Have you ever met a GM? Story?

Reb,

I called you an idiot once. You called me "pornz" several times because I participated on Open Discussion in a forum about the effects of porn. This is the way your mind works.

I am suggesting you put your games here for the benefit of chess.com readers.

I will tell you a story. When I was age 12 there was a kid age 13 who loved to put others down. In fact, he would have fist fights with many of the kids he cornered. And he beat up many kids and never lost a fight.

One day I wandered to a neighborhood over a mile away. There was supposed to be a baseball game there and I wanted to play. I rode my bike there and sure enough they were playing baseball. I asked to play but one of the kids ran to a nearby house.

It was the kid, the town bully, who liked to put down and beat up other kids. He said it was his neighborhood and told me I had to fight him. I could have run away but didn't. Did not care if he beat me to a pulp, I was not going to run away from the fight.

However, I was a good football player and knew how to fall down without getting very hurt. And then I noticed a house was being built and there was a very big hole where the basement was dug out. A steep downslope...

Positioned myself very close to the hole... We started fighting and he was swinging at me. I tackled him and threw us both down the downslope. Over and over we rolled. I was sure to end up on top. But he ended up on top of me...But he was somewhat hurt.  I rolled him over and started to hit him.  First in the face but not hard at all. Then again, a little harder..

He said "Stop!" "I've had enough!"  The kids were all looking down at us. They were amazed to see the town bully beat...

 The moral of the story is: If someone keeps putting people down, some day, some time, someone else will have had enough.

I am shocked--shocked--that you would tell a story where you were the hero or winner.

How unlike you.

Pretty much all the GMs I've played OTB have been pretty kind people, like Shabalov, Benjamin, Panchanathan, and Bisguier.

Great stuff on this thread--I take credit only for starting it. As I said at the start, I've never met one BUT, after seeing the great stories on this thread, I decided to ask some of my chess friends here in Southern California and yesterday, I heard a doozy.

Now,this could be (ahem) 'bovine scatology'--this friend of mine is a good guy but we were in a pub, watching Game 2 of the NBA Finals and the subject came up. After a few beers, I might add.

According to the friend, it was in the late 70's and he was in the LA Public Library. He was strolling the political science section and noticed a tall, gaunt man sitting alone reading a book at one of the cubicles.

"You're Bobby Fischer," said my friend. The guy looked up, wide-eyed, intense... scary for anyone except my friend who said, "C'mon. Don't be like that. I'm not going to make a big deal of it but you're him, right? Bobby Fischer?" According to my friend, the guy nodded. Once. My friend said, "Wish I had a chess board." The guy who my friend thought was Fischer, who according to my friend looked for all the world like Fischer, who nodded his head when asked if he was Fischer, just looked at him and smiled a little. My friend said, "Have a nice night," and moved on, not looking back. Said he always felt a little sorry for bugging the man.

So I did a little research today. Fischer was reclusive in the 70's after abandoning his title, he was in the Southern California area and was known to hang out at the downtown library, keeping very much to himself.

Heck of a story, no?

"The difference between an analysis board and an engine is huge. An analysis board is a way of recording thoughts: an engine largely replaces the thinking itself."

Yeah but part of understanding is knowing what will happen just at a glance of the position, without having to play out lots of variations.

Or in case someone makes a true statement about someone's profile picture :)

Tell your mammy and suck your soother.

I agree the difference between an analysis board and an engine is huge.

There are times a human can and does outthink an engine but most of the time the engine outthinks the human.

However there is something stronger than an engine or a human.  

See Carlsen's games on chessbomb when he plays live.

The computer finds and rates a few moves, then increases Carlsen's advantage after he chooses a different move.

Heck of a story, no?

shakedaspear: I find your Fischer story entirely believable. I like that your friend wished him good night and moved along.

One grandmaster I've played is Daniel M Fleetwood [see wikipedia]

He is an American scientist, inventor, engineer, and innovator.

He chess achievements barely mentioned as he has achieved so much in other fields.

He is one heck of a down to earth, nice guy, also.

I played a game with him way before chess engines.  He worked for decades to become a grandmaster. Only when chess engines started being used did he also have to use them.  But almost all his success in chess came before chess engines were being used.

And some want to take away the chess title he earned. This is the height of belittlement by some players who could not begin to do the chess achievements he has already done.   

There is a bible verse "He who is without sin, cast the first stone"

I would say: "He who could even come close to meeting the requirements for correspondence grandmaster, take the title away and make it something else."

Why are you so dishonest ?  I am not suggesting to take anything away but only to distinguish between a GM of Correspondence and a GM of OTB . Its only fair to distinguish between them because they are so different . You lie every time you suggest that I want to take something from them when all I want to do is distinguish between GMs of OTB and GMs of Correspondence .  Maybe there should also be a distinction made among Correspondence titled players that would indicate if they use engines or not ? 

yeah and lets also distinguish between male and female gms. not to forget the need to distinguish between gms that got the title before age 20 and others. also think we need a sunny day gm title and a rainy day gm title. because the sack of shit holding the title is mentally just as poor as the jelly non gms so he really cares what patzers think about his title.

edit: i forgot the most important thing; we absolutely need to distinguish between gms that can pronounce 'Scheveningen' correctly and those who can't!

Everyone is already distinguishing otb grandmasters and correspondence grandmasters. Wether Ponz or Karry are liking it or not.

I quite frankly don't care. Am a bit surprised you didn't get that from my post.

How so ? 

Reb

"Maybe there should be a distinction made among Correpondence titled players that would indicate if they use chess engines or not?"

This is utterly absurd! The two grandmasters I played got the bulk of the requirements before chess engines. Then when chess engines started to be used, they had to use chess engines also.

Let's see, someone spends 30 years playing the very best correspondence players and is an IM but needs only one more good result in a strong tournament to become a GM.

But unfortunately at that time everybody starts using chess engines [as chess engines are now stronger]. So this person has to play this last strong tournament using a chess engine [like the other players in the tournament]

Then he does well in the tournament and becomes a GM and then some NM [who does not have a clue about how to play correspondence chess at a very high level] thinks it is HIS prerogative to change his GM title??????????? 

Instead of constantly trying to degrade players who play at a different speed--why not learn from their games and also put your very good games up for players on chess.com to view and learn from???

Give a few of your games with annotations? Especially some of your games where you won or drew with a grandmaster?

I do not mind at all that players distinguish between over-the-board and correspondence grandmasters. [and I know this happens very often]

What I object to is people who do not have a clue about what it takes to be a correspondence grandmaster wanting to change the titles of correspondence grandmasters  in any way.

I do know that these days all it takes is a class player armed with a good engine !  Do I need to show you again the otb ratings of some of the current top correspondence players ? Anyway , someone said already that there is already a distinction made between correspondence and otb GMs so we can drop this argument . I think though that only ICCF does this and not national federations . ?  Not sure really .