Thank you all for the recommendations, and, as luck would have it, Chessmaster 9000 is one of the (many) Ubisoft games on sale at GOG this weekend.
That’s a sale!
And, once I get the hang of playing a little, I’ll read up about this Bobby Fisher chap : )
A good league game, felt like posting it up. Perhaps I could call it A rook gets trapped behind enemy lines, but attains immortality.
How is that a complete game?
I left off the result - I thought it might be more interesting to play through without knowing the outcome from the start. The final position is fairly decisive.
That was a good move.
Nice game, although the difference in playing strength is quite obvious. (or the other guy had a very bad day)
Baruk, do you play on Gameknot.com? My handle is Brof, if you want a game to play… 3 days per move or something.
Yes, I believe a strong knowledge of 2-3 openings will suit you well at the amateur level. When I was playing regularly, that’s all I had up my sleeve.
When I was playing regularly… sigh. For a few years back in the 00s I played this guy once a week. We met at a local coffee shop and played for hours. And after a while I got better, not formally competitive of course, but better to the point where I would visualize games in my mind days later. I could see the board in a different way. And, like any game, I came to realize that to get better at chess requires tons and tons of practice.
I’ve sent you a challenge - my handle is tonylemesmer.
Are you sure you want to continue this old conversation?
not really sure, but 3 games to go in the current Chess World Championship 2016 between WC Magnus Carlsen (NOR) and his challenger Sergey Karjakin (RUS). After 7 draws in a row, which I quite enjoyed as a chess player, Karjakin won round 8. He almost won yesterday again (round 9)… Carlsen is under huge pressure now. They play in New York btw…
There are not many jokes you can do over the chess board, but when Magnus opened Game 1 using the Trompowski opening, I felt quite amused (same week as the presidential election)…
Yes, Carlsen pushed too hard to try and make something happen in game 8 when he should have just taken a draw. Now he is in danger of losing his spot as world champion. He still has 3 games to go though, so still a chance he can come back. One of the problems with these shorter matches is you are really at a disadvantage if you lose a game. It would be much nicer if they could find some middle ground between these 12 game matches, and the the Karpov-Kasparov marathon from '84. It is sort of like the Kramnik match in 2000. If Karjakin mantains this lead he will have won and his match strategy will be vindicated, but everyone will probably still think Carlsen is the best player. The good thing for Carlsen is that he is only 25 and regardless of the outcome he will almost certainly be participating in more world championship matches.
If only there was no way to draw, high level play and especially championships would make more sense to me. Of course there’s all this elaborate strategy and gamesmanship, but it seems to revolve around how to steal a game or how to provoke the opponent to throw one away. If every game resulted in a W or an L the outcome would be connected to direct skill, instead of someone finally getting frustrated with all the draws and taking on too great a handicap with a deliberately inferior move in order to obtain complications.
and Carlsen came back with a win… as usual he won the endgame. He is the best endgame player, maybe ever. Get the queens off the board, and Carlsen will grind for hours… Karjakin had a chance to go for a draw by repitition in move 20 or so, but later admitted that he had not calculated far enough. Maybe, he had a good position and initiative at the time, maybe he was going in for more…
So if the next 2 games are drawn, then we will see a rapid/blitz chess final … which is a bit like penalty shooting in soccer. I would vote for Carlsen, since he defeated one of the best blitz players recently, US champ Hikaru Nakamura…
but the next 2 games will be extremely tense…
Carlsen grabs a win today and now it is tied up with 2 regular games left.
Tiebreak! Today we will see 4 rapid games, if still tied, 4 more blitz games… Carlsen made a quick draw on Game 12, because he thinks he will be the better rapid/bltz player… maybe, but Karjakin impressed me during this championship, he had very good nerves…
I was just about to ask if it would be streamed, since quick games ought to be fun to get my pro chess fix for a couple years. Then I decided to Google it instead of asking and discovered it’s already over.
Carlsen
I bought the tournament pass from Agon, the official FIDE contractor… they had the live streaming rights, also a nice 360° view option of the players, differetn camera angles.
Wow, Karjakin did not have any chance in rapid against Carlsen, he was way to slow, so time pressure kicked in every game. He saved game 2 by his defending miracles, Carlsen’s face at start of game 3 was terrible, he looked really like he lost… but won that game very easy, like game 2 never happened.
Game 4 Karjakin had black and had to win, so he chose the Scicilian defense… and Carlsen played some kind of anti-Scicilian. I think if you only ever play Scicilian when you have to win, then it will not serve you, when you need it. But what to do with the black pieces? Best you can hope is to equalize against a stronger opponent. Carlsen ended the game with a mating attack, sacrificing his queen and game over, great finale
If you want to be world champion, you need to be the best in classical duration games, and rapid, and blitz. Carlsen proved that he is still the best. Because it was only a 12 game classical match he could not risk to lose in game 11 and 12 …
I did not like the commentators on the official site except Judith Polgar, but there was to much unrelated crap going on to make chess “popular”… I do not think that chess needs to be “popular” like other sports… it is a very specific kind of activity, way to complex for an average viewer. Anybody can watch Soccer or Football… Chess is more like watching eSports, totally boring if you are not playing yourself (most of the time)…