Great chess quotes

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 20, 2018

From commentary to Round Five of Tata Steel 2018:


Svidler on Carlsen-Kramnik: "I'm not the world's greatest authority on rook endings"

Tex de Wit: "Who is?"

Svidler: "The two guys playing the game"

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 20, 2018

Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has had a very good year. At the present moment, he is playing in the Tata Steel Tournament and his live rating is 2813, which makes him World Number Two after Magnus Carlsen.

When asked in a couple of interviews at Tata how he has raised his game to a new level, he has attributed it to getting married, to playing "old man chess" and to drinking less.

By "old man chess", he means not playing tactical chess so that you either get a zero or a one, but a more strategical game.

These two tweets in reaction to that:

Tarjei J. Svensen - Mamedyarov explaining why he did so well in 2017: "I stopped drinking alcohol"

Jonathan Tisdall - If I've got Shakh Mamedyarov's recent explanations for his great form right - cutting out alcohol, marriage and 'playing like an old man' - there is a lot of hope for the non-prodigies out there.

During the commentary for Round Six of Tata, Robin van Kampen and Eric Hansen, the chessbrahs, found the marriage and the cutting down on alcohol to be stumbling blocks to improving their ratings dramatically!

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

You should add the word refreshingly in front of abnormal. (not just because you are a chessplayer but have a fine mind)

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 13, 2018

On the wall, high above the playing hall at the Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2018:

Normal people have to see Naples before they die... but a Chess Grandmaster has to win Wijk aan Zee first.

Bent Larsen

_______

Martin Kusch in 2017:

The Larsen Thesis modified. -- Bent Larsen once said: "Normal people have to see Naples before they die, but a chess grandmaster has to win Hoogovens first." He was referring to the famous chess tournament that takes place in Wijk aan Zee every year (and that starts today). Come to think of it, I would rather attend this tournament -- even if only as a spectator -- than visit Naples. I guess I am (a little??) abnormal.

https://martinkusch.weebly.com/new/6217395

[Kerry Liles]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

An interview with Anatoly Karpov, conducted by Dmitry Sokolov of the Russian magazine “Sobesednik,” talks about his meeting with Salvador Dalí at a New York restaurant in 1979...

Karpov and Dalí conversed in English. Karpov was 28 at the time; Dalí was 74.

Ironically, Dalí was an artist interested in chess and asked Karpov some technical questions on the game and Karpov was a chess player interested in art,
claiming he owned an extensive collection of Dalí 's works.

Since Gala Dalí (born Elena Dyakonova) was from Russia, Karpov said he expected Dalí to have many questions about Russia, but he didn't.

Karpov noted that Dalí was accompanied by two gorgeous women while he himself was accompanied by a KGB agent.

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

I couldnt bear to watch a 100 games of Jan's chess.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 9, 2018

News Item: In a learning phase (training) the Alpha Zero program used 5000 "first-generation" TPUs from the Google hardware park to play games against itself. 64 "second-generation" TPUs were used for the training of the neuronal network. And after only four hours of training Alpha Zero played better than the Stockfish chess engine, winning a one-hundred game match.


Tweet: GM Jan Gustafsson
7 Dec 2017

Just played chess with myself for 4 straight hours. Learned a lot! Next step will be 100 games vs. Stockfish


https://twitter.com/GMJanGustafsson

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 5, 2018

I am still trying to work out the implications of this possible rule change. Does anyone really object to quick mates? Here it is for what it is worth:

From the English Chess Forum:

https://www.ecforum.org.uk/viewtopic...210090#p210090

My Mostest Brilliantest Chess Idea Ever

Post by Steven DuCharme Sat Jan 06, 2018

To eliminate quick mates I propose the following new chess rule "You may not move a non-pawn onto your opponent's side of the board until all your non-pawns have been moved at least once" "No draw offers during that time either" So may it be posted. So may it be implemented globally

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

A dose of reality at New Years. How refreshing! Thanks Wayne.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

January 2, 2018

What does a chess journalist think about other than the games he should be following?

There is an amusing set of chess blogs from the Groningen Chess Festival written by Benno de Jongh. This is Column #8 (Dec. 30, 2017) in the series for this year’s tournament.

We all have dreams. As I am sitting in my living room behind my computer here in Groningen, I take a look outside at the grey, misty sky. I imagine myself at the South coast of Italy. I am in a small hotel where I’m one of the few guests. In the morning, I work on my novel. In the afternoon, I eat a pasta dish with fresh seafood that the cook prepares just for me. I then take an after-lunch nap and drink some cocktails with the other guests. I do a little more writing and then –in the evening – I eat a pasta dish with a sage/butter sauce, drink a nice glass of local, red wine, and joke a bit with the waiter. In the night time, I go for a swim between the rocks of the Mediterranean Sea. The water is still warm from the past summer and I am accompanied by a girl from the local village, who happens to be there too. Once the temperatures in my home country rise again, I go home and meet my family and friends. At that point, my novel has been translated into seventeen languages. After spending the summer in the Netherlands, I return to the hotel in Italy.

