Ed's ever-growing Chess Page!

Probably the best of the "personal homepage" style chess sites on the web, this one has actual content; tidbits, opinions, essays, problems, etc. Especially useful for those new to online chess, Ed has a section comparing the various chess servers, and a page devoted to the WinBoard interface.

The above description of this
page was written by the author
of the wonderful chess site
Chessopolis.

Thanks!

I stumbled onto your outstanding chess page while doing a net search for chess-related topics. Your page combines lots of useful info with your sparkling wit. I've owned my PC since last April and have never enjoyed a page as much as I did yours. And thanks for the link to FICS. Somebody at work said that they played chess at Yahoo! and I wondered how good their site could be. Having read your critique, my suspicions were confirmed.

The above comments were
recently e-mailed to me from
Tom Duda.

Thanks Tom!!

I've seen a lot of great websites out there, but yours is the first one that has moved me to write this kind of message of appreciation. I think it's tremendously well done and obviously a labor of love.

I'm fond of chess -- started playing at around 10 but never very seriously. I'm now 76 and think that I played better when I was 10, but that's besides the point. Your site has encouraged me to get back to devoting a little time to the game.

Many thanks.

The above comments come from Robert Safier. Whoa! Thanks for the kind words!

A position from one of my over-the-board
tournament games
recently appeared in the
Los Angeles Times!

Click here to see the details!

Several years ago, when I lived in
Mesa, Arizona,
a picture of me playing chess
was published in the
Wednesday, April 6, 1994
edition of the
Arizona Republic.

Click here to see the scanned image.

This chess page
of mine was the

Link of the Month

in December 2000 from the

Norresundby Chess Club !

Whoo hoo hoo! Another

Link of the Month

award! This one is from

Quad City Chess

for the month of May 2002!

Thanks gang!

I've been playing chess regularly since 1972 and it will always remain one of my passions. I'm currently rated 1677 according to the latest
United States Chess Federation Rating Report.
This is a drop from 1741! Agghhhh!!!

Here's the one beef I have with the
United States Chess Federation!

The United States Chess Federation recently started offering a new member benefit -
Online Chess Play!
It's known as

I'm a former Administrator at this server,
so if you have any questions about the site,
feel free to ask me.

My handle is EdCollins.

Click on the USCL graphic
for more information.

Brand new!
A simple, graphical description of How Lag and Timeseal work on USCL!!

When I'm not playing at the above US Chess Live site, you might find me playing rated games on FICS, the
Free Internet Chess Server.

My handle there is also EdCollins. I've currently played over 4,500 rated games on this server alone. I'm also former Administrator on this site, so again, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Interested in knowing how badly you're lagging on FICS? Although FICS currently does not have its own "ping" command, if you're running Windows 95 (and probably 98) you can still ping yourself very easily, without downloading anything at all.
Here's how.

Whoops! As of
Friday, March 12, 1999
FICS now DOES have its own "ping" command so the info above is now for die-hards only!

Here are
eight different FICS login screens
I designed. There is nothing wrong with the one FICS is currently using, but I felt it would be a refreshing change to see something new when we log on. I'd like to see one of these implemented, but I had fun designing them even if the powers that be choose not to do so.

Here are my suggestions to improve / enhance FICS.

When I'm not playing rated games on US Chess Live, FICS, or Chess.net, I might be chatting with friends and playing unrated games at ICC, the World's Most Expensive On-line Chess Club. My tell variable will always be set to 1, so other guests like yourself will be able to chat with me. I'll be logged into channel 198 and 199. Do a inchan 198 199 command to see the people who are in both of those channels. (For the past several months, I've been the only guest in both.)

