I'm reading Simple Chess by Michael Stean again and I had forgotten this little gem:

Awesome.

+1

Simple Chess is one of my favorite chess books.

seriously funny clip from aqua teen hunger force: ezekiel plays chess dragon

http://video.google.com/videosearch?...&hl=en&tab=wv#

edit: second video down

Am I the only one who had no idea that there was such a thing as a chess scholarship in the US? How many schools offer them?

I'm only aware of 3: UT-Dallas, UM-Baltimore County and Texas Tech. At least I think TT offers them.

In case anybody here has missed it, our buddy Discipline started a slightly chess-related thread in NVG. As far as I can tell, he's making a lot of friends.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-poker-635992/

Oh and lol at random NVG people estimating their chess strength? Why do people always assume that they're at least 1400 just because they know how the horsey moves?

Better than my experience. Anybody who knows Legal's is 2000ish, maybe a bit higher.

Another problem being of course that Isuldur is 'only' up a few million when they're getting it in pretty light for 600k pots which makes the results pretty much meaningless. If Durrrr just won a couple more of the flips or avoided doing things like running his AKs into AA preflop heads up 300bb deep then the results could easily have been the opposite. It's not like Isuldur is just destroying Durrrrr. He's obviously a very good player, but maybe more importantly - he's running quite well.

The nasty thing about poker is if two players of equal skill and any bankroll play, then eventually one player would go bust regardless of how large the initial bankrolls. Just think about that. If two equally skilled players played 500/1k with $50million bankrolls played heads up, eventually somebody would lose their entire roll. Not many people realize how sick a game this is. Durrrrr willing to continue playing obviously shows he does. Doesn't mean he won't end up broke in a year though.

+1

Very well put.

applause.jpg

What does this mean? Rake or variance or ... ? will cause one person to go broke? Sorry, I'm pretty terrible at poker.

Just variance. Rake will make sure it'll happen faster, but negligibly so at the stakes they're playing. Imagine flipping fair coins with a given bankroll. Let's say you have the bankroll for 5 flips and we do 50 flips, what are your odds of somebody going broke by the end? Quite high. There's actually a 6% chance somebody will go broke in the first 5 flips! After the first flip somebody will have 4 units left. The odds of the next 4 units coming the specific head/tail needed is obviously just .5^4 = 6%.

As you increase the bankrolls the odds of going bust obviously decrease, but they never hit zero. It's the sick thing about this game. It's definitely a game of skill, but if 1000 equally skilled players played a freezeout for long enough, somebody would eventually come out with all the money and there's a pretty good chance they're not going to think they just got lucky. After all, what are the odds of that?

Odds are 1 in 1000 sir.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...rodigy-639004/

dunno if anyone has posted this but its a great read and really interesting life story

NVG is concentrated stupid. But it's funny sometimes.

Such an incredible example of how to play a rook endgame, from both sides.

New super-chess-prodigy in the making? Sry if this is common knowledge...that's some early exposure to chess greatness with Spassky/Timman nearby.



grats to Fontaine/Lahno

can someone kidnap the kid so we can have a proper scientific test of the theory in the Wesley So thread?

I just recently decided to hire a chess coach. I've never really had coaching in this game before. Any recommendations on what to do to get the most out of it? At least with the coaching selection I'm quite happy so far if only since one of the first questions he asked me was if I was willing to work on my game for several hours a day.

Be extremely prepared for each session with questions about specific games you analyzed, specific opening systems you're going to go over, etc.

Take notes during each session.

I'm sure there's more but that's what first comes to mind..

GM level coach? Or someone who's "weaker" but more experienced as a trainer?

and I'm guessing online right?

are you?

Do you mind posting who your coach is? Or if not, can you PM me? I've had 3 coaches in the past. IM Luis Coelho (deeprabbit), GM Predrag Trajkovic (PTrajkovic) and IM Attila Turzo (Turzo). The most useful lessons were those where we analyzed my serious tournament games. Lessons where the coach used Skype were a lot more useful than just typing on ICC. I've never had live lessons, but I assume that would be at least as good. Homework should be provided by the coach. And the coach shouldn't just feed you his repertoire (unless that's what you're after).

I certainly wouldn't have been quite so happy about him asking that otherwise. I know there's no magic pill, especially for the goals I have.

He's a GM.

When I was listening to one GM analyze a certain position, I became quite frustrated. He seemed to be just ignoring a few key ideas in the position. After a while, another GM dropped in and also started analyzing the position. And much to my delight he immediately hopped on the ideas I was seeing, and then plenty more as well. And it did turn out they redefined the position.

The second GM seemed to be able to very clearly express his ideas, and his vision of the board was exceptional. He also seemed to approach positions in a manner that resembles the way I do, which I thought was awesome and pretty unique. Having considered finding a coach for a while, I didn't think too much longer about it.

And yeah, online+skype.

I'll PM you. We're planning on working once a week for two hours. How does that compare to your experience?

I took lessons from IM Coelho for much longer than either the other two. I normally just took 1 one-hour lesson per week, but occasionally did a two hour lesson or two one-hour lessons. Did that for about a year, with some breaks. Maybe 35-40 total lessons.