funny story on AFL about the popularity of Chess at Geelong Cattery (think of how the place must stink!) talking to their most able player,
> «  Zach Tuohy's the one to beat, I think he actually watches YouTube videos at home and chess tournaments, he's very passionate." »

https://www.afl.com.au/news/1169054

i was thinking about posting a few weeks about a theme that the world #1 GM Magnus Carlson wrote a book about … The Grind. Grinding out wins. (Carlson voluntarily gave up the World title a year or so ago but still is in a league of his own for now, winning weekly blitzes tournaments etc)

it’s about a style of play Carlson is well known: for converting minor advantages along with a lack of weak areas in his game into powerful endgames. he’s not know for his opening library knowledge or says he doesn’t calculate (many moves in advance) a lot. but he has a powerful endgame, especially under the clock so he tries to get the game to a point of endgame sooner rather than later and to arrive there with minor advantages that he can smash opponents with.

anyhow if youre a fan of chess you can find the PDF online for free just searching his name and « The Grind PDF ». or buy it if you want the aura of buying the knowledge.

to me it seemed we were noticeably not grinding teams in the last couple of years. we always saw big momentum swings in games even when we had long winning steaks.

we lacked that solid grind trait that champion teams of yesteryear at Blues. not just the lack of very large momentum swings but also the lack of big final quarters. all that started to change three weeks ago. so i thought about posting The Grind concept again. then last week, the return of that inexplicable but previously ever present for part of each game « not getting our hands on it ».

anyhow interesting to Zach Tuohy is the gun chess player (intellect?) at Geelong!

who would be most likely listed Blue to start a Chess Club?! Weiters? Pitto would be a good administrator of the club himself i reckon but maybe not reach the heights he aspired to. Walshy for the dark horse? would be fascinating to watch a year of them all being told to play in chess tournaments against each other. you bet some of them would start paying for outside coaching!



i think The Grind has a parallel, in a superficial way at least with the essence of the Voss style of play, pressure, contest, defence, bring the game to balance where our biggest “weapons” (plays/players) can provide the edge, all players holding their line, waiting for their moments. no player allowed to be a weak link (apologies to Kemp last week, wasn’t the match up he wanted, notice Hogan was pretty quiet in the forth quarter, it’s a team game )


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Probably Max Rooke if we'd ever drafted him....

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#DonTheStash

Do you play online diesel? I use what I presume is the most popular app to do so. Play with my 13 year old son a fair bit also, he's got me covered now, only just though. If we play on a board I get him but online he has me, I think he get intimidated in person.

I'd put forward Matt Owies as the one to beat

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<crash-symbol/> haha


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i used to play on that free app beginning in L but i’m a terrible! i love the puzzles in that app though, you can play certain types of puzzles or just random, and that keeps my fragile ego intact!

losing to my Dad so much as a kid, even with headstarts maybe conditioned me to fear of losing on thw bioard. my Dad was many things and one of them was a really decent chess player amongst his research radiation/nuclear physicist friends at work . even when he had frontal lobe dementia and had stopped talking other than in single word sentence, he could whip my arse in chess!!

i also have taken to watching youtube channels like EpicChess, GothamChess, replaying exiting games and for a while got into Ben Finegold, GM who i think is a great teacher of children, lots of his older vids are on St Louis chess club channel. as well as his own more recent channel. he makes jokes all the time and keeps it light. lots of in-jokes that are instruction/training veiled as humour. good channel for your son maybe.

https://youtu.be/B5bCfwCyo18?si=5fFfRKHXYk06jx-m

good call on Owies!


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lt always used to annoy me when the media portais Kevin Sheady as a master strategist or master tactician and the game of chess was often invoked by that paper of higher learning, the Hearld Sun.

to me he was more like a mad gambler who placed so many bets that sometimes they came off. certainly not afraid to move the magnets unlike our coaches box.

i loved that final where Parko just gave every Blue an opponent in the ** team and said follow him around the ground and come on/off with him. Sheady didn’t have any answers to that strategy and all the crazy moves just blew up on him. Seem to recall Glen Manton giving James Heard a bath wherever he went on the ground.


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I don’t think I can ever have a grownup conversation about chess again.

Not since learning about the prevalence of using anal beads to cheat.

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"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter" - Winston Churchill.

Josh Bootsma was a big fan of pawn

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The only way for some people to understand is for them to be on the receiving end

Left wing moralists
In self serving denial
They shit me no end

Protect De Koning

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Congratulations CK95

certainly an unnecessary distraction.


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Pawnhub

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Congratulations CK95

Peter and Matthew Knights might provide a good balance of defence and attack.

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THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

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THEY LIKE TO SEND UP!!!!!!!!

Until each team plays each other the same number of times, the AFL, as a fair dinkum competition, cannot be taken seriously.

He (Mr Swann) said the honour and pride associated with the club's traditional navy blue jumper was priceless.

I sorta thought we were going to talk more about a musical than rene kink. Perhaps they are both the same

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World chess champion Magnus Carlsen has quit a major tournament after being told he could not carry on playing while wearing jeans.
The 34-year-old was defending his titles at the FIDE World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships in New York when officials informed him of the dress code breach

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░L░I░N░K░I░N░B░I░O ░

Yeah , he told them to stick it where the sun don't shine .

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All my dangerous friends