Borislav Ivanov is BACK!

Well that is a nice voice for sure, but it still sounds a bit dodgy to me.

Hmmm, I notice a frequent contributor here is with us no more......

Can't say I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I don't like seeing the ban shield next to a current opponent's name, especially when the game originated from some sparring in one of these threads.

I don't get what you mean? It is a pity to have defended someone who was cheating, but why should that imply that one should refuse to consider the detection method chess.com uses? I don't want to question the method chess.com uses. I wished that the FIDE used a better method in their tournaments. 

She seemed a bit fishy.  Nice photo though.

Her rating rose 100 points since we began our unrated game three weeks ago.

She said that she thought the Fried Liver Attack was a win for White with best play. That's why we're playing.

She did, however, underestimate the power of her central pawns. (I suspect that she has not read Philidor.)

I need to get these ICCF games. 9.Bb3! does not seem to be in the database that I use. That simple move deprives Black of some resources while maintaining the pressure. The c-pawn is defended, and any b5 thrust no longer threatens an attacker.

I don't think that Black unless White errs later. A draw meets the demands of my claims: Black is okay with accurate defense (which is often extremely difficult).

An interesting thing is that I have a buddy who was banned from chess.com who claims (somewhat believably) that he never cheated.  But he was in a Fried Liver tournament using some book that was all about computer analysis.  He believes he was banned fro using a book based on computer analysis (as he claims he played almost no moves of his own in the tournament since Fried Liver can easily be over when one person gets out of their book and the other doesn't).  

Too risky here to play this online chess.  Chess.com can ban you for doing exactly what they say is legal and you are supposed to be doing.  It's possible Yeka was doing exactly the same thing as my buddy....  Your rating could easily go up 100 pts in a short time with online chess if you spent $1000 on books, for example.

I haven't read Philidor, and I've read most of the classics! When I was doing my chess studies his book, Analyse du jeu des Échecs, was unavailable. I will probably go and seek it out online, but that option wasn't available in the 1970s and 80s. I may read it now out of historical interest. 

I'm not sure that is the point.  If you are going to play book lines, particularly in something like the Fried Liver, you can get these books that are ChessBase books that are essentially 6000 page long books full of computer analysis.  Play with a book like that, and you are banned.  Even a smaller book will be loaded full of computer analysis now.  I don't even like memorizing lines now because of this stupid cheating witch hunt.  I don't even care of people I play cheat - I'd just like to play chess.

Anand found f5 on his own. The game was past the computer analysis at that point. Anand found quite a few moves, but they were based on a plan (also reminiscent of a masterpiece by Rubinstein that many players even at my level have committed to memory) that Anand could be confident was "okay"--he wasn't even looking for a win until Aronian made some errors (pushing the f-pawn was one). Anand was quite proud, he said after of the game, of his blocking f5.

I read most of it last spring. I suspect that few people have, though. Google books has both French and English editions.

http://books.google.com/books?id=OWUQAAAAYAAJ&dq=inauthor%3A%22Fran%C3%A7ois%20Danican%20Philidor%22&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false

There is a heck of a lot more to correspondence chess than memory. If you use just memory you will lose. If you just use a very strong chess engine you can also lose. I think this was  demonstrated when very recently I took Black in 7 games against very good players with chess engines in a Ponziani and  and won 5 and drew 2.  The White players were free to play the Ponziani any line. Chess engines were allowed and encouraged and this was all unrated.

I was using the free stockfish but on a normal computer. the chess engine [stockfish] had to be guided and this is very important. In Centaur chess you must have enough chess knowledge to guide the chess engines.  I was forcing the chess engine to look at lines it would not have looked at otherwise.

Also, many years earlier [before chess engines] making your own theory was important.  Now, you can make your own theory but only with the help of chess engines but still it is new and your original thoughts. I won the 7th USA Correspondence Championship because I came up with theory and lines not seen before. For example I played this line which had not been very well analyzed before 1. e4  d5  2. exd5  Qxd5 3. Nc3  Qa5

[I played as Black] 

People underestimate both Centaur Chess and Correspondence Chess before chess engines.

Alekhine, in a radio interview on the BBC in the late thirties, said that memory plays very little role in chess, and that the role of memory  in chess is overstated. He said "memory is about the past. Chess is not played in the past, but in the present and especially in the future". 

Alekhin was comparing the memory necessary to play bridge compared to the memory necessary to play chess. He stated that in chess, you don't need to worry about previous moves, but in bridge, you have to remember what cards have previously been played. 

Context matters. Alekhin had a fine memory and often cited previous games to explain his opening choices.

For any expert duplicate  bridge player he must be able to memorize every card played. This is not as hard as it seems as there are tricks to it.

Counting suits is important and sometimes after you memorize a card it is no longer important.  

In chess, while it is true you do not have to memorize or worry about previous moves, the experts and masters almost all can tell you all the moves of the game as soon as it is over.  This is because for each move they have to have a reason to make the move and when they remember the reasons, they also [of course] remember the actual moves.

For me, bridge [money] is far more fun and exciting than any kind of chess.  There is also the factor of bidding which has become quite a science and the factor of having a partner. 

[and playing with gib can give you a heart attack]

Yekatrinas will return, I'm sure - it is almost her speciality.

Who or what is gib?

This was the important point but it got derailed on whether the Anand-Aronian game was really a good example (I personally have no idea).  I think it is not so much slippery slope (which is logical fallacy so I never contend anything is slipery slope) but real ambiguity.  Using a 6000 page book filled with computer analysis does seem about the same as using the engine that generated it.  Using a 300 page book filled with ponz's games and Anand's analysis of those games is just not completely different because Anand will still be using Houdini to make sure he isn't talking rot.  The 6000 page book will get you automatically banned for sure.  Will the 300 page book get you banned even though you bought it from chess.com who told you to use it in online chess?  I don't know so I don't play online chess much.