When one door closes...

Even that message will disappear.

Can you give a few reasons why? I'm using both, currently.

I wonder who the best chess player is in the NBA.

I remember hearing/reading something a few years ago that Kobe Bryant played chess at around an intermediate level. And that he even played Phil Jackson from time to time during a season. The source was unconfirmed though.

I tweeted Dwight Howard a few months ago, asking him if he played chess. He actually replied back to me and said that he was on the chess team in high school. I don't see a USCF rating for him, so I'm not sure how strong of a player he would be.

Anyone know of any other chess players in the NBA?

All of them.

I mean like real chess players, as in at least 1200 USCF or so strength .

Ridiculously awesome video tho, which I've seen many times before, and it never gets old.

A couple chess cartoons:

Oh, dear lord yes. It's like the first hit of heroin after a long, long drought.

Heading to the US Chess Championships tomorrow. Anyone else going to be there?

SO nice to be back. I didn't realize how I addicted I am to this place.

Every day I'd go to this website hoping it would be up, like Gary Busey combing through the carpet for more cocaine.

By the way Kyle, awesome that you're going to the US Championships. Definitely let us know how it is.

Summary: A ton of fun. I ended up bailing on the commentary room pretty fast (I can watch that at home) and just spent most of the day watching the games in the playing hall. I tried to be cool, but it was hard not to squee when Gata Kamsky is standing next to you watching a game while he waits for his own turn.

Thoughts:

Chess players go to the bathroom *a lot*. There was only one bathroom in the playing area, and it seemed like at any given time, half the field was eyeing it seeing when it would come open.

Male chess players are fairly short as a bunch. I'm only 5'6", so I look up to most adult men, but I'd say half the men's field were eye-to-eye with me. Roy Robson was a lot taller than I expected, but that's partially because I'm used to seeing pictures of him when he was younger. Gata Kamsky is a pretty impressive presence on the board. Stripunsky would have been if he didn't always look so concerned and unsure of himself.

To be a pig for a second, most of the women were more attractive IRL than their pictures. Alena Kats, especially, was gorgeous in person.

It was just a blast to kibitz over these games and try to imagine what I'd do in each situation and try to picture out variations in my head. It's a pretty cool little thrill when you think through until you find a move, and then it's actually played.

I picked out Foisor-Kats as a game ripe for a good blow-up pretty early so I spent a lot of time watching that one, waiting to see how badly Foisor was going to crush.

Nakamura is obviously going to draw a crowd when he plays (relatively speaking, I don't think there were ever more than about a dozen spectators in the playing hall), but I didn't find his game that interesting. He was clearly just poking and prodding at Kaidonov's position and it was only a matter of time before he broke through.

Stripunsky-Seirawan was the men's game that caught my interest most of the time. It really seemed like Seirawan had overestimated his chances to equalize throwing away a pawn as black, and he took a ton of time trying to find a plan he liked. But when Stripunsky tanked forever after 21. ... a3, it was clear there was something crazy going on that I wasn't seeing (22. b3 seemed like an almost automatic reply to me).

So, so much fun today. Wouldn't trade that experience for anything.

I will say that Nakamura's 18. Rg3 was a pretty baller move. I didn't see it coming, and it seemed kind of amateurish at first glance (I attack your queen!). But the longer the game went on, the more clear it became how awesome that rook was on that file, pressuring black's position perfectly.

I gotta concur, watching matches like the 94 PCA, and seeing guys like Kamsky, et al, at the World Open and other big events {K-K NYC, K-various computer matches] is a blast.

Highly recommended.

brag: forums are back
beat: old account registered to an email i don't have anymore
variance: hated the nickname anyway

Time to get caught up on all that missed brag time.

Brag from the downtime: My draw vs. IM Rusudan Goletian in the 15-minute pool. She missed a crusher, then I let her get a perpetual in a crushed position when I didn't see the safe square:

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=63942


Brag for today: Successfully converted B+N+p vs. 5p endgame with a 2 min to 10 min clock disadvantage today, no increment.


Beat: Really want to focus on competitive online play, i.e. the Team 45 45 League and some online tournaments. I joined three T4545 teams. One team was withdrawn for reasons unclear just hours before the deadline, and another booted me off today because they were overbooked. I'm supposed to be one of the top four boards for the third team, but I wasn't on this week's playing list for some reason.

Agree with Kyle, time to get caught up on BBV.

