Harry Potter is dead, I saw it with my own eyes!
I guess such a sad loss is not something I should be sharing with others, , but some of the stuff I watch on TV nowadays has taken away all the sensitivity left which I had!
Oh, and for the record, Harry Potter WAS NOT WHITE, HE WAS BLACK!
[pgn] 1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 e6 3.e4 c5 4.e5 Ng8 5.d4 cxd4 6.Qxd4 Nc6 7.Qe4 d6 8.Nf3 dxe5 9.Nxe5 Nxe5 10.Qxe5 Nf6 11.Bf4 Bb4 12.Be2 0-0 13.0-0 Bd7 14.Rfd1 Qc8 15.Nb5 Bxb5 16.Qxb5 Bc5 17.Bf3 Bb6 18.Bd6 1-0 [
Some friends tell me that it's very unpolite to set the "ignore" flag on all my MSN contacts (this way they can't see I'm connected when I log on). I have to disagree with my friends on this one. I don't have all that many people on my contact list, I don't know, somethng like 50-75, but some people have hundreds.
My point is, I'm the sort of person who likes to reply to someone greeting me. I know people who never use the "ignore" flag and simply don't reply whenever someone says somethin
One of the best movies I've seen in recent months has been "The illusionist", with Edward Norton (a most versatile actor) and Jessica Biel.
Now take a look at the following position. It's black to play and... win?????????
Yes, this is not an illusion, it's not a magic trick. And I really ought to know it because I was black and my opponent resigned after my next move!
As usual, avoid tmptation and do not slide you mouse pointer over the black line unless you know the answer!
I was kibitzing some blitz games on the playchess server last night and was surprised by the unexpected result of this game. There's a couple of errors on move 29 for black and 30 for white, but other than that the game is pretty good. The interesting moment comes on move 41, when Nigel tries to make some progress on the Kingside overlooking black's chances on the Queenside. By means of a nice sacrifice black was able to get a passed pawn and win the game.
With a FIDE rating of 2248, 18 year o
Who or what are we in this infinite universe of ours? How meaningless are our daily actions and thoughts? is there any reason to believe that we are any smarter, more creative, artistic, important, relevant, useful (or any other positive adjective that you can think of) than others?
Perhaps the answer was found by "Kansas" guitarist Kerry Livgren when he was reading a book of Native American poetry. The line that caught his attention was "For All We Are Is Dust In The Wind..."
That might
Hey, how do you like my autobot?:
Transformers, the movie produced by Spielberg, premiers worldwide on July 4th.
The Decepticons (known as Destrons or on occasion Deathtrons in Japan) are the enemies of the Autobots, and the villains in the fictional universe of the Transformers toyline and related spin-off comics and cartoons. Their best known leader is Megatron.
Despite being the villains, the Decepticons are very popular. Part of their popularity comes from having many more
I was thinking about an old story the other day:
An old lady buys a bottle of wine at the bottleshop. She pays 10 dollars for it and then she leaves. She walks for 10 minutes and then, all of sudden, the following questions enter her mind: "do I really want this wine?, isn't alcohol supposed to be bad for me? Shouldn't I have bought an orange juice instead, which is not only healthier but also a lot cheaper?" So, she turns around and walks back towards the bottle shop.
When she gets ther
It's strange how people have their own interpretation of songs. I always thought "Hotel California" was a metaphor of hell. Reading Don Henley's comments: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles." perhaps I wasn't so far away.
Click HERE to check what this song means to many different people.
"Hotel California" (The Eagles)
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, risi
Timoshenko's has won the Sydney International Open and I figured that I might as well publish one of his games on my blog. It's kind of funny, but I actually have had a lot of trouble finding the typical "spectacular" victory of his in this event!
I'm not saying that his games were not interesting, but they were not very eye catching (don't we all wish we could play so efficently too?).
Anyway, I finally came accross the game that he played on round one against a player who was rated nearly
Cathy Rogers, publicity officer for the Sydney International Open, wrote on Friday: "The biggest disappointment of the tournament has been the dismal showing of top seed, Russian Grandmaster Sergei Shipov, formerly ranked among the best 25 in the world. His world ranking will suffer enormously from this result." She actually wrote this before learning about his dramatic loss in game 8 against Bernardino, from the Philipines, a player rated 2146 (around 450 points below the Russian GM!).
But
[Event "Sydney International Open"]
[Round "6.5"]
[White "Bjelobrk, Igor, 2386"]
[black "Matamoros Franco, Carlos 2523"]
This position happened on board 5, round 6 of the Sydney International Open. Both players were probably in time trouble.
White has just played 37. Rf1. Think about it. Take your time. What would you play now as black?
When you think you're ready, put your mouse pointer over the black line and simply slide it.
Australia's number 1 player, GM Ian Rogers, is currently leading the Sydney International Open with 5/5. If you're wondering how Ian can still play at the top after nearly 3 decades of success, I have but one answer: let the games speak by themselves!
[Event "Sydney International Open"]
[Date "Apil 10th, 2007"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Rogers, Ian, ACF 2621"]
[black "Lane, Gary W, ACF 2452"]
[Result "1-0"]
[pgn] 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8
Your Vocabulary Score: B
You have a zealous love for the English language, and many find your vocabulary edifying.
Don't fret that you didn't get every word right, your vocabulary can be easily ameliorated!
