Messages posted by: Chessaba

The Birth of www.ChessTube.org or My Dad's Obsession
By: Aviv M. Caspi, Bellevue, WA 4/2009

“Can you believe I can’t find one?” my father asked as he stepped into my room. It was 11:00 and, as I struggled to catch up on all my homework before salvaging a few hours of sleep, my dad had been busy searching for a way to share my chess games online with my friends and coach. My dad suffered under the delusion that I think we all feel: that the Internet has everything possibly needed and can solve every problem.

We had just returned from the 2008 High School National Chess Championship in Dallas and my dad, ever the time-saver, wanted a way to put my games online so that my coach could look at them before my next lesson. He sought a little applet where he could play out the games that I had played at Nationals and have the site convert the file into common chess notation, or PGN. When he couldn’t find such a site Lior Caspi was astounded.

After two weeks of searching, the unbelievable conclusion that such a site did not exist sank in. Millions of domains, thousands of websites, hundreds of sites related to chess and no way of sharing games? So, instead of saying “That’s too bad” and emailing my coach the moves I made, he began exploring ways of creating his own site that would fit his needs. I was adamantly against the idea since it wasn’t absolutely necessary and he already controlled two other sites: a homepage for my family and www.myretirementday.com (a sort of retirement calculator where future retirees can input information about their age, salary, assets, and wanted amount to live on when retired in order to receive information about how to “bridge the financial gap” between where they are and where they want to end up).

However, my dad did not even consider the option of not trying, so he looked around for a way to create the interactive applet. My dad utilized a little-known site called www.rentacoder.com, a sort of eBay for programming jobs. The way I understand it, any prospective user makes an account and creates an explanation for the job they want performed, as well as a price they are willing to pay. Then, coders from around the world bid on the project with the minimum price that they would complete the requirements for. Within a couple of days, a coder from Buenos Aires, Argentina bid on the project and got started. After two months of one-line, pessimistic, weekly reports from the coder, my dad asked for a model. The coder refused. Emails went back and forth until finally, four months after the project was created, the coder sent him a screenshot of a chess board. Obviously, my dad was extremely disappointed and angry, so he pulled the money out of escrow, where it had been untouched, and looked for a new coder.

Despite the setback, Lior worked with his friend and frequent squash partner, Bob Lockwood, to set up the website, forum, and logo. Every night, oblivious to the mountains of homework that I was trying to complete, my dad would rush into my room, sit on my bed behind me, and excitedly explain his new idea of the day. Although I was stressed and tired, I had to admit the creative ideas my dad concocted were useful, needed, and surprisingly easy to integrate.

A HVACs technician who goes by the name of Nomadfeetproduction finally responded to the offer and insisted on creating the system from scratch, as opposed to using an open-source, existing applet. During this time I got countless lectures about JavaScript, programming, and the different ideas that my dad was considering incorporating into his site every time we were outside taking the dog out, driving, or eating. One of the improvements that my dad is very proud of is his modeling of www.YouTube.com both in the site’s name, and in the unique URLs of each game, allowing users to send links of their games to non-members. Within two weeks of making the agreement with Nomadfeet, my dad received a working prototype fitted with all the rules and limitations of competitive chess. That night my dad was literally prancing around the kitchen screaming his