Brag: By far the best beat of the past couple of weeks was beating a 2330 in an OTB G/30. Not the longest time control, but it still felt good to win. He tried to push me off the board and played too aggressively and ended up getting caught.

Beat: LOTS of beats as well. I have a nasty habit in games of not calculating as much as I should and relying too much on intuition, so I've lost several games recently to people rated lower than myself. It's something I've got to correct if I'm ever going to improve. Because of that, I'm unable to break the 2000 barrier and keep getting stuck at about 1980.

Dunno if this is the right place for this, but pretty cool finish to one of my games. Obviously Nxg2 just wins, but who can see the nicest win

Hey, the forums are back up! Had to change my name because apparently my old one isn't registered anymore? Anyways, here's a nice beat!

Beat: My car went kerplunk and I spent $2100 to fix it. Depleted all the money I was saving to go to either the World Open or US Open for the first time this year

Brag: 2000-rated scalp in 15-minute
Beat: I'm still at the point where that's worth a brag.
Variance: It's starting to happen often enough that it won't be worth a brag much longer.

Brag: I had some pretty accurate on-the-fly calculating in this game. After 26. Qa6, I had this whole line calculated:

27. Qd3 Qa4 28. f6 Bxa3 29. bxa3 Qxa3 30. Rd2 and everything holds.

Beat: I'm still playing the exchange french, which makes me an awful human being.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=64724

Team 45 45 is back! Woo! Who else is excited?

My dream of a perfect season survives the first game as I get a 17-move checkmate.

Every time I play against the pirc, I forget what it is and think "That can't be a real opening, it's just so awful!"

http://team4545league.org/pgnplayer/...r.php?id=55000

(ooh, just noticed the sweet get in the game id)

Good game Kyle. It's clear your understanding of chess is far beyond his. I'm not sure how he maintains a rating that is similar to yours. Anyway, some thoughts...

Is 4...d5 a real line? I know nothing about e4 theory but that sure looks strange.

I think 9...Bxf3 is a mistake. It only helps white. I don't understand why he'd want to unleash your dark squared bishop.

12...g5?? is just a terrible move, tactically and strategically.

15...Bb6?? is horrific as well. Of course it's terrible for essentially allowing a mate in two (giving up the queen on f6 would be ridiculous, so we'll call it a mate in two), but also black just can't afford it. He doesn't have the time to try to hang onto the bishop pair. Plus, why would white even want to trade for that bishop when the knight is going to be a monster on f6?

I don't understand hardly any of black's moves in that game. You played really well and didn't give him a chance to get back in it.

It's total excuse-making, but my online rating is always way worse than my performance in "competitive" games (OTB rated, club tourneys and T4545).

I've just accepted that I will never shake the habit of "That was an awful move, I have a better position and this game is no longer interesting to me" attitude in casual play. I'll start alt-tabbing to web sites and spamming quick moves, and I blunder away a very high percentage of "won" games that way. So far, I've never done that in a competitive game, so I don't worry about it too much.

In this game, I used 39 minutes on those 17 moves, probably more than I should have if this game was going to an endgame.

After 4. ... d5, I was sure I had a chance to come out of the opening with a much stronger position. There's just no way black can come afford to use that much time on d7-d6-d5.

I looked at 6. Bxe4 dxe4 7. Qxd8 Kxd8 8. Bg5+. I was sure a computer would say that line was great for white, but I wanted no part of two bishops in an open, undeveloped endgame, even with an extra pawn (assuming I could get that e-pawn).

I'm not really sure about 7. Nbd2. That knight on e4 looks impressive, but it's kind of a decoration piece. The only key square it really handles is g5, and white can live without that if need be. I wanted to just castle there, but then I figured I'd give him the chance to make a bad exchange (Nxd2) before castling.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with how I played. Black didn't set a ton of challenges, but I found all the right moves. 12. ... g5 is of course suicidal even though it looks kind of tempting. Black's lack of development and uncastled king make it impossible to hold on. I didn't realize how bad Qe7 was for black until a move later.

afaik 4. ...d5 is the best line against the setup kyle chose. The point is accepting the pawn sacrifice, yes the one Kyle didn't even notice , is too dangerous for black.

Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I'm completely flummoxed at where white can offer a pawn sac in that line.

I'm still riding the adrenaline from the win, so I'll go ahead and say that if black wants to go pawn grabbing against me, I'll crush whatever he's got. Mate in 17 is the best-case scenario when you go pawn-grabbing against this guy *flex*