Welcome to the fourth Chess Blog Carnival! Don’t worry, there were no eggs harmed in the making of that omelette.
Blunder Prone presents Thinking during the Opening.
He says: “Not all my games are losses. Here are a couple recent games showing tactical calculations through a headache in one game and “THINKING” during the opening instead of firing off Zombie moves.” The first game was especially cool considering his mental state and taking a risk that actually paid off. We congratulate Mr. Duval on not losing all his games, and note for future reference that sex is a good cure for a headache, if and when you can get it.
Intermezzo presents The Definition of a ‘thrilling draw’
He says: “As my previous suggestion may be deemed a little too colloquial for international tastes I’d also like to offer this recent post in which I suggest a definition for a “thrilling draw”. Intermezzo cites the recent drawn World Cup cricket match between India and England for an interesting example and moves on from there. For our American readers, it should be noted that “cricket” does not refer to an insect, but an actual sport somewhat resembling baseball. And who knows what they call crickets in England.
(His previous submission referred to a Morecambe and Wise sketch, which is a British comedy. While I’m not familiar with this, it’s pretty clear British comedy > American comedy, so I’m going to check it out.)
Blue Devil Knight presents My rating jumped 1000 points in one day!
He says: “:)” It’s our opinion that Blue Devil Knight, despite his great work in reviving the carnival, is lying about his rating jumping 1000 rating points in a day. Some of you may think this opinion is too harsh. You probably want to do your own research and derive your own conclusion.
HeinzK presents The big comparison
HeinzK has gathered a huge list of modified quotes, comparing chess to other aspects of life. For example “chess vs. God – god does not play dice with the universe. He plays chess.”
He will apparently keep editing the page with user input, so send in your suggestions!
Liquid Egg Product presents Carlsen cheats with help from Elvis
Yes, I’m putting myself in. Got a problem with that, boy?
Derek Slater presents How to really get better at chess, no seriously really though
He says: Nothing. And that kind of stinks because I am now forced to read the article to get you a summary. BRB….
OK, Mr. Slater notes that you have to work to improve your chess skill and gives a three point plan to improve your overall game. Like reviewing openings you stink at from both the white and black sides!
As a counterpoint, it should be noted that I hit a rating 1000 USCF with barely any work at all, so it’s not that hard to become good.
King and Pawn (Chris Dircks) presents How I learned to stop worrying and love Annotated Master Games.
He says: “How and why to review annotated master games, and how not to, from an improving player.”
Mr. Dircks has some adventures with trying to improve his chess, especially with a young child in the house. (Unfortunately, he fails to mention how many pieces his kid has eaten so far.) Taking the advice of Dan Heisman, instead of trying to deep study one annotated game, he’s now blitzing through many, in an attempt to “get the feel” of the game.
Mark Weeks presents Accomplishing Multiple Objectives
Mr. Weeks has been presenting some games from some guy named Capablanca. I don’t know why he chose Capablanca; it’s not like I’ve heard of him, so he must be pretty obscure. Anyway, in this game, Capablanca’s precise and pretty move finishes off his hapless opponent, targeting multiple weaknesses.
Takchess (Jim) presents Endgame Fundamentals: White to Play and Draw
He says: “I figure something brief is better than nothing. take care.” I will take care, and he plugged my blog, so bonus points for him. This is a modified take on a famous position and if you’re better than me, you’ll realize what’s going on much sooner than I did.
Geoff Fergusson presents Tactics Performance Measurement
He says: “This article discusses the measurement of performance at solving chess tactics problems and relating these measurements to practical chess performance.”
Mr. Fergusson notes the problems of correlating solving tactics with actual skill improvement. Are you doing better by solving problems faster with lower accuracy? Is it better to take a long time on the problems but get them all right? One of the conclusions about tactics problems makes a lot of sense to me…but I’ll leave it to you to check out the page for yourself…
It should be noted that this post is a little highbrow and intellectual, ’cause there are graphs and stuff.
Thanks to everyone who submitted this month to make the Chess Carnival strong and vital! Next month, our British friends over at Hebden Bridge Chess Clvb will be hosting the May 4 version of the carnival. And please, my fellow Americans, when you visit their site, do NOT make fun of their teeth; they actually have better oral hygiene than we do.
Prior carnivals:
March 2011, Blunderprone
February 2011, Brooklyn64
January 2011, Blue Devil Knight
Thanks for carrying the torch this month!
As for your headache remedy, at a chess tournament… highly unlikely …unless its included in the entry fee but then …I wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Great carnival,love the commentary.
Damned NCAA bracket is just a mess…
Where was my submission! 😛
Nice work sir! Liked the links and the commentary. There is some really good stuff here. I particularly enjoyed BDK’s contribution. Glad I caught it on the day of publication or I might have missed the real point 😉
Hope I can maintain the high standard next month
Good job on the carnival!
Oh how I wish I had more time to study and play chess.
I enjoy discovering new blogs and seeing what other people are doing. I was particularly impressed with Geoff’s post … and yes, it does seem to go over your head … still need to read it a few more times to see what he’s getting at.
If any of you need an idea for next month’s carnival, I’d be highly interested in reading how one goes about improving/studying openings. What works? What do you do week in and week out to learn, study and improve at openings? And how much time do you devote to studying openings. And, perhaps firstly, how does one know that they should EVEN spend time learning/studying/improving at openings.
Heck – I might even do some investigating and come up with my own summary of peoples’ methods for learning/studying/improving openings.
@Blunderprone: What the heck do you think the “skittles” room is for?
@BDK: No kidding…at least you didn’t get last place this year!
@Q: You see, your submission was simply TOO GOOD; everyone else’s would have looked bad.
@Intermezzo: I have no doubt you will carry the torch with reasonable aplomb. Especially since you seem to care about chess, unlike us.
@Rocky: What to do about openings…that’s a bit of a pickle. Everyone seems to have an opinion about what matters, what doesn’t. My school of thinking says they aren’t so important until Class A to Expert, as we’re making all sorts of other mistakes that need to be fixed. But that might be an excuse to avoid memorization…
There is a law of the chess blogosphere about openings…if you talk about them in a post, some asshole with have a really strong opinion, and some other asshole will have a really strong opposite opinion. This makes for good blog.
If you can’t see that the Stonewall Dutch is the wave of the future, I don’t see how we can even be on speaking terms.