Y'know I've never taken up a chess piece in anger, but I feel my life is slightly the poorer for that. Mayhap if I could be steered towards a site where I could learn the fundamentals without fear of public humiliation* . . .
[SIZE="1"]* I'm not sure why this is suddenly a factor :o [/SIZE]
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Excellent, I'll get it sorted. I'll hang on to see if we get any more takers first though.
I use www.chessworld.net. If you click that link and register, I get some brownie points. You can play free indefinitely incidentally.. If you want to join up properly it costs about £10 or £12. Can't remember what extras you get. But it's optional, so don't worry.
Sweder - Here's a tutorial: http://www.chessclub.demon.co.uk/tutoria..._chess.htm. Have a scan through to understand the moves, and I'll give you a game. You can post comments as you play, so I'll explain what's happening. It's a splendid game. Let me know when you're ready. I won't publicly humiliate you. But privately.... :p
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Seafront Plodder Wrote:[SIZE="1"]just off to brush up on my Alekhine defence strategy...[/SIZE]
Alekhine! Wow, I'm sorry, but I'd assumed you'd be far more conservative than that. Alekhine's not for the faint-hearted ... I'm impressed. There's obviously far more to SP than golf and lager.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:Er, what are you known as there? To get brownie points we need to know who they think you are...?
The link itself includes an ID.
I need to change my current username to something RC-like. If you want to know my current one, email me.
My current stats are Won 11, Drawn 2, Lost 7, with 5 current games. I started really well, winning a tournament 6-0. Then I rather overconfidently entered another one against much higher ranked opposition while I was drunk. That was foolish enough, but I also decided to play some outlandish openings which I, let's say, later regretted. My rating has dropped somewhat since that evening.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Mid Life Crisis Man Wrote:Alekhine! Wow, I'm sorry, but I'd assumed you'd be far more conservative than that. Alekhine's not for the faint-hearted ... I'm impressed. There's obviously far more to SP than golf and lager.
This could be an interesting tournament.
I'm a meat-and-potatoes Ruy Lopez or Queen's Pawn man. Have dabbled with exotic variations, but have come back to where it all began.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Sweder - do you want to come in? In at the deep end and all that?
How do people want to do this? We can have a knock-out tournament and/or a league. For a knock-out we obviously need 4 or 8 or 16. In a league, everyone plays each other twice, so 4 players = 6 games, 5 = 8 games etc. Sounds a lot, I know, but the games can take almost as long as you want. The default is 5 days per move but I can set it for up to 15. I tend to log on a couple of times a week, make a move in all my games, then disappear again.
I won't kick this off until next weekend perhaps, to see if we can gather any more entries. Tell me if this isn't a good idea.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
Andy, that link doesn't seem to include any reference to you - I tried to sign up but it still asked me who referred me.
I think the league idea is better than a knock-out, but I'm not overly concerned.
And I'd rather we waited until after Christmas before starting - I'd like to get mirth and merriment over and done with before brushing up on my Sicillians.
But like I say, I'm not overly fussed about any of these matters. I'm just this easy, laid-back kind of guy, you know?
OK I'll jump in.
Good cannon fodder for those in the know. maybe I'll get the bug. maybe we can tilt the odds in my favour and have an Almería Tournamant combined with Guinness drinking . . .
Not having a lot of luck with league tables just now.
I basked in the glow of the top 20 in the Daily Mail Fantasy Footie table up till last month. Then work intervened, I took my eye off the form book and I've slid, Pardew-like, towards the scrabbling mob.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph
Right, I've changed my user name to Hattie Carroll. It was a toss-up between her, Medgar Evars and Hollis Brown, but Hattie won the day.
If you want to sign up at your leisure, please mention my user name as the referrer. I think this gives me an extra month's free membership (worth about 80p) which is better than the proverbial assaults with sharp sticks and wet fish.
Sweder - when you'd like a pre-tournament loosener, let me know.
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
To save me the hassle of footling around, could all participants email me at andy@runningcommentary.net so that I can send 'em a coveted invitation to join the chess tournament please?
Let me warn/reassure you -- this is the most laid-back chess tournie you'll ever be involved in.
-- One move every 10 days minimum.
-- Endless opportunities for, ahem, sledging during games, using the in-built messaging functionality
-- Please feel free to be a useless chess player. Unless you're Australian, we Brits fervently believe in the axiom that it's the taking part that matters. Let's leave the ghastly vulgarity of words like "defeat" and (even worse) "victory" to our less sophisticated, rustic, Antipodean cousins.
Look forward to hearing from y'all
Andy
El Gordo
Great things are done when men and mountains meet.
andy Wrote:Unless you're Australian, we Brits fervently believe in the axiom that it's the taking part that matters. Let's leave the ghastly vulgarity of words like "defeat" and (even worse) "victory" to our less sophisticated, rustic, Antipodean cousins.
Well we Aussies have never really made it big in the chess world. Unless you count the time out International Master Bruce Emmerton threw the board at Karpov during the early stages of the Prague All-Comers tourney in '81.
It was only the fifth move, too. A tricky KB-K2 version of the Sicillian though, to be fair to Bruce...
