chess

What an amazing documentary! Judit Polgar is fascinating. I'm watching on Netflix in America, it's called Queen of Chess. 

  Alua Nūrman is a 18 year old Kazakhstani grandmaster (2024). That's Magnus Carlsen the Norwegian champion. 

There's the confidence to think you'll win, but then again choosing whether to accept a draw is a different confidence based on material, position and strategy. I play 1-10 games a day, usually more towards 2-4. I've won a lot of games by just being persistent and keep on going even if I lose my queen. I've lost a lot of games too, and I don't get too sore losing, but it does sting quite a lot, so the desire to win versus the desire to just play are in competition.  I like the psychology of juggling various strategies and ways of being in chess. I saw a post on r/Buddhism questioning whether a Buddhist should play chess: "I'm a Buddhist and I play chess. Should someone closer to the goal stop playing chess? I don't think you're close to the goal, so maybe worry when you get closer. Faking it till you make it? Well, if you want to quit chess, quit chess. I don't think that will make you enlightened, enlightenment is brought about by meditation, ...

NY Times : "Boris Spassky, the world chess champion whose career was overshadowed by his loss to Bobby Fischer in the “Match of the Century” in 1972, died on Thursday in Moscow. He was 88."

Losing on time. Fellow disappointed he ran out of time from a winning position. His opponent is upset for him too with his mirror neurons.  I would have trouble focusing. 

  Humans are competitive. I'm not going to pay to get better, but I do as many free puzzles as I can each day on Chess.com.  My lowest ranking came when I had Covid and I played anyway because I was bored. I thought I was heading to 700, 800, 900. I have to admit, my rating has dipped. I've gone on spurts of playing and if my rating goes up I get quite excited, but the habit of playing often takes over and I enjoy the game and I keep playing even if my rating goes down.  I think I have this idea that if I play a few games and really concentrate and put pressure on myself to win, then my rating will go up. Sometimes I like to play instinctually and there are unseen consequences to it. I like blitz games, 5 minutes each, because there's not too much thinking.  11/22/24 Ding Liren is the world champion. I thought it was Magnus Carlsen, who I learned relinquished his title in 2022. Didn't know it was Ding Liren who took the crown in 2023.  Gukesh Dommaraju is...

  Article on Magnus Carlsen

In the New Yorker , called Opening Theory.  She brings up an interesting thing. You play to your level, and then if you play above that you always lose, and if you play below that you always win. It's really hard to get your level. Online chess is pretty good, though honestly my rating has gone up and down and it seems sometimes I play a lot and don't care if I lose, and sometimes I just play a few games, and I get out of shape thinking about chess.  Rooney is a really cool writer, who really gets in there and describes romantic relationships. My guess is she's making a parallel with guys a man makes on a woman, and the opening theory of a chess player who studies all the major openings. It's a good example of her writing for those who want to try her out.  World Chess Champion Anatoly Karpov (right) in a demonstration chess game, 1978 | Photo: Vladimir Rodionov

Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu defeated Magnus Carlsen in the second blitz game of the Superbet Rapid Blitz Poland event! ( tweet ) Carlsen would win the event, but he's not been beaten much. I like it when dominant players are challenged. And I love this guys name. 5/30/24. Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu keeps beating Magnus Carlsen who's been unbeatable for the past 4 years. ( Guardian ) New Orleans

 

I got to this point and I was so tired, I couldn’t come up with ideas: White to move…

 

NY Times : In a Bitter Lawsuit, Chess Combatants Agree to a Draw: An American grandmaster sued Magnus Carlsen, the world’s top player, and two other parties after Carlsen accused him of cheating. A settlement has been announced. Queer chess night is popular in Manhattan. ( Guardian )

 

“ We have detected that one or more of your recent opponents has violated our Fair Play Policy. As compensation for potentially unfair rating losses, we adjusted your following ratings: Blitz: 709 + 9 => 718” I found an old post I wrote about Bong Cloud .

"Think of chess," in his early days around the capital, looking for a comparison that Russians might take to, chess, "an extravagant game of chess." Going on to show, if his audience was receptive (he had salesman reflexes, knew to steer automatically along lines of least indifference) how each molecule had so many possibilities open to it, possibilities for bonding, bonds of different strengths, from carbon the most versatile, the queen, "the Great Catherine of the periodic table," down to the little hydrogens numerous and single-moving as pawns . . . . and the brute opposition of the chessboard yielding, in this chemical game, to dance-figures in three dimensions, "four, if you like," and a radically different idea of what winning and losing meant. . . . Schwärmerei, his colleagues back home had muttered, finding excuses to drift away into other conversations. But Tchitcherine would have stayed. Foolish and romantic, he would have kept listenin...

I play 5 minute blitz games mostly, on my phone. I play the occasional 10 minutes rapid game on my computer. Just to change it up. I've been doing the daily puzzle more often, and I've been playing 7 day games, to think more about my moves. I'm trying to challenge myself. I lose more when I get out of my comfort zone.  I realized that I play to push off complications onto my opponent, and that doesn’t work with longer games. I like the lack of contemplation in speed games. There are too much complexity in the middle game. It did lead me to new openings and new awards. Some awards are participation awards.

There's that pause when my opponent realizes I took their queen. It really is a good strategy not to get the queen out early, least of all that if you make a mistake the, the cost is less. You put the least valuable players out first. You put pawns to try and get bishops and knights. Development is an important idea, getting locked in is really dangerous. I've had a lot of good checkmates, against me, where I was bottled in out of defensiveness.  There's also balance between being defensive and offensive. I've had some spectacular fun wins being really aggressive. That's a fun game, but a good player can defend themselves well enough to take advantage of aggressive play. Same with defense. Just clearing the back line so you can castle isn't a bad goal, but there's a hierarchy of goals. Sometimes there is no good move, so you make the least bad one. Notice when you're in a loop. You have to value every move, the more efficient player usually wins.   If yo...

So on Chess.com you can do leagues, where you just get points for every win (9 for 5 minute games (Blitz), 15 points for Rapid (10 Min). 3 minute Bullet were always too fast for me (you get 3 points).  It's a fairly crude tournament, you can just grind yourself to a win. But it makes you play a lot of chess, and focus on winning because you don't get points when you lose. I don't like to quit when I get behind but I'm more and more inclined to give up, despite spectacular comebacks. Sometimes it's too dire. Sometimes it's sweet relief to get checkmated, to play someone who has that quick killer instinct.  Sometimes in games I imagine both of us have our hands around each other's necks, choking each other, who's going to pass out first?  Playing a lot has improved my ranking, I got it up to 800, which is nothing, I know, but it's something to me because I live in the 700's. I think my highest ranking is 908 when I won my first game. You start out ...

  Copyright 1956 and 1957. I skimmed the Wikipedia profile of Fred Reinfeld . He wrote 118 books! Not all on chess, but still.  I've filched a few books from my father, but every time I open this one, I don't like the first opening and I close it. I've laid a lot of books in for the long cold winter, but that habit has me getting rid of a lot of books I'll never read. My chess book library is pretty weak, this might be it. I used to buy a lot of books, but now I get them from the library. The notation is difficult, they don't do the A-H, 1-8, they have the comberson QB4 instead of C4. Honestly that really put me off.  In a way, I like it that this book is so old and falling apart. I never really understood why paperbacks were not as permanent, but they're really quite poor books over a lifespan. I love it that the book is $1.50 new.  This book is sold used at $18.99 on Amazon. Only one option.  Links: Ding sets world title landmark and is ‘ready to take on Carls...