Vishwanathan won one more game than last year. I thought he played some great chess this time and so did Magnus. However, some INTERVENTION is needed by those who run chess websites.
The “comments” section is about 50% vitriol. Cutting down Anand, or telling Magnus he is losing when he is not. It’s juvenile in the first place and way over the top disrespectful. If we treated these babies like that (and a lot of them seemed to be from India!) they would be up in arms, “everyone has a right to their opinion,” etc. These aren’t opinions, they are the craft of fools who will likely remain fools.
There could be an exception though. I see that Sevan has reached his 3 GM norms, has a rating over 2500, and will be the youngest GM in U.S. history. Yet, somewhere when he was around 10 he was making fun of a strong player and one of his “friends” was videotaping it. You can find it on YouTube I’m sure if you are into that sort of thing. Was it Greg Shahade who was being publicly destroyed? It was awful. I just ran into it by accident and I couldn’t believe this kid with the unbelievable “boorish” manners. I’m pretty certain there is someone in his house, maybe a parent, who acts the same way. Maybe he will get a taste some day!? Well it looks like he has turned his unruly behavior into more of a gentleman. So, hope springs eternal even for these online cutthroat “artistes.”
Why not just preempt those conversations? It seems that the GMs have access to Twitter and that sort of thing so it doesn’t shut them out.
I liked the match. I admit I was rooting for Carlsen but I was also aware he had an opponent who, given any kind of a chance (except in the double-blunder game) could rake anyone over the coals. Now the “silly boys” on the net are yakking about Caruana taking Magnus out. Nothing is certain until the games are over, and then, there’s always next year.
We now have another acronym: YABB = yet another boring Berlin. This kind of crap is written by someone who doesn’t like the Berlin or its vicissitudes. I don’t play 1.e4 but I find it refreshing that Carlsen does (and Vishy used to). 1.d4 has brought no “luck” to Anand in two years of world championships, so how can 1.e4 be so bad? Apparently because many top GMs only play that!
THE BOOKS AT COST PROGRAM HAS NOW SUCCESSFULLY ENDED
And, there must be some happy people (I would think). Now I have made some more shelf space and I hope some of you eager beavers will be back for some titles which will be entertaining, informative, and gooseflesh tingling airiness.
This week I will be busy with:
1. Filling orders;
2. Throwing crap out to clean up my home office;
3. Working on the Morphy Club.
In the next installment of “Bob’s News Letter” I am going to show you how to stay ahead of the game (chess), how the extra benefits and bigger discounts will give you MORE of what YOU want in a reseller in the land of “side benefits.” To some $295 will seem like a lot of dough yet less than $1.00 per day, but when you break it down you will be doing better than the regular way! How do I know? I’ve seen the “regular way” and it’s sort of like a deadend street.
While running this special sale I got some new regular people.
Some widow wants to sell her husbands chess collection–so maybe I can report on that and how she went about it (it’s not pretty so far).
Maybe we can award some copies of SQUARES, I have a whole 1/2 basement full of them.
Bob, the 24/7 chess guy.
563-271-6657
info@chessbutler.com
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