THOUGHTS OF A CHESS ADDICT

Lately there has been talk about  theoretical openings and its importance in determining results. One needs to "profile" an opponent to bring out the right "weapons" to win. Strangely, I believe Fong Yit Ho's profiling of Yeoh Li Tian was well done in capitalising on Black's need to win. Many similar examples in World Championship encounters have used this tactic, eg Lasker - Capablanca 1914, Karpov-Kasparov 24th game 1985 and Kasparov-Karpov Seville 1987. "To win by detaching oneself from winning" is a supreme psychological tactic adapted from Lee Zhong Chang's Thick Black theory. You may wish to read about it from Chu Ching-Ning's book " Thick Face, Black Heart". I'm not sure about the author's familiarity of the various tools available today, but perhaps he ought to know of 2: ChessBase and Fritz. One is a database that contains games played in history (up till the latest month), the other a computer engine that shows r...

I came across 2 interesting posts which dealt with the issue of being a GM. One shows the statistics confirming that the age one becomes a GM is getting increasingly younger, at 12 years 7 months achieved by Kariajkin. Another disputes Anand's quote that if you are not a GM by 14, you should forget about it. An interesting observation - only 2 of the 10 GMs mentioned are from non-communist countries. The 2 (Bacrot and Fischer) incidentally have enormous innate talent and do not fret about their daily livelihood during their pursuit of the GM title. Personally, I believe that Anand is being pragmatic about his view. He feels that if one does have the talent to make it, then, with modern technological tools like databases and engines, there is really no major obstacle to attaining the title if one works at it by inferring on his researches of the game and executing them right over the board. What does it mean when one has gone over the desired age of 14? Two things come to mind. Tale...