2021-12-31

A little girl challenges a grandmaster at a chess bar in Paris


I'm impressed. This girl played the opening well and made very few mistakes against a Grandmaster. Furthermore, they were only playing with a time control of 3 minutes each, which is a very fast form of speed chess.

2021-12-20

Carlsen Says His Match Against Nepo is Likely His Last Unless Firouzja W...

I don't think that Magnus will give up the World Champion title so easily.  He is hinting at retirement.

People will be pretty disappointed if the declared Greatest Of All Time no longer wants to play the World Championship or if he decides to retire.

Around 1858 Paul Morphy came out of nowhere to beat the top players in the world. Then a couple of years later he gave up chess claiming it was a waste of time.  Bobby Fischer called Morphy "the greatest genius of us all."


Best wishes,

John Coffey

Elementary Blunder but It's Magnus Carlsen| Lichess Titled Arena

Magnus again ...

https://youtu.be/Pm2EmigHC18

Best wishes,

John Coffey

2021-12-19

2021-12-18

Russell Gumbrecht Obituary (2020) - Salt Lake City, UT

Russell was a nice older man.  He was badly wounded in Vietnam and then developed schizophrenia.  He seemed a little odd, but he was a nice person.  He had a 1519 rating.  He felt like a B player to me.  He played a few times in our chess club and the quick chess tournaments that I ran.

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/saltlaketribune/name/russell-gumbrecht-obituary?id=2143324

He paid me an exceptionally nice compliment when he said, "I thought that I was a good endgame player, and then I played John Coffey and I found out what a good endgame player really is."





2021-12-13

Magnus rating

I figured out that based upon the 73 point rating difference between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi that Magnus should have scored 6.5 out of 11 points.  Instead, he won 7.5 out of 11.  Magnus gained only 10 rating points.

https://ratings.fide.com/profile/1503014/chart

2021-12-10

World Chess Championship

Magnus Carlsen just won the World Chess  Championship for the 5th time.

Ian Nepomniatchi commented that he did not know why he made more mistakes in this match.

This reminded me of players who told me that they don't make the same mistakes against other players that they make against me.  Maybe I'm just better at spotting the mistakes.

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