English Chess Forum

What does it mean that the 'health' and 'positioning' of all pawns is called pawn structure? "Health" presumably refers to not having things like doubled isolated pawns or even an isolated pawn that has been successfully blockaded, with no compensating dynamic advantage. Look at Nimzowitsch's littl...

It's not completely counter-productive. You can use a draw offer to see how confident you think the other person is about winning the position. If done with the proper psychology and some confident (and correct) moves, you may encourage a reciprocal draw offer a few moves later. Probably off-topic ...

All's fair in love and war. And that includes swindling. Nothing reprehensible about it. And personally I've found a successful swindle in a lost position to be much sweeter than a solidly earnt vistory Swindling exploits psychology -- but a player uses psychology whenever he can. If I know a player...

The swindle crucially depends on the opponent's psychology. In a winning position, the opponent is often already fantasising about the win, basking himself in glory, and imagining the pint he'll be downing. He thinks that because he has a winning position he deserves to win. That's where the careles...

Apologies for, unbeknownst to myself, talking nonsense. I'd be interested in buying Chessbase, but was always put off by all the talk of it being hard to get to grips with and their being no proper manual to help out. I'm curious now, though. If there's a 300-page manual, what the difference betwee...

Chessbase are pretty much the reference for chess software and databases, so anyone doing any serious work has to buy their software. Knowing this, they're not going to waste time sitting down and writing a manual for next to zero return. Dunno. They'd probably win over more people if they explaine...

One would think the Chessbase people could come out with a reference manual. The days seem long gone when for the price of packaged software, you also expected user manuals both telling you what the software could do and how you might use it for common tasks. What I've been noticing. If Spengler we...

I haven't been able to find a review, other than the link above which may be biased as it's on the Chessbase website. Has any here read this book yet? Or found a review other than the one above? I have the book. It's good if you're an utter novice to the package. But the title's a misnomer -- it's ...

David Blower wrote:I once saw an adult throw a digital clock on the floor!

Such people are a disgrace to the game and unfit to play. One thing one would hope the game teaches is a stoic acceptance of pain and defeat. And the ability to learn from a loss.

How bizarre! I wouldn't know about that. The Scottish referendum is arguably symptomatic of deeper problems. A couple of recent articles that argue this way: http://www.counterfire.org/articles/opinion/17430-breaking-the-spell-scotland-s-democratic-revolt https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/bring-on...

http://www.schpunk.co.uk/forget-scottish-independence-heres-case-essex-independence/ Essex is beginning to raise the flag of independence, and one day it might just manage to break away from the empire. Forget what contemptuous cosmopolitans have told you through their perpetually sneering lips; Ess...

Roger de Coverly wrote:If the budget doesn't run to hiring equipment, does that also apply to score-sheets or result slips?

In the large open U$ tournaments it seems to apply to score sheets but not to result slips.

Didn't Alekhine hurl his king across the room once?

I have heard that in America a popular way to resign is to remove the board and clock and go home while your opponent is not looking. Correct. That's because in the land of the free and the home of the brave, tournament players have to bring their own sets and clocks and often it's the loser's set ...

Stop the clock and tip my king over (gently). I've been mulling over the idea of sobbing and begging for clemency but feel it might not cut much ice with my opponents (chess players are an implacable lot). I do try to win graciously by muttering something about having got lucky.