Crazy Snooker

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

If somebody struggles with the concept of snooker (the game element I mean), then let him watch this video. It should teach him!

[Aktungbby]

Only my loss of earlier chess competence in my young years I mourn more. I paused in chess for too many years, over a decade, and when going back to it I found that I had forgotten so much, lost so much routine and memory skill and ability to visualise, it translated into a serious loss of playing strength.

DON'T FEEL SO BAD; I, WHO ONCE DEFEATED GRANDMASTERS (ON OCCASION) CAN BARELY HOLD OUT AGAINST MY NEPHEWS AND EVEN THE GREATS HAVE A BAD DAY: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/nov/21/world-chess-championship-game-9-carlsen-caruana

“I felt like I had a comfortable advantage and then I just blew it,” a clearly disappointed Carlsen said in the immediate aftermath. “I was poor.”
The nine straight draws is the longest streak of games to open a match without a decisive result in the recognized 132-year history of the world chess championship.

MY GENERAL STYLE SINCE THE AGE OF FOUR WHEN MY DAD TAUGHT ME THE GAME, IS TO PLAY ROCK-SOLID DEFENSE 'TILL THE OPPOSITION MAKES AN ERROR; THEN CAPITALIZE! A TECHNIQUE ADAPTED FROM MY DAD'S SUPERB TENNIS STYLE AND WRESTLING IN HIGH SCHOOL & COLLEGE AS WELL. MY COLLEGIATE OPPONENTS-OF-CHOICE: AN ESTONIAN AND A CUBAN REFUGEE TAUGHT ME A LOT OF RUSSIAN-STYLE PLAY OVER FOUR YEARS-I SELDOM WON. PERSONALLY AND CAREFULLY PLAYING OUT ALL THE FISHER/SPASSKY GAMES DURING MY OWN 70'S COLLEGE DAYS REALLY PROVED MOST ILLUMINATING; IE: THESE GUYS MAKE MISTAKES TOO IN THE HEAT OF COMPETITION SO NO NEED TO BE IN AWE OF AN OPPONENT-JUST WAIT FOR IT (THE MISTAKE)! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Chess_Championship_1972#Game_1:_Spassky–Fisc her,_1–0_(Nimzo-Indian) PS: ONE DEFEATED GRANDMASTER SHOOK MY HAND AND SAID HE'D HAVE TO WARN HIS FELLOW GRANDMASTERS THAT "I'M OUT THERE" I LOVED IT! MY DAD QUIT PLAYING ME BY AGE EIGHT!

[Skybird]

Thanks for the cheers, but you know the decline in my chess playing was not due to aging, but carelessness or easymindedness, and its not as if I were playing at GM level anyway, certainly not. I just had a healthy talent, but I spoiled it and did not care for it consequently enough - until it was too late. Learning stuff with 20 is still easy. With 30 its not as easy anymore, with 40 it becomes difficult and with 50 its almost hopeless. I was best in correspondence chess anyway.

At least I learned other good stuff, and quite professionally. Meditation. Swords and martial arts. Some archery. Fighting. That opened me some doors, and also helped me to form a much stronger self reliance than I originally had when I was young. There would not have been enough time to spend more time on chess, while studying atuniversity (or going to school before that), and running the training and education program that I was running five days a week for years, and parts of it every day. Judging by the practical outcomes in my life, the way I moved probably was the better way. And by now I can live in pretty much the way I want to live, financially independent as long as the financial system holds together, being master of most of my time and spending it like I want: no boss telling me anything. So truth must be that my regret about chess is sentimental only, but not realistic.

Congrats to Carlsen, but the tournament has shown the problem chess has run into: the theoretic part is almost analysed to death, especially endgames and even more openings. Computers helped a lot in that. Maybe it now indeed makes sense to go back to ideas by Fisher and others, to randomly alter the starting positions of the figures behind the pawns to bypass opening theory completely and force players to actually play, instead of having them sitting all night long in the lab and preparing theoretical variations in a bid to find a hole in the prepared variations of their opponents. Or rewarding points for acchieving predefined goals like having their king moved beyond the 4th/5th column: ideas to make players going for greater risks and thus spicing up the match.

[Skybird]

Techncially, Carlsen should not be called world champion in chess currently. All 12 matches were draws, the decision came (clealry) in rapid chess matches afterwards (three wins). Thus Carlsen is by that outcome world champion in rapids.

Carlsen is listed number one in rapids, too. Caruana is I think nr. 17 in world ranking.

[Jimbuna]

Snooker humour/entertainment at its best.

[skidman]

Killingly funny. Thanks for posting this.