Ludde wrote on 01/28/10 at 07:53:36:


With my own sons I made the terrible mistake of not always playing well and also coaching them during their play.  The result was that they lost confidence in their own ability to find good moves and got sick of the game.

Later when I started chess kids at my wife's school, I always gave the kids my best game, and I never coached during the play but only after the game.  I had very good results coaching chess kids, and I'm convinced that this is indeed the best way to play chess with children.

Pretty interesting story about Alekhine's.  Mine is that when I started to play chess seriously at age 15 or so, I stupidly thought that I'd gain some advantage from playing in a hypermodern vein and so took up Alekhine's.  Fortunately there as an old Russian in our club, Vadim Voskressensky, who played the Four Pawns Attack and tore off my head with it five or six games in a row.  That cured me of my early Alekhine's folly, though only much later did I realize that I should have been playing 1...e5 during that time of my development.

I have no way to explain my current Alekhine's folly.  Senile dementia, perhaps.

Ludde,

Didn't some world champion say that you need to loose 1000 games to become good? Your father started you off good, then. Also, you should be glad that your tought you chess and not boxing.

PS. Should we agree to play the Alekhine on the 7th? We'll probably play on different boards though. That will just make two Alekhines.

gurb5000 wrote on 01/28/10 at 00:45:48:


This is a true story, hopefully Markovichs is not : 
My father, who was a decent chessplayer and completely responsible for me taking up chess more than 30 years ago, was quite tough. Not in the usual way, but when it came to chess he always played the strongest moves he could find - even against his beginner son. He believed that it was somehow "dishonest" not to play his absolutely best game every time. Thus I lost every game I played with him for some years, and we played blitz almost every night. That is a lot of games to lose...and disheartened I decided to give up on chess many times, but for some reason always came back to it. Eventuelly, when I was 13 or 14, I copied a game I had seen in a magazine as black - starting with 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Nd5 3.d4 d6 4.Nf3 Bg4 5.Be2 c6. And for the first time I won!! So..I guess they could be right about the childhood stuff....

BirdBrain wrote on 01/27/10 at 18:59:11:


Alekhine's Defense is not about comfort.  Just ask my stepmother and her fat smelly daughters.

What is the most comfortable way for a beginner Alekhine's player to approach the positions?  Is it to immediately counter White's center with dxe?  Or is the Alekhine mainly an opening that requires a lot of study to keep up with?

in chessvibes, about this game, they say
"Only people who've had a difficult youth and Short play this"

any of you had a difficult childhood?

Well, i was surprised but i was not by Leko's choice since he has been doing well with. Short's answer is also consistent with his past games on the exchange.
In fact, Short played the samevariantion in Chorus B about one year ago.
I am really curious to see this game since for some time, recently, I am less inclined to the safeness of the exchange with exd6 - it seems White gets a small but during advantage

Unfortunately, i was hoping yet to see a Miles and see
whether Short had some news on this gbut i dont guess he well play it twice in the same tournament