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Posted by estebanw kttstudios.com 11/15/2007 09:30:44 Play online chess	Subject: "Analyze the board" curse Message: I enjoy tremendously playing at GK. It is great to play at your own pace and not having pressure with time. My ranking has been steadily rising lately (> 1550) and you know how happy that makes us feel. However, one of the main reasons for my success is my frequent (addiction) use of the wonderful "Analyze the Board" feature. I do not have the opportunity to play a live person, but I am sure that the quality of my play would decrease significantly in a live tournament. Am I condemned to be a GK player? Can someone else tell their experiences and opinions?
Posted by sf115 kttstudios.com 11/15/2007 10:12:06 Play online chess	Message: I wouldn't worry about it too much. Although you're not allowed to use an "analyze the board" feature a match, actual chess pieces are easier to analyse (English spelling). Also all you need is experence on the chess board. If you play a lot you can analyse in your head just as well as you can now on GK. If you are worried then maybe analysing the position as much as you can in your head and then use the "analyze the board" feature.
Posted by lighttotheright kttstudios.com 11/15/2007 11:07:23 Play online chess	Message: There is something about physical 3-D pieces that makes is easier to find good lines of play. Whenever I find myself in a difficult situation in one of my GK games, I sometimes break out one of my umpteen gillion boards and set-up the position. This helps me. But make sure is is the exact position. Set-up mistakes of this nature can be costly. I also practice quick 10 minute time limit chess, every now and then. The GK experience is actually improving my chess skills tremendously in quick chess. Maybe because I'm forced to analyse more carefully. Quick play on GK can be an asset too. People not used to playing fast will sometimes try to mimic the fast play and get themselves into trouble. Playing quick and slow improves both kinds of play in my experience. ——— On Chess: Club fever can lead to stalemated rut — For some people, a chess club or chess cafe becomes a dead end. The chess club of my teenage years was a vibrant place frequented by exceptional people who had rich lives outside of the venue. But a few were there from opening to closing, month after month, year after year. “Did they have another life?” I wondered. In the 1972 book The Chess Scene, David Levy and Stewart Reuben describe such behavior in extremis at the Chess and Checker Club of New York. Known as the “the Flea House,” the chess emporium attracted players from the surrounding boroughs, Long Island, Westchester County and New Jersey. “Most of the inhabitants just fritter away a lifetime there,” Levy and Reuben wrote, “playing friendly games or for the board fee. For ...
Posted by wschmidt kttstudios.com 11/15/2007 12:51:25 Play online chess	estebanw, Message: I'm a much weaker player OTB. Nerves, time-trouble, oversights and opening problems - I suffer from them all. I still enjoy the battle though, especially as I get a little older and I have less ego involvement in the event. * I'll second sf115's suggestion that you can use the GK experience to strengthen OTB play. Using the analysis board only after I do the visualization myself is something I do a lot. Another, which someone suggested on these pages long ago, is to strengthen your opening play by replaying the opening moves of the game each time you look at a GK game. It is a great help in learning a repertoire. * I haven't tried light's suggestion of setting up a board for GK analysis, but I like that idea too. I'll be giving it a try. ws ——— How Bobby Fischer (Briefly) Changed America — This summer marks the anniversary of an extraordinary moment in U.S. history: the 1972 match in which the American chess genius Bobby Fischer defeated the Soviet wizard Boris Spassky for the chess championship of the world. The chess battle probably should have been just one more headline in an eventful three months that saw the Watergate burglary, the expulsion of the Soviet military from Egypt and the humiliating dismissal of vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton from the Democratic ticket. Somehow the story of Fischer and Spassky and their epic chess match, which ended 40 years ago this month, captured our attention in a way that no struggle of intellect has since. The two best chess players in the world were playing 24 games in ...
Posted by suzyfromflorida kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 00:30:32 Play online chess	Analyse the Board Message: I use the "Analyse the Board" feature BIG TIME! I never said this to anyone, but, in my heart of hearts, I feel like it's cheating -- even though I know it's not cheating. Now please understand, I use it and will continue to use it and love it very much because it's really a great learning aid. But I think it's cheating -- well let me rephrase that!: I suspect it's a KIND OF cheating, or a COUSIN to cheating because suppose I'm playing chess in real life and then my opponent makes his/her move. Now suppose I pull out another board and start making all the moves I look at in the "Analyse the Board" feature. I can't imagine the look on my opponent's face if I did that! WAIT!!! I JUST FIGURED IT OUT! But what if my opponent could do the same thing and what if we agreed beforehand that we would allow practicing on the side? Then, it would NOT be cheating, because this would become the new RULE of our game. And each side could practice and we would accept it as part of the game. Okay, thanks! I feel better now! Using the "Analys the Board" feature here is definitely NOT cheating! Thanks for clearing this up in my mind for me! ——— Six-Way Tie at Russian Chess Championship — A six-way tie after regulation play at the Russian chess championship, where there were only 10 competitors, has raised the hackles of many chess commentators. But of the tournament’s 45 games, only 4 were so short or dull that they seemed to reflect a lack of fighting spirit. The bigger problem was that the chess players seemed to be risk averse. And that led to many draws. Dmitry Andreikin finally emerged from the pack to earn the title during a rapid chess tournament on Monday to break the tie. Tournament organizers have for years tried to discourage draws because fans and sponsors do not like them. One solution that some chess tournaments have adopted changes the scoring system so that victories are worth 3 points instead ...
