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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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---- Nous avons besoin d'un traduction français!
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... So, let's see, for standing up for organizers, I'm an ordinary whacko. Have something against organizers, do we? Did we have a bad experience? Oh, and now we're very gun-shy! Oh, my....
Paul, I apologize for my ill-considered remarks earlier. It wasn't the first time that my temper has got the best of me at ChessTalk and, regrettably, it probably won't be the last.
I'm not being critical of you for standing up for organizers. I'm being critical of you for stalking Jean Hebert. He is entitled to his opinions even if you disagree with them.
In some 42 years of playing in chess tournaments, I have never had a problem with an organizer or tournament director.
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." - Aesop
"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato
"If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination." - Thomas De Quincey
I'm not saying that all team sports are bad, I'm just saying that under the terms of what we're talking about - the most beneficial sports for improving your mental abilities - Rock Climbing and Tennis are tops. Team sports are usually only fully beneficial for one or two people at a time out of all of those on the field of play at the time, and then you also have the people on the bench.
I understand that a sport (Hockey, say) is so incredibly physically demanding that few players even play close to half of a typical game. But the fact remains that while you are sitting on the bench, you are not getting the physical/mental exercise combination.
Goalies might be a very notable exception, depending on how good (or rather BAD) their D is :p
I'm not saying that all team sports are bad, I'm just saying that under the terms of what we're talking about - the most beneficial sports for improving your mental abilities - Rock Climbing and Tennis are tops. Team sports are usually only fully beneficial for one or two people at a time out of all of those on the field of play at the time, and then you also have the people on the bench.
I understand that a sport (Hockey, say) is so incredibly physically demanding that few players even play close to half of a typical game. But the fact remains that while you are sitting on the bench, you are not getting the physical/mental exercise combination.
Goalies might be a very notable exception, depending on how good (or rather BAD) their D is :p
Hi Chris, OK, but aside from baseball-type sports, I am having a hard time thinking of team sports that engage only one or two players at a time. I agree fully with rock climbing, but I just cannot see why tennis would be significantly better than say, wrestling, chess, or any raquet sport for that matter? We can just agree to disagree!
A motion has been filed by me, seconded by GM Mark Bluvshtein, to add to the CFC Executive the new position of Tournament Coordinator. One of the jobs of this position will be :
8A. ( a ) The Tournament Coordinator will help to develop and train tournament organizers and directors across the country...
This looks like a great idea on paper but one that is doomed to fail without the proper Who and How. What will this training be about ? Who is going to determine the content of that training program ? If it serves mostly to perpetuate our traditions of poorly organised national championships and unsponsored 'based on x entries" weekenders, it is not going to be a big help. Who will be this "tournament coordinator" with the necessary experience, knowledge and credibility to teach others how to do things ? Having a David Ottosen preaching that looking for sponsors is "a pain in the ass" wouldn't be too useful, or would it ?
How likely is it that the right person can be found AND elected for this volonteer position ? The way it appears to me, it is more likely that this position with a clear goal (to make organizers better) but no clear plan or means to work towards it, will remain a largely dormant and symbolic job.
Wrestling might be a good one from my perspective, and I've never really watched it just my experience from Grade 9 Gym class... I think the issue there is the length of the matches, it's just too short to do a whole lot of good.
Chess is not a sport of physical-mental interaction. Yes physical fitness helps - perhaps a lot - but it's mostly mental exercise.
The author had a reason why tennis was better than raquetball or squash. I don't recall off the top of my head exactly what that was, but it's a fairly minor difference.
Let me know if you get the book and read it, then we can have a really big debate about it sometime hehe.
Wrestling might be a good one from my perspective, and I've never really watched it just my experience from Grade 9 Gym class... I think the issue there is the length of the matches, it's just too short to do a whole lot of good.
Chess is not a sport of physical-mental interaction. Yes physical fitness helps - perhaps a lot - but it's mostly mental exercise.
The author had a reason why tennis was better than raquetball or squash. I don't recall off the top of my head exactly what that was, but it's a fairly minor difference.
Let me know if you get the book and read it, then we can have a really big debate about it sometime hehe.
All right, that's probably a good idea at this point: I'll get the book, read it, and then we can continue. Until then, my 2 concerns with tennis as being the BEST choice are these:
1) It can be played for a while, especially by non-competitive people. In other words, players can coast, as opposed to a combat sport where it's problematic to go slow. So, whereas tennis should be quite athletic, I wonder if tennis forces athletic commitment? For example, the length of wrestling matches is not the point, but rather the intense training for the matches. They train very hard for weeks/months for 2-3 matches, and if they coast either during the training or the match, well, the effects can be disasterous!
