MJMcCready wrote on 08/21/14 at 08:01:10:


That's how I do it. I play the French against 1. e4 sometimes, so I'm good with the transposition, but only about 5% of 1. d4 players will actually transpose.

And that variation of trying to reach a Staunton Gambit after black has already played e6 is just MUCH better for black than the regular Staunton.

gewgaw wrote on 10/10/13 at 19:34:34:

I don't play this line with neither color but just looking to the topline of my engines I notice that after 18.Qd5 Bf6 19.Nd6 e6 20.Qd1 Rf8 21.e5 Be7 22.Rxf8+ Bxf8 23. Qf3 black can't be better than in the line chosen by Gelfand or the correspondence game. I assume the players worked out the details in advance so likely came to the same conclusions.

At least I am happy that you finally wrote something in English, even though Dutch is sometimes quite understandable for Swedes.

TalJechin wrote on 10/09/13 at 16:33:12:

Probably the last posts of this thread should be moved to a new thread under general chess.

From personal experience I can state that I was at least 16 years old before I was able to read and understand English news and probably a few more years older before I was brave enough to write in English. Many of the topics which I discuss are for the more ambitious players so I believe progressing young players will be a substantial part of the readers.
I also want to indicate that many elderly local people are able to read only Dutch but i doubt many of them are reading blogs.

A compromise could be that you switch between the two languages depending on the topics - local news vs broader appeal.

Btw, I doubt that kids today would have a problem, the last couple of generations have grown up playing games in English...

Let me argue against switching to English because I enjoy reading it in its current form.

First, I find it hard to believe that it is so difficult to understand your blog as it is now using Google translate. (Of course that argument goes either way.)

Also as far as Englsh skills are concerned I guess many local adult chess players should have no problems but children probably will have difficulties; something which is easy to forget.

Finally for me reading chess books in different languages was a (perhaps the) major incentive to study various languages when I was younger. Life just gets a little bit more boring with every interesting source of information which switches to English.

(That being said I would continue to read it in Englsh as well.)

Strikes me that you have knowledge and interesting things to say. Many have neither. Would be great if you could blog in English.