How's Your Vocabulary?
http://www.blogthings.com/howsyourvocabularyquiz/
How embarrasing! I didn' know what "fret" meant!
"Learn chess or call me an idiot!!", my free electronic book, has now made it to number 2 on the list of free electronic books at http://www.ebookbillboard.com. The list is updated every week.
Please do me a favour, if you haven't downloaded the book yet, please do so now and make LOCMAI the number 1 book next week!
GM Alexi Shirov has just won one of the strongest rapid chess events ever held: Festival Cañada de Calatrava (Spain).
Shirov, who plays for Spain, played some very nice chess there.
Personally, I was quite happy on two accounts: 1, on seeing him win a tournament again, and 2, on seeing him playing a tournament where he didn't play the Petrov! (He played a Sicilian against a weaker player and he beat Ivanchuck as black on round 8 playing against the Ruy Lopez. In the rest of the games his op
[Event "Amber Blindfold"]
[site "Monte Carlo MNC"]
[Date "2007.03.20"]
This happened in the game Vallejo - Svidler after black's 23rd move. You'd never guess white's next move. Think about it for a while. When you've found a really bad move, put your mouse pointer over the black line. But wait! Something else happened!
If you didn't guess white's 24th, there's no chance you'll guess white's 25th!! you don't believe me? check it out!
For the record, 24. e5! would have
I'm currently still in Spain and yesterday night I was watching the following endgame being played by two local players, one of them from the club which I do coaching at:
White has just played Ke5, which is actually a mistake.
Would you have been able to save this ending as black? are you possitively sure?
Well, if you're not, you can always download my annotations:
oncecas.cbv
Btw, if you're wondering, the "victim" in this game was the player from my team but we stil
If a few months ago someone had asked me who was the player with the most determination of all when at the board, I would not have hesitated: Topalov. Well, that was till yesterday when I saw Morozevich beat Topalov like this:
Morozevich,A (2741) - Topalov,V (2783) [b50]
XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (13), 09.03.2007
[pgn]1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.c3 Nf6 4.Be2 Bd7 5.d3 e6 6.Nbd2 Be7 7.0-0 0-0 8.a3 Bc6 9.Re1 Nbd7 10.Bf1 Ne5 11.Nxe5 dxe5 12.Nc4 Qc7 13.b4 Rfd8 14.Qb3 b5 15.Na5 Be8 16.f3
My free electronic book, LOCMAI (which stands for "learn chess or call me an idiot!!") has been downloaded more than 1000 times from this site!
There are now several sites where you can download my book from, apart from here:
http://www.ebookbillboard.com
http://www.gemx.com/ebooks_download.php
At present, LOCMAI is the 17th most popular free ebook on the ebookbillboard!
Ok, I know defenders of the two browsers will never reach an agreement on this matter. Personally I use both, but amongst the many advantages that firefox has over IE is... it really loads pages so much faster! I'm talking about a speed difference of something like 50% or more, it's just shocking!
Anyway, I strongly recommend people to use Firefox rather than Internet Explorer. At least give it a try and decide by yourself.
Morozevic - Leko was the best game from round IX, and you can download it with my annotations here: moroleko.cbv.
However, one of the most embarrasing games in this round was Carlsen - Aronian:
Carlsen,M (2690) - Aronian,L (2744) [E15]
XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (9), 03.03.2007
[pgn] 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.g3 Ba6 5.b3 Bb4+ 6.Bd2 Be7 7.Bg2 c6 8.Bc3 d5 9.Ne5 Nfd7 10.Nxd7 Nxd7 11.Nd2 0-0 12.0-0 Rc8 13.e4 c5 14.exd5 exd5 15.dxc5 dxc4 16.c6 cxb3 17.Re1 b2 18.Bxb2 Nc5 1
All games were drawn at Linares on round 8. Aronian - Svidler only lasted 16 moves.
Anand never seemed like he was really fighting for a win in his game against Topalov, but Morozevic - Carlsen was a tough fight.
Ivanchuck was never in trouble in his game and he achieved equality rather easily:
Leko,P (2749) - Ivanchuk,V (2750) [C10]
XXIV SuperGM Morelia/Linares MEX/ESP (8), 02.03.2007
[pgn] 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7 5.Nf3 Ngf6 6.Bg5 h6 7.Nxf6+ Nxf6
Yes, Carlsen has his own blog, no kidding!
How does he find the time to prepare for his games, play those tough games, rest and... write a blog?
Hang on a minute, this is not Magnus Carlsen's blog we're talking about, is it? True, but it comes close: it's his dad's!
Still, a very interesting source of information with plenty of photographs, family stories, honest and witty. Henry is doing a great job. Highly recommended.
Read it here!
(2007 Oscar, best documentary)
The subject is AIDS in China. Specifically in Anhui province. The victims are poor families. The adults donated blood in evidently unsanitary conditions: one individual apparently connected to the blood drawing procedure describes combining the donated blood of fifty individuals and then re-injecting a little bit of the mixture into the veins of the donors. It is hard to believe that China's health system would be so primitive! The consequence is not surprisin
I will not mention what happened in round six at Linares other than it was the most boring round of any GM tournament I've seen in years. If you have children at home and you're running out of ideas because you no longer remember what silence sounds like, let your kids watch the games from this round and I assure you that they too will go to sleep in no time!
Anyway, Round VII was a lot more interesting. Only one of the 4 games ended in a draw.
Here's Ivanchuk's victory against Aronian. P