2) There is relatively little fear element, whose challenge can be very stimulating. For example, there's little fear of injury, or of someone trying to hurt you. In my opinion, especially the latter really jacks up your attention span, lol. In other words, I wonder if relative lack of fear leads to a kind of mental coasting. That is one reason why I believe that rock climbing must be great. I only tried it once, and you cannot coast doing that!
Anyway, let me read that book, and get more informed than my coach-potato intuition!
Fear is great for on-the-spot mental awareness (as long as you avoid tunnel vision!) but it is not really conducive to the kind of permanent benefits we're looking at here.
As you said you did rock climbing once. I never have, but I can see how scary it could be (I'm totally acrophobic!) - but if you're doing it on a regular basis I would think it would go from adrenaline-fear-rush to cool-what's-today's-challenge.
That's a new twist. Not knowing has never stopped you before.
Ahhh, so you are the expert on who knows what. Everyone will now submit to a remote brain scan from Jean Hebert, and he will decree what you know and how much of it you know.
You have been praising people you know very little about or about what they have done (more embarrassing than anything else for them)...
You have been criticising them with even less knowledge. All that one needs to know is that the organizers do their work for the LOVE OF IT. For that one aspect alone, they deserve praise. Without them doing it for the love of it, there is no money to pay others to do it for profit.
If one organizer in particular is doing something bad, his or her tournament will fail. The longstanding organizers with longstanding tournaments are obviously doing it right. You claim they don't even seek sponsors, and you have no insight into that at all. HYPOCRITE!
...you have been commenting on canadian chess and its problems with skin deep knowledge of them while living in the States...
Oooooh, "while living in the States". I didn't know that disqualified me from commenting on Canadian chess. Why not just make it "while living outside Quebec"? Or how about "while not agreeing with Jean Hebert"?
Last I checked, I still have my Canadian citizenship. And last I checked, I am still registered on this forum, which allows me to comment. I know, I know, you HATE it when others comment whom you look down your nose at. Easy to dismiss them as people with only "skin deep knowledge".
You yourself show even less than that about corporate sponsorship yet still pass yourself off as an expert. HYPOCRITE! And when a David Ottosen comes along, who works in corporate marketing for a company that is (was) interested in chess sponsorship, and he tells you your views are nonsense, that corporate marketing departments DO care about ROI, you launch into a personal attack.
That's the way you deal with making mistakes. I"m surprised people that have beaten you over the chessboard are still alive to talk about it.
...you have been suggesting silly modifications to the most spreaded and respected thinking game on the planet while being hardly more than a beginner at it...
When castling or en passant were first proposed, I imagine there was a Jean Hebert calling it a silly modification. At least my suggestions aren't impinging on standard chess. All kinds of variants have sprung from chess, and are very popular: bughouse, chess960 to name a few. Should we just disallow anyone to create these variants? Should we, Jean? Do they leave a bad taste in your mouth?
ATTENTION EARTHLINGS: By Royal Decree of Jean Hebert, no further chess variants are allowed. All existing variants will no longer be permitted, and all records of them destroyed.
And really, Jean, I'm hardly more than a beginner? Here we are again, Jean Hebert speaking of something he has no knowledge of. HYPOCRITE!
...and most importantly you have been critisizing and trying to insult me for the sheer pleasure of it on the basis of one or two posts that somehow displeased the all important PB, while disregarding and disputing out of bad faith and ignorance every bit of information contrary to your beliefs posted by numerous people, me included.
As I wrote elsewhere, I am your karma, Jean Hebert. You likely have worse karma than me to worry about, but you won't worry.... until it hits you.
The words "I can't comment on that" should have been applied to just about every topic you have touched on this message board. At this point you have dug yourself a hole so deep that no one really expects you to turn around and start acting decently if only by keeping quiet.
I know you are, but what am I?
The hole I've dug is hopefully the one where we can bury your false assertions about organizers outside of Quebec.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Chess organizing is a lot of work considering the pay (if any), but dealing with problem players comes with the territory. Personally I find 99% of players are no problem at all. Maybe I've just been lucky.;)
While I can appreciate PB's support for chess organizers, (and this thread is very entertaining indeed) I think some of his comments are "just a little over the top". :(
It hasn't escaped my attention that none of the organizers who are targeted by Jean's rants (which would appear to be non-Quebec organizers in general) have spoken up for themselves. I picture them at home, laughing as they tell whoever will listen, "Oh, look what Jean is saying NOW! Whoo-hoo! HA HA HA!!!"
I suppose everyone except Jean himself could just stay silent, give absolutely no response to any of his rants. Maybe that's what went on before I got involved, i.e. after Jean figuratively knifed Hal Bond in the back well after the Canadian Closed had ended and Jean had escaped with his money.
I just don't like anyone making public elitist self-serving slanderous lies and getting away with it. Since it is my right to comment, I comment, hopefully to at least show that this type of slander can be stood up to. If some find my comments over the top, I have no problem with that. Some people think Don Cherry is over the top, or Fox News is over the top, but they still have a licence to editorialize on the air. If you would rather they didn't, perhaps you should move to China?
And I just love how I'm over the top, but Jean calling organizers "lazy dumbells" on a public forum is perfectly fine even with one of the targeted organizers. Sorry, Bob, good friend and all, you just need to.... wake up and smell the French Roast coffee???
A lot of you seem to forget that this is a forum for comment. So if Jean posts his nonsense here and no one comments, it could appear that there is tacit agreement with what he writes. Even if an organizer isn't offended by it, s/he should still feel it's wrong, and if they feel that way, THIS IS THE PLACE TO EXPRESS IT. Not expressing it implies either ignorance of Hebert's comments or agreement with them.
Gary Ruben, you may not have cried about problem players, but when you write that "I handled the problem", what does that mean? Are you trying to infer that any organizer commenting about it here would be "crying", while doing something else is "handling the problem"? And if that's the case, why do you make so many comments on this forum that could by your own logic be interpreted as "crying"? Obviously, it's not crying, no one is crying, even you are not crying, we are all just making our feelings and opinions known.
Sometimes even the best of us just can't see the forum for the feelings.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Being just a little over the top might not be detrimental to the dealing of any issue. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. What goes around comes around. Those who lives by the sword... Et cetera.
Exactly, Benoit! To which I would add, "fight fire with fire".
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Paul, I apologize for my ill-considered remarks earlier. It wasn't the first time that my temper has got the best of me at ChessTalk and, regrettably, it probably won't be the last.
I'm not being critical of you for standing up for organizers. I'm being critical of you for stalking Jean Hebert. He is entitled to his opinions even if you disagree with them.
In some 42 years of playing in chess tournaments, I have never had a problem with an organizer or tournament director.
Well.... I've never seen this before on Chesstalk. What appears to be a genuine apology. I'm not sure what to think, if I accept, will he reply "PSYCHE!"???
Well, it seems sincere. It takes a big person to make such an apology in public, so Peter, I accept and you have my respect.
I guess we can just agree to disagree on whether I'm stalking Hebert. If it appears that I'm doing that, what can I say beyond what I've said already... things should be clear by now.
Only the rushing is heard...
Onward flies the bird.
Ahhh, so you are the expert on who knows what. Everyone will now submit to a remote brain scan from Jean Hebert, and he will decree what you know and how much of it you know.
So I was wrong to assume that you know very little based on your own words and admissions.
If one organizer in particular is doing something bad, his or her tournament will fail. The longstanding organizers with longstanding tournaments are obviously doing it right. You claim they don't even seek sponsors, and you have no insight into that at all. HYPOCRITE!
Your reasoning is desperately simplistic. Since that there are very few "longstanding organizers with longstanding tournaments" should we assume that they were obviously wrong ? And please look into a dictionary for the meaning of the word "hypocrite". You seem to have no clue.
... "while living in the States". I didn't know that disqualified me from commenting on Canadian chess. Last I checked, I still have my Canadian citizenship.
It does not disqualify you from making unfounded and goofy statements. Quite the contrary. You are proven to be uniquely qualified to make them.
You yourself show(sic) even less than that about corporate sponsorship yet still pass yourself off as an expert.
I am sorry if I have given you the impression that I am an expert on this matter. I have just said essentially that based on observable facts, sponsorship is possible and that to get it one must seek it. That's all. If for you it is enough to pass off as an "expert", does that mean that you, being obviously impressed by my deep insight, know even less than I do?
When castling or en passant were first proposed, I imagine there was a Jean Hebert calling it a silly modification.
Probably not, but between those brilliant proposals there were hundreds of proposals dismissed offhand as pure nonsense from PBs who were subsequently burned to death. Not that I advocate such drastic solution in your case.
At least my suggestions aren't impinging on standard chess.
If you call introducing "random elements" into the game not "impinging", I wonder what would. There goes the last virtue of your "proposals" by the window.
All kinds of variants have sprung from chess, and are very popular: bughouse, chess960 to name a few. Should we just disallow anyone to create these variants?
You say chess is not popular but that the variants are "very popular". I wonder what scale you are using. But if those variants are so popular, why do you want to create another one ? Is it in the hope to find the magical game that you can be good at ?
As I wrote elsewhere, I am your karma, Jean Hebert.
At least you are something. Now I understand why you write so much on this message board. Being part of my karma, even a microscopic part, makes you feel alive and worth something. As the saying goes, "A crumb from a winner's table is better than a feast from a loser's table!"
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