Posted by ssisyphus kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 00:59:54 Play online chess	OTB Message: I use the 'analyze the board' feature a lot too - most of my time online on GK is spent on it. I love the new version. But I have the same apprehension that I would not be good enough for OTB. For example, I cannot spot a mate four moves ahead unless I spend 15 minutes on analyze the board, physically moving pieces around & thinking. How does this work in OTB? Do experienced players spot patterns/mates etc out of experience/memory or are their brains/eyes just quicker? Having never played serious OTB I have no idea how this works. ——— On Chess: Foe’s internal moves couldn’t be countered — There are many sources of distraction during a chess game, or there is none, depending on the opponent and the environment. On one occasion — and only one — during my chess playing years has my opponent’s sheer physicality been an issue. Decades ago, I played a friendly but corpulent fellow who was apparently in the early stages of digesting a large meal. This effort generated a cascade of internal perturbations and acoustic effects. The cacophony of belches, rumblings, gurgles, burps and other eruptions could not but divert my attention from the game. In despair, I looked appealingly at my opponent with a faint hope of voluntary surcease. But, with notable indifference, he ignored my efforts. Of course, even if aware and ...
Posted by spurtus kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 01:23:47 Play online chess	Message: I must say I've been playing OTB once and suddenly been frustrated I couldnt move the bits about! ——— 2012 Chess Olympiad starts soon in Istanbul — The 2012 Summer Olympics have ended, but the 40th World Chess Olympiad is right around the corner, beginning Aug. 28 in Istanbul, Turkey. The United States will be a contender in both the open and women’s competition in this biennial chess event dating back to 1927. Like the regular Olympics, the Chess Olympiad is truly a global spectacle, and this year 164 nations will be competing, from Afghanistan to Zambia. The chief rivals for medals will include not only global superpowers like the United States, China and Russia, but countries small in population but large in chess prowess such as Armenia, the gold medal winner in 2006 and 2008. The chess event will have St. Louis connections as local Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, currently ...
Posted by sf115 kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 14:40:39 Play online chess	Message: In reply to the comment by ssisyphus, when good players play OTB they have lots of patterns that they remember. This helps them to find mating patterns. To find more patterns and generally improve you need experence and you need to study. GK gives experence.
Posted by kewms kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 16:58:25 Play online chess	Message: I'll repeat the advice others have given. Analyze as far out as you can in your head, then use the second board to check your analysis and/or go out even further. Over time, your visualization will get better. FWIW, I scored a significant upset in my last OTB tournament. For me, being able to look at a position very deeply at GK helps me analyze more efficiently OTB. Because I've gotten used to looking at all of the options, it's easier for me to prune the analysis tree and spend the limited time looking at the most important lines.
Posted by premium_steve kttstudios.com 11/16/2007 19:11:31 Play online chess	Message: being able to calculate variations well is probably one of the most important skills to learn in chess, i think. for that reason, i try to keep away from using the 'analyze the board' option altogether. i'd hope that having to calculate on my own would help my vision in OTB chess, where you can't move pieces and time is more of a factor.
Posted by estebanw kttstudios.com 11/17/2007 10:14:24 Play online chess	Thanks for the comments Message: As I imagined, many of us have the same mixed feelings about the feature. I think that "Analyze the Board" is great and has allowed me to increase my level and learn much and have more fun. I love it and plan to use it in the future. Susyfromflorida has a good point, but if the opponent is using it half the time as we use it, it would make a big difference in OTB where time is a factor. In the end, I have to agree (and admire) with premiun_steve. If he can beat me in GK, imagine what he can do in OTB! The point is that I can't go around saying that my ranking is 1550 because if I play a "real" 1550 in OTB, I will probably lose. I guess I need to try.
Posted by ganstaman kttstudios.com 11/17/2007 10:28:36 Play online chess	Message: Well, you could never equate the ratings on this site to ratings anywhere else. We are a different pool of players (most likely) than another group of rated players. Also, the format of the game does matter -- correspondence ratings differ from standard OTB time controls which differ from rapid which differ from blitz. I see you are from the US -- as far as I know, your USCF rating wouldn't even be the same as your FIDE rating if you have them. Also, different people do better with different time controls. My USCF rating is 1538, and that's based on only some G/30 tournaments against mostly the same 10 or less players. Here, I'm over 1800, and I think I'll probably stay hovering around there or 17XX.