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As your new admin, I would like to do some internal chess tourneys, within our group. I'm not sure how to set that up. Also, would anyone be interested in vote chess or chess 960 (I just learned about this yesterday, it's fun). And as always, recruit!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades The Crusades : A set of campaigns fought primarily in the Holy Land usually between the catholic armies of Western Europe and the Muslim armies of the Middle East. For a Crusade to start it had to be issued by the Pope. The Crusades span between the period 1095 - 1291 when all remaining christian armies were expelled from the Holy Land and returned to Europe. The Pope was at that time thinking of issuing another crusade but due to the rivalry between European monarchs and the loss of all strongholds in the East (excluding Cyprus which however was an island) the Crusades had lost their momentum and no more troops were sent to try and recapture Jerusalem from the infidel. However there have also been numerous other Crusades whose primary goal was not the liberation of Jerusalem and which did not take place in the Holy Land yet they still involved fighting between Catholic Christians and either muslims, heretics or any others the current Pope at the time saw as a threat to catholicism (or his own interests). Examples include the Cathar Crusade and the Varna Crusade, and I shall be providing more info about these shortly as well as other subjects. By the way here are some books concerning the Crusades to any one who is interested: The Jester Jerusalem Black Lion's Bride Alamut The Crusade: A Novel The Dagger and the Cross The Lions of Al-Rassan Baudolino The Iron Lance On Crusade: More Tales of the Knights Templar Son of the Morning Lion's Bride Durandal Ivanhoe (also mentions Robin Hood!) The Children's Crusade The Kingdom at the End of the Road Knight Crusader The Knight Templar Sylvia Brethren Triology (Focusing mostly around Knights Templar as well as Ninth Crusade, provide a lot of insight, I especially recommend these having read them)

I was looking through our member's profiles. I saw many young players (it's always nice to see young players) who have lots of time outs. This baffles me. I'm not a great player, but I don't know that playing a crazy number of games that more than many end up timing out is great way to improve chess playing skill. Personally, I even find it annoying. I rarely will accept a challenge from anyone who has a high timed out percentage. Ok, back to the question. This is my story: When I was a child I had an uncle that taught me how to play. We played daily, multiple times, forever (it seemed). I could not beat him... I could not beat anyone for that matter. Until one day, I was able to beat most of my childhood friends. Then I was able to beat my uncle. Then I noticed that there was a degree of intelligence from one person to another, and although I could beat my friends and uncle number one, I could not beat uncle number two, or my teacher, or my mom's jerk boyfriend, and a number of others. But soon the day came that I could beat uncle one and two. Time went on and I could eventually beat my teacher, and my father figure. To this day, I could never beat my Mom's jerk boyfriend (for many years now, exboyfriend). Life is just not fare sometimes. I don't know how I became better, but I did, and I could soon beat better and better, smarter and smarter people (Most of the time, I can cleary see difference in intelligence between players. The better ones are usually better educated, better employed, and wiser. I know there are some very big exceptions to my rule. I was in the military; better employed does not mean smarter by any scope of the imagination.) My biggest regret was that I stopped playing chess about the time I started noticing girls (I couldn't even do my homework!!). However, before I quit playing I was happy to beat my girlfriend's father (who I hated because he was the biggest "a" hole I ever met, but he was also a very smart, wise fellow). Anyway, did I get wiser, or dare I say smarter than my adult opponets? Is there a direct relationship between intelligence and one's ability to play good chess? Do we get better at chess or does chess make us wiser? What do you think?

Well everybody. It looks like our fearless leader packed up and went crawling back to his mommy in England. Which, for some reason, placed me as the super admin. I, as your admin, would like to see some more positive action from this group. I like the idea behind our group. The crusades, to me, have more to do with the nostalgia of the medieval period than being Christian. And there is an obvious relationship with the medieval period and chess: bishops, kings, queens, knights… Therefore, let’s have some fun with this group. Furthermore, if you sign up for a group match and you don’t play it, then don’t!!! As in, don’t sign up. Also, if you are one of those players who think you can productively participate in any of the hundreds of matches you currently have going on, that most end in timing out, then please don’t sign up for any team matches. I think this group can do very well. Please respond with any comments or ideas. If you don’t like what I have to say, then please excuse yourself from this group. I did not ask to be admin, but I will take the job. Please help me.

We have a few good looking group matches that we need only a few more players for. Let's give these invites a winning shot, and prove that we have what it takes. Win or lose, let's make a stand and give this group some life!!!

Hi everyone!! Thank you for welcoming me to the group. I would like to get a feel for what you do for activities as I see there are few forums. Do we have group tournaments yet? Is there something you would like me to help with? I have a son and daughter that would also like to join; they are beginning chess players but are learning fast. Feel free to challange me to a game if you wish. But please make it for no more than 3 days for replies as I do not like to have unfinished business sitting around for too long. Go Crusaders!!