Can you solve this logic problem? A game started with 1.f3 and ended with 5... Kf6#. How did the game go? Note: It's not all that hard to figure out. Give it a try before you look at...	From the starting position, how many moves do you think it would take you to achieve a position where both sides have 9 Queens? Try it yourself and then see what is believed to be the ultimate solution.
Here's a logic problem with a chess theme!	One of my favorite chess compositions! This one is a must see!
In The Open, a movie about six friends who get together for a local tournament, improving their lives and their game. Each character has their own story that intertwines with the others. The friends are all very different in personality and interests, but they have the common love of the game that binds them together.	In the October 1997 issue of Chess Life, I was fortunate enough to have one of my letters published in their monthly Letters To The Editor column! I wrote this letter in rebuttal to a few other letters that were published a couple of months prior to that.
Chess on Jeopardy! The TV game show Jeopardy recently had "Chess Mania" as a category! Check it out!	60 different newspaper comic strips all with a chess-related theme!
If you enjoy playing chess at Yahoo!, I hope you're aware of the advantages the chess servers offer over that site. If not, check out my Yahoo! Chess vs. the Chess Servers page!	Here are a few "Knight Tours!"
Here's a tribute to my favorite Internet chess server interface: WinBoard version 4.2.4	Here's an article by Brad Stone on FICS and ICC. It's a few years old now, but still entertaining and informative.
Moments to be worried at a chess tournament and Symptoms of Chess Addicts.	Would you believe I once missed a mate-in-one in a rated tournament game?? See for yourself!
The Continuing Chronicles of Grandmaster Gary and Loudmouth Larry	The results are all in my my "Vote for your favorite board image!" See which image won and take part in another vote!
Why I Don't Pay for Internet Chess	My current record in OTB rated tournaments is 103 - 76 - 34. Here's a list of the tourneys I've entered.
The Category 17 (2674) Hoogovens Tournament in Wijk aan Zee was held from January 16th, through Jan 31st, 1999. The event included Kasparov, Anand, Shirov, Svidler, Kramnik, Yermolinsky, Topalov and several other top GM's. Here is the final crosstable of the event and all of the games in a PGN format. _________________________ Here is the final crosstable and games of the first Corus Chess Tournament at Wijk aan Zee (same game new name) held January 15th, through Jan 30th, 2000. _________________________ And here are the games from the... 2001 , 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2005 tournaments!	Chess Puzzle! Can you make consecutive moves for White and manuever the King to the f1 square without ever entering the g2 square? (You can't enter the g2 square... it's guarded by the Black knight!) The three pawns never move and no piece may leave the 3x3 area.
Here's a very enjoyable article by GM Yasser Seirawan titled Whose Title Is It, Anyway? which first appeared in the August 1998 issue of GAMES magazine.	I enjoy these immensely. Check out a Glossary of Chess Terms. I'm not sure how long it will stay up, but check out this page which gives the results for a recent on-line New Chess Glossary contest. I can hardly believe it but... I won!
You Make the Chess Call! See if you would rule correctly on these official rules of chess!	My collection of Chess Books! (I have almost 300.)
What do you get when you cross the game MasterMind with chess? The answer is Detective Chess, a delightful little game in which the object is to logically determine the positions of some pieces on a chessboard. The above link points to the author's homepage.	If your Internet chess interface is still saving your games in what is known as the "oldmoves format" you may be interested in a conversion utility I wrote awhile ago which will convert a file from this format into a PGN formatted file. (Note: most interfaces nowadays are able to save your games straight to a PGN file.)
How to create a random Fischer Random opening position with the help of a single die.	Computer ingenuity solves old chess puzzle
Here's an entertaining article I found titled Winboard Modularity, Engines and Chess Servers. My only fault with this article is that it's not long enough.	Photos from the 2001 National Open
In 1999 I completed a 15 round, single round-robin tournament between 16 of my WinBoard-compatible freeware chess engines. The story, results, and standings, in a text file, can be found here!	Chess Problems! Problems 1 - 10 Problems 11 - 20 Chess Cooks White to Play and Mate in 131 Moves and other interesting problems

A promotional shot for the 1970s television show Charlie's Angels starring Jaclyn Smith, Kate Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett-Majors.

This image can be found all over on eBay... but it was reversed! A black square was in the lower right-hand corner!

(Obviously I could not stand for this so I simply reversed the image with Paint Shop Pro.)

Would you believe a stalemate can occur in as few as 10 moves!

1.e3 a5 2.Qh5 Ra6 3.Qxa5 h5 4.Qxc7 Rah6 5.h4 f6 6.Qxd7+ Kf7 7.Qxb7 Qd3 8.Qxb8 Qh7 9.Qc8 Kg6 10.Qe6

That's amazing! But I think this 12-move stalemate in which no pieces are captured is even more amazing!

1.d4 e5 2.Qd2 e4 3.a4 a5 4.Qf4 f5 5.h3 Qh4 6.Qh2 Bb4+ 7.Nd2 d6 8.Ra3 Be6 9.Rg3 Bb3 10.c4 c5 11.f3 f4 12.d5 e3

Remember the Garry Kasparov - Deep Blue rematch that was held in May of '97?

Here's a couple of limericks I
wrote on that match.

The 12 actual games Garry played against Deep Blue, from both matches, can be found here.

After the above mentioned match,
Deep Blue was interviewed.

Here is a
copy of the interview
Garry
Kasparov
gave on
ICC on
11/22/1998.

