chess online

Good and interesting comments, John! I forgot to reply back to you earlier, so I hope you see my comment here, maybe will drop you a personal note as well.

I disagree with you that the Ruy and French are weak against e4; why do so many GMs use them, if that's true? I happen to like the Pirc and Modern, but my results have been somewhat disappointing, so I mainly stick to Sicilian unless I'm feeling adventurous, when I do somewhat better with the Modern (had a great position with it against a strong master OTB recently which I frittered away).

One of my sisters lived in San Anselmo (CA), so it really is a small world!

Alan

Leaving subject blank, as there are too many subjects going on! More great posts, John... so instead of emailing you, decided to keep this thread going! Funny, don't normally get too many comments on my puzzle postings, even on my own problems! (Of course, these aren't about the puzzle at all, except for your first post about Reinfeld.)

I was a little amused about your comment about the priesthood and celibacy. That's one reason I never became a priest... another is that I'm not Catholic! Although I could have been a monk I think (but not forever), as I have lived much of my life as one! I don't think celibacy should be a requirement for priests -- it's not natural, and leads to the problems we're seeing without end regarding pedophile priests and the shuffling game. Episcopalians have it right compared to the Catholics, IMHO. Don't know much about Presbyterians... know much more about geography and trigonometry! (Old song reference.)

I have to tell you that I used to play the King's Gambit exclusively against 1...e5! Mainly because two of my old friends from Modesto (CA), Robert Raingruber and Lou Maser (both Experts) wrote a book on it, with assistance from GM Larry Christiansen (who used to live in Modesto). Raingruber was like a mentor to me, because I went with him to many Bay Area tournaments when I was in High School (Bob was a HS math teacher at another high school). Lou was good friends with Larry C., so got to spend some time with Larry, which was very cool. Larry's younger brother Scott (about an A player) worked as a bartender at a popular Chinese restaurant; played some blitz with him while he served me drinks, but that's another story!

I agree that the Caro can be sharp, but I think I've had more problems against the French; people who play the French are usually very booked! But I'm following Lev Alburt's recommendations against that (like 5. Bd2 against the Winawer). Against the Caro, I usually play the Panov-Botvinnik, but other systems are good too, and tried almost all of them but the Fantasy (but want to look into that some time).

To be continued...