Just curious how many “serious” chess players there are among us.
Do you play in a club? Have a USCF or FIDE rating?
Still actively interested in chess? Follow chess news?
Played in a club about 15-20 years ago (ELO 2000 range). Had a go at corresponce chess in the mid nineties. Now I only play some games at another web site. I think my playing srength is now about 1800. I still follow chess news, and regularly look at Tim Krabbe’s excellent website.
Thanks, Dragon Phoenix.
I’ve been inactive for like 7-8 years. Worked pretty hard at it for several years, several different times, starting in my late 20’s, even though I “learned the moves” in my early teens.
Got really into chess when Fischer was active and “going after the Russkies.” Later got fired back up in the Kasparov heyday.
Lately, I don’t even know who’s world champ or if there’s just one anymore.
I do occasionally look in at TWIC to see if anything big is happening. Usually not.
I see you’re located in France. Any word on Fischer’s whereabouts these days? Last I heard he was on the continent somewhere.
You might be interested in **Libertarian[/]'s thread Ask the former state Class A chess champion
Thanks, Tusculan, that’s an excellent thread. Since it’s several months old, any chance those questioners, including Libertarian, are still around?
I wouldn’t pretend to be as helpful to non-serious players as Libertarian was in that thread, but I would like to exchange views and impressions with other players.
FWIW, my own interest waned after I worked very hard to get myself into Class A ratings range after years with that as a goal. Knowing how much more time and effort it would take to get to Expert or Master level, I decided to focus on other things.
I still miss the thrill of a good game, but got out of the circle of good players and just haven’t gotten back into it. And playing against the computer just doesn’t have the thrill to it – as Libertarian pointed out.
Now and then the urge will strike to get back to it, but not strongly enough to act on the urge. Laziness, I suppose.
Almost missed this thread as I have been on and off site sporadically. I’ve far too many chess books and am currently working my way through Edward Winter’s latest, A Chess Omnibus. (Winter is a cranky chess historian.)
I’m a class C (1400+) USCF player and an 1800+ correspondence player. Don’t have a chance to play much over the board.
Don’t play the Ruy either. More of a Nf3, d3, g3, Bg2 guy myself.
Last played seriously in March and stalemated my opponent when I probably had a win. Very embarrassing. :smack:
Zen Postman
Good to hear from you. If it’s any help to you, I believe postal was one of the main things to help me build my strength. I played a lot (well, I thought 36 games at a time was a lot) for about three years and learned some openings that way. Mainly I learned to evaluate the opponent’s threats better with all that time.
One of the biggest helps was little book that I.A. Horowitz (a decent chess writer from the mid-century period) produced where you got to select the next move and then receive a score for its accuracy. Of course, you had to play the actual moves from the game so as to have the original game build to the position(s) where the real action comes. Somehow, knowing I was, in effect, competing with the thought processes of a master I had the incentive to study carefully and look at all aspects of the position. The instant feedback of that move-by-move scoring served as a real incentive.
Whether that book can still be found or not, there are many “chess quiz” sorts of thing that work like that.
Oh, yes, computer chess against a decent program can also get your skills honed a bit. Especially if the program doesn’t always play the same variation or make the same blubder.
My ratings story is odd, I think. I started my USCF involvement in a weekend tourney and lost every game, so had a provisional of negligible value (600 or so). It took several more tournament games before my first draw and even longer to get a win. By the time I was out of the provisional period I had it up to 1300 or so. Then due to some fluke in the ratings system (I think they were putting in an “improvement”) mine shot up to like 1830.
Nobody believed my rating and I proceeded to prove them right by dropping down to 1500 or so. I was so frustrated I just quit playing for about five years. When I came back I got serious about it and did that postal thing and worked on those quizzes and began making slow progress. Over the course of two years (more or less) I got back over 1800. That was my goal: to prove to myself that the “ratings fluke” wasn’t a fluke.
That goal accomplished I decided the extra work to get even higher was more than I wanted to invest.