Here's a humorous WAV file (234 KB in size) in which Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue compete in... are you ready for this... a swimming match! I liked it! The length of the WAV file lasts for about a minute and a half. The quality originally was terrible -- the volume was much too low and you could hear a lot of static and hiss in the background. I took the time to increase the volume and filter out some of the noise. It's still not great... but it is much better.

The 24 blitz games Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik played in their match over Thanksgiving weekend in 1998 in Moscow can be found here.

Garry is no longer World Champion! Here are the 15 games from the recent Brain Games World Championship.

Here's a text file, in PGN format,
of 731 of Bobby's tournament games.

Note that this file is more accurate than many other similar files you will find on the Internet. For one, all PGN tags for his name are identical. (Some Fischer game files list one game as "R Fischer" and than the next game as "Robert Fischer" and then another game as "Fischer, R" etc.) This file also has duplicate games eliminated, something a few other files I have found do not. Third, when at all possible, all games have been placed in chronological order.

It's about 486,000 bytes in size, so it will take a few moments to fully load.

Bobby Fischer (Andrews/Lazy Susan)

Bobby Fischer beat Spassky in Iceland in '72.
I know a girl who's better looking but who thinks like Bobby Fischer too.
When Bobby Fischer was a kid they knew he was a prodigy.
I know a girl who's somewhat older but no less of an authority.

I wish I had the smarts to understand her charts.
If I don't concentrate she'll have me in checkmate.

In Tampa Bay and Lafayette they all know Bobby Fischer's name.
I know a girl who made her mark in smaller cities but her fame's the same.
When Bobby Fischer made his comeback in the '90s he was worse for wear.
I know a girl who made a comeback but her mind was altogether there.

She said: "I drink chocolate milk, from a cow I built.
“Doot n'doot doot doot. Doot n'doot doot doot."

They're all saying that you'll never play again.
They're all saying that you're finished, that you're washed up as a friend.
All my life I've 'feather-dustered' but that's not how it's going to end. Oh no.

Spies in hideouts send their secret messages.
There's a thief caught in the headlights of a car beneath a bridge.
There's no lights on in the house except the lights on in the fridge. Oh yeah.

Reykjavik, no one ever says Reykjavik in a song.
Reykjavik, no one ever says Reykjavik in a song.

They're all saying that you'll never play again.
They're all saying that you're finished and that you're washed up as a friend.
All my life I've 'feather-dustered' but that's not how I'm going to end. Oh no.

Spies in hideouts send their secret messages.
There's a thief caught in the headlights of a car beneath a bridge.
There's no lights on in the house except the lights on in the fridge... Oh yeah.

1964

Alexander Alekhine
Jose Raul Capablanca
Paul Morphy
Samuel Reshevsky
Boris Spassky
Howard Staunton
Wilhelm Steinitz
Mikhail Tal
Seigbert Tarrasch
Mikhail Tchigorin

1970

Mikhail Botvinnik
Jose Raul Capablanca
Svetozar Gligoric
Bent Larsen
Paul Morphy
Tigran Petrosian
Samuel Reshevsky
Boris Spassky
Wilhelm Steinitz
Mikhail Tal

Here's a scan of the covers of
Life, Sports Illustrated,
Chess Life & Review, and Newsweek
when Fischer appeared on the cover.

Speaking of Fischer, we do have one thing in common -- we've both defeated players who are now Grandmasters! I was fortunate enough to defeat Tal Shaked in a simul he gave at
The Chess Emporium in Phoenix, Arizona not so long ago and young Tal has recently become a Grandmaster! Congratulations Tal! (And yes, I saved the signed scoresheet!!)

However, my friend Brent Bowers, who was sitting to my immediate right, went one better. First he defeated Tal, then he played him again and held him to a draw! Good work, Brent!

We still have a joke about his first game. Tal saw the win long before Brent did.
Tal: I resign.
Brent: Why??

Here's a piece of advice:
If an International Master ever resigns to you, don't ask why!

Although this chess program will interest almost none of you, I'm putting a copy of it up here anyway because hey, this is MY homepage. <grin>

It's a chess program called EdChess.
Back in the days before one downloaded freeware and shareware programs off the Internet, one went to computer trade shows to get this kind of stuff. Years ago (around 1990) for two bucks I purchased this program at such a trade show. (In fact, I still have the original 5 1/4 inch diskette!)

I recently took a look at it this program again and it brought back a lot of memories. It's a chess program with the simplest of graphics... if you can call them graphics. It uses ASCII characters to display the pieces!

The program was written by David Hendricks and John T. Bell over a period of three years. This is version 2.30 and to my knowledge, was the last version released.

The four files that make up the program are zipped up and are only about 78KB in size.

(Trust me, if you don't wish to download this I won't be disappointed.)