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dfan wrote on 10/04/14 at 23:52:55:
I interpreted their subscription description to mean you get the $50 store credit
only the first year.
Starting in the second year, when you continue to purchase annual subscriptions, you will
not continue to receive a $50 store credit each year (I think).
I think I am completely done buying paperback books, and especially done buying chess paper books - due to the tremendous ease and utility of chess-specific ebooks (ForwardChess.com, Gambit, Everyman).
But I see that ChessCafe.com does sell Everyman ebooks.
(Note: just now I put two things in my shopping cart on ChessCafe.com, and then clicked 'Checkout'. But it took me to a screen that claims I have nothing in my cart! Yikes.)
Their description is not definitively clear, but that is how I interpret what they wrote.
Either way, the
first one-year subscription might be sensible and worth it.
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Except when it is mostly about issues concerning the clock in Blitz...
My favorite ChessCafe.com column was Geurt Gijssen's 'Arbiter'.
Yet I feel that Gijssen dodged the main point in my 2014-September letter (published recently, a few days before the website changed and required payment).
My letter/question argued that it would make more sense, and avoid potential problems, IF a player who delivers mate is nevertheless required to press his clock afterward, to prove he delivered mate before he ran out of time.
Imagine that a player has only a few seconds remaining at the start of his turn. In this case, very little additional imagination is needed to generate a problem scenario where the two players argue over whether the player's clock flag fell before versus after the player moved his piece to achieve mate.
Geurt's answer is usually that the Arbiter should be watching the game and thus the Arbiter could see whether the flag fall or the mating move occurred first. Maybe this could be reliable during some major grandmaster tournaments, but it is not realistic for the other 98.6% of tournament chess games between class level players etc. But even if an Arbiter is there, I see no harm in requiring the player to prove he has time left by pressing his clock just as he does for all other moves: there is no compelling justification for this exception.
In the debate it is said that - "mate ends the game instantly" - therefore it is illogical to even consider whether any subsequent actions like clock pressing should occur. But that is the lame trick of argument by controlling the definition that is the very core of the issue. .
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