Dreams don’t often come true. Or, as the Belgian writer Willem Elsschot put it in a more literary way: ‘Because in between dream and act / there are hindering laws and practical issues / and even melancholy / that no one can explain and that comes at night / when we all go to sleep.’ The Dutch/Italian philosopher Marco Borsato maybe said it even more powerful: ‘Most dreams are just lies, and when I wake up I’m still dreaming.'

http://www.chessfestival.nl/en/index...iew&id_post=94

Who is the author?

Benno de Jongh writes daily columns during the Chess Festival, published around 3 pm on playing days. De Jongh is a journalist and a chess player, who has never reached the rating of 2000, and probably never will. Despite that fact he is one of the world’s leading experts on the Elephant Gambit and working on a book on the subject, (working title: The Elephant Gambit, A Rare Black Beast with a Proboscis on the Board, publication expected in 2032). De Jongh’s opinions on several chess- and non-chess-related items do not in any way reflect the policy of the organisation of the festival.

http://www.chessfestival.nl/en/index...iew&id_post=78

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

December 31, 2017

After the first day of Blitz in The World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships 2017 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Magnus Carlsen looked way back in the field and Nick Faulks wrote this in the English Chess Forum:

(Jonathan Rogers) “At Round 11, Carsen really is out of it now.”

(Nick Faulks) “That isn’t completely clear since with ten rounds tomorrow, he is only one point out of third place. If he could perform to his (now historic) 2986 rating, that might be enough.”

Prophetic words indeed. This is how Carsen fared the second day:

Round 12 Grischuk-Carlsen 0-1
Round 13 Carlsen-Harikrishna 1-0
Round 14 Mamedyarov-Carlsen 0-1
Round 15 Carlsen-Karjakin 1-0
Round 16 Carlsen-MVL 1/2-1/2
Round 17 Petrosian-Carlsen 0-1
Round 18 Ding Liren-Carlsen 0-1
Round 19 Carlsen-Artemiev 1-0
Round 20 Carlsen-Korobov 1-0
Round 21 Aronian-Carlsen 1/2-1/2

Magnus wins the Championship with a round to go and ends up with an effective rating of 2924 and a final score of 16/21.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great Chess Quotes

Great Chess Quotes

December 28, 2017

From The Washington Post, Oct. 16, 1998

By Charles Krauthammer

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...=.983395dfa281

Tyranny of Chess

Not all chess players are crazy. I'm willing to venture that. But not much more. Eccentricity does reign in our precincts. In my 20s, I used to hang out at the Boston Chess Club. The front of the club was a bookstore in which you'd mill around, choose a partner, put your money down with the manager and go to the back room -- 20 or so boards set up in utter barrenness -- for some action. (At five bucks an hour it was cheaper than a bordello, but the principle seemed disturbingly similar to me.)

I remember one back room encounter quite vividly. The stranger and I sat down to the board together. I held out my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Charles." He pushed his white king's pawn and said, "I'm white," fixing me with a glare that said, "Don't you dare intrude into my space with names." It was dead silence from then on.

A psychiatrist colleague of mine came by to fetch me a few hours later. He surveyed the clientele -- intense, disheveled, autistic -- and declared, "I could run a group in here."

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Kirsan Nikolaevich says "Chess instead of a Kalashnikov"

Kirsan the Magnificent does it again. lol.

Just two days ago, I was in Afghanistan. There, I distributed chess sets among children under the slogan "Chess instead of Kalashnikov". I asked them to give Taliban children a thousand chess sets so that they would play chess instead of fighting and carrying out terrorist attacks.

"Chess instead of a Kalashnikov!"

Yes, but doesn't Kirsan know about 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. g4 and similar openings?

[Hans Jung]

Re: Great chess quotes

On same topic as above Garry Kasparov quoted a line from a famous musical: "I prefer to get my kicks above the waistline, sunshine".

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Great chess quotes

Great Chess Quotes

December 21, 2017

World Chess unveiled the new logo for the World Championship Match, London 2018. Its statement:

Key visual for the 2018 WCC is controversial and trendy, just like the host city.

As organizers of the Match, we’ve been busy for over a year working with artists and designers to develop a perfect key visual, the image that will be associated with the 2018 Match.

https://worldchess.com/2017/12/17/br...atch-unveiled/

The image, which shows intertwined human-shaped figures holding a chessboard has been branded by some as “Tantric Chess” that could have come straight from the “Kama Sutra”.

This elicited this reader comment on the World Chess site:

mrbelding: Hilarious. "Controversial & Trendy" is code in the design world for "We paid up front and got a hot mess of garbage and now have no money or time to have someone with talent to redo it"