Comments by Glenn Nicholls

Thanks for the quick response.

I can't see anything  - can one of the site's editors simply change it to the new address if I give them this?

Regards

SAE Nicholls

It seems there may not have been a backup for a week - has this been forgotten?

I think there is a fair chance that Chess in its various forms is the world's most popular board game, or thereabouts, but if FIDE claim 600 million adults play Chess (and presumably they mean play Western chess regularly) they are claiming perhaps one in eight of the world's adult population do so - a big claim indeed.

Shaye Nicholls (pp Glenn Nicholls)

George

This other paragraph seems to appear on everyone's person information page, even editors it seems - it's just a way of making sure what persons are or are not active I suppose.

Shaye (pp Glenn) Nicholls

Further to my previous comment regarding the move 50. Qh6+ by Magnus Carlsen to win the 2016 world chess championship.

This move reminds me somewhat of the "The Golden move" (as it has been called, supposedly because gold coins were showered onto the board by spectators after it was played) of 23... Qg3 played by Frank Marshall against Stepan Levitsky in 1912 - but this move, though played in a tournament, was not in a world championship never mind the decisive game in such and so in my opinion Magnus Carlsen's move, played on his 26th birthday, against Sergey Karjakin can fairly be considered "The Platinum move" and I would like to so name it. How about having "The Silver move" - my choice would be 19. e5 played by Adolf Anderssen against Lionel Kieseritzky in 1851 - a fantastic and most famous game, but not a tournament one - this move involved cutting off the defensive line of the opposing Queen. Mention could, I think, also be made of the young teenage, at the time, Bobby Fischer's Queen sacrificing move of 17... Be6 played in a tournament against Donald Byrne in 1956 - "The Bronze Move" ? - perhaps, if we include one; and we must not forget Paul Morphy's famous Queen sacrifice 16. Qb8+ played in the informal "Opera House Game" in 1858 against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, but here the players were not of comparable playing strength - Paul Morphy was the world's strongest player at the time.

Can Chinese chess then, that has no piece stronger than the rook of Western chess, produce something of its own form of excitement - well, in Terence Donnelly's 1974 book Hsiang Ch'i there is a game given where black (who moved first here) delivers checkmate on his 24th move that is the 10th check in succession and the source of this game is given as Chin tai hsiang ch'i ming chu hsuan (Selected famous modern games of Chinese chess), Shanghai, 1958.

And then there is one of the best known of Chess "variants" (not my choice of words - that would simply be Chess games) namely the much more modern game of Capablanca chess where the increased scope for tactics can no doubt lead to very sharp and double edged games and the inventor, Jose Raul Capablanca, apparently played and tested this game many times against Edward Lasker who noted that games rarely went beyond 20 or 25 moves, but I can find no record of these or indeed any game of this played by Jose Raul Capablanca.

But what of those who prefer a more tranquil but no less subtle game - well, there is Arabian chess that Western chess evolved from and this was widely played for over a thousand years and in The Oxford Companion to Chess 1984 by David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld and under the heading Mansuba there are a number of studies that show the interesting subtleties and potential excitement that are within this game.

It is, in my opinion, difficult indeed to directly improve upon any of these above four basic Chess games in any significant way and I say directly because "improvements" in one aspect of the game can very easily be more greatly detrimental in another aspect of it and may lose too much of the essential features of the game whilst not gaining a sufficient increase in new features to outweigh the loss - difficult to achieve indeed and, I think, requires careful and thoughtful work.

Since my original comment is not under the subject of the World chess championship 2016 I repeat it below:

Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so ?) but the move 50. Qh6+ played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.

And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.

Shaye Nicholls pp Glenn Nicholls

Some have called Western chess "Mad Queen chess" (derogatorily so?) but the move QH6 played by Magnus Carlsen in the decisive game in the world 2016 championship shows the level of excitement that a piece like this can produce - a fantastic finish to win a world championship with.

And I would perhaps add that because computers take into account their opponent's replies they do not seem, to me at any rate, to build towards this sort of possibility and also in my opinion computers have proved no more with chess than did pocket calculators with calculations with regard to "intellectual" abilities.

Though piece value studies are not to the interest of everyone they can, I find, be fascinating at times and anyone can overlook properties of pieces and their situations - even of their own ideas, and I for one am appreciative that someone like HGM and one or two others do such in depth analysis of this.

To G. Strong

Thank-you for an interesting reply  - I do in fact rather like the game, but more to the point is that Capablanca himself thought it much better than Western chess and of course his opinion as a world champion must carry weight, though no doubt he had a little bias towards his own game.....

.....I can only hazard a guess that Capablanca liked the great tactical scope that the game seems to give whilst also having the possibility after (if) exchanges of some or all of the very strong pieces of simplifying into something akin to Western chess, so then you don't lose Western chess altogether with it  - two games for the price of one ? - indeed this is why I like it.....

.....of course it is all opinion on games on this site and only Western and Chinese chess (perhaps Shogi as well) are popular on a really huge scale, but I personally would put Capablanca chess high up on the ranking of games, not that I've tried out all the thousands (?) of games here - who has.

to Fergus

Is it simple and straightforward to use the link description

I don't kow how to use it - perhaps someone could tell me