Schneehagen, 1856