My Chess Blog

" A man like me arrives at a watershed in his development when he turns from the personal and ephemeral in an effort toward intellectual understanding. What is essential for a man like me is what he thinks and how he thinks, not what he does..."                                                                                                              - Albert Einstein Ultimately, this " what " and " how " one thinks is 'what matters'! As we advance in age, the physical aspects atrophy and undergo a change.  The one who takes care of his physical being enough....thorough exercises and yoga etc, would remain physically robust for an extended period of time and then the body will take its natural course. The mind is not concerned with the limitations of physical body and even the slowing down of regeneration of brain cells will have no effect as what we are left with is far sufficient to indulge in the process of thinking. It is like

"The size of the moon, as seen by people one earth, is no larger than a big ball, but a moon-dweller would see it as a colossal world. The perception of the moon as a ball, or as a world, does not increase or decrease the size of the moon itself. When it is seen as large, its largeness is revealed and its smallness concealed, and just so the other way round."                                                                                                     - Ch'eng-kuan " Happy and relieved " said the World Champion Magnus Carlsen, after retaining the title and added..." I didn't really want to come back for a 12th game with Black ", which is an indication of the intensity of struggle in this match, despite not being spectacular or lack of an aura that we usually associate with such significant events.... Both parties seemed to be relieved yesterday for different reasons!  Magnus obviously was pleased to retain his title and reinforce

" To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, - One clover, and a bee, And revery. The revery alone will do If bees are few. "                                                               - Emily Dickinson The bees are a rare commodity....and so is clover - for they have been laboured, cloned and destroyed....  And what we are left with is the revery and a few...who knows how to....occasionally! Grunfeld defence reappears in this match! A fine chess struggle - more importantly both the players thought over the board and developed the opening into a promising middle-game and the game ended in just fashion. This for me is the ideal chess play - relying on thought process and ideas that gets churned out over the board....with the heat of every passing moment and above all "forgetting to remember"!! Before we get into the game, a few questions: Is this a match to determine who is the best!? Is this exercise of playing a worl

" Opportunities multiply as they are seized " - Sun Tzu Gene N.Landrum how wrote a wonderful book "Eight keys to Greatness", describes "risk" - one of the keys, thus: " Risk takers are people who feel comfortable in unknown environments. They have what psychologists label 'comfort with ambiguity'. Such people thrive in creative and innovative environments and become frustrated and anxious in risk averse organisations. Risk empowers them rather than disarming them ."  She further added, while explaining the theme through examples, " No one would think of an artist like Picasso as a risk-taker, but he lived right on the edge of the world professionally and personally, engaged in dangerous activities, such as running with the bulls in Pamplona. He said, ' My whole life has been a struggle against reaction and the death of art .' His work Les Demoiselles d'Avignon and Guernica are testimony to risk taking of the hig

"The most contemptible thing about dreams is that everyone has them. In the dark, the errand boy dozes away the day as he leans against the lamp post in the intervals between chores, immersed in thoughts about something or other. I know what he's daydreaming about: the same dreams I plunge into between entries in the summer tedium of the utterly still, silent office."                                                                                            - Fernando Pessoa ........                                                                                                                      ..........! Well, after that erudite analysis of game- 9, which incidentally was a Berlin Defence, it is time for a nice story!! Once a traveller went to a hotel asking for a room. The manager said, " Sorry sir, we do not have any room vacant. "  The man looked at the room register and found a room lying vacant and requested for that room.

This is the most extraordinary "position" that has ever occurred!! He blitzed through the entire game in "sleep" and was awake only for the handshakes: before the start and after the truce - the appearance of endgame did break the slumber briefly though! What is he conveying to Anand? One thing is sure, after that one mishap on Game 3; team Carlsen is hell bent on preparing placid wicket for 'Anand with White....', in Cricket parlance. Anand cannot afford to wait for the ball to reverse...he has to do something drastic...and not only with his White. The great West Indian Cricket captain Clive Lloyd recalls an incident during an Indian tour: " I remember playing a match in India and they wouldn't give Sunil Gavaskar out, and Andy Roberts started to complain to me and said, 'What must we do to get this man out?'  I looked at Andy straight in the eyes and said, 'Bowl him down. Don't you believe you can bowl him d