Which Two Books ?

[John McKenna]

Hope Chris gets to play something from his opening book today, but he may not say which one it is until the tournament ends.

Play starts at 17:30 BST and the top boards are live on chessdom.com.

Good luck, Chris, and good King hunting!

[Chris Bernard]

Alas and alack. You prepare for an opening, get the opening you want and when your opponent is still blitzing out the replies as you go into ponderous contemplation you start to wonder who is conning who. One of the two books i brought is the Grand Prix Attack by Hodgson & Day. Goes well with Roman's phlegmatic video series. Trouble is it is a bit sharp. Particularly when facing yet another mid 1900'sCM

Somewhere along the road my kingside attack went sailing off the rails out of the ballpark and into the rough.

The other book is Jesper Halls tourament book mentioned in my first post. There's a nice section on pschology in how to pick yourself up after a bad loss which i'll read tomorrow.

Two more players when surveyed confesses to no books at all but a database and Fritz

[Matt Mackenzie]

Simply can't imagine having no chess books at all, tbh.

I've got a full set of Informators (120+ volumes) and that is less than half the total

[Chris Bernard]

But Matt

You can't bring the whole bookcase - Easy Jet have hand luggage only and you have to make room for the odd change of clothes toiletries etc. Hence my question.

[JustinHorton]

out of the ballpark and into the rough.

Do what?

[Chris Bernard]

I felt a quintuple mixed metaphor might help describe my mood.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Particularly when facing yet another mid 1900'sCM"

Be wary of such players, as they should have been 2200+ at one stage (unless they got it as a reward for a reasonable score at an Olympiad or junior event.)

[John McKenna]

Paleochora book detective Chris Bernard and Jesmond's Tim Adams are on 2/5.

Master George Karl Sarikakis Bismark is yet to get off the mark.

Round 6 is well underway and the youngster's baptism of fire continues.

[Chris Bernard]

My survey continues....

One of my last opponents from Reythmno told me he was advised to bring no books only novels. I did quite well against him. My last opponent who was as sharp as an .....er... sharp thing... on national "push all your pawns at the opponents king" day, told me he had brought many books from Heraklion on openings and endgames but if pushed to bring only two they would definitely be his openings. One of which I suspect is a voluminous tome on the white side of the Grand Prix Attack.

Clearly opinion is still divided.

[Ian Thompson]

Two more players when surveyed confesses to no books at all but a database and Fritz

I have been in this category for at least 10 years, probably 15.

At my next tournament the one thing I must remember to take with me is a clock.

[John McKenna]

Round 8 (penultimate) just started at Paleochora, on Crete.

Chris Bernard & Tim Adams on 3/7 - they've missed each other in the pairings so far.

Karl George Sarikakis Bismark 0.5/7 - the bookless(?) young tyro got out of the starting blocks with a draw in R6 after getting a little help from booked-up Chris.

[Paul Bielby]

Note that Karl Georg is only 8 years old (possibly 7). His draw in R6 came when his opponent - with 4 queens - gave stalemate.

Having played in Paleochora twice in previous years, I am most impressed with the standards of the Greek youngsters. I suspect that their standard of play improves because they are thrown into top competitions so young. In England we encourage mediocrity by expecting kids to go through our system of Minor-Intermediate-Major tournaments.

Back to the subject of this thread - anybody going to Crete should read Kazantzakis' 'Zorba the Greek' and James Leigh Fermor 'The Cretan Runner'.

[David Robertson]

anybody going to Crete should read Kazantzakis' 'Zorba the Greek' and James Leigh Fermor 'The Cretan Runner'

'The Cretan Runner' was actually written by George Psychoundakis. He was the eponymous hero. Patrick (sic) Leigh Fermor - a wonderful writer on Crete, and much more - translated George's account of his wartime adventures. Indeed, his recently published 'Abducting A General' is another great read (as is Kazantzakis, of course)

[Chris Bernard]

Managed a successful Grand Prix attack and so have my four points.

Going out for a beer.

Chris

[Chris Bernard]

I offered ''help'' to the bookless young Karl George in terms of suggesting he castled before bouncing the horse towards sacrifice on f7 next time. Not sure he really listened but he did get stick at the next game so long that he got stalemated. Still the parents think I had something to do with it and offered me drinkies on Sat so ssshhh about the coincidence and lack of causality everyone...

PS
The last message was supposed to be a pm to Mr. McKenna but got the wrong screen up before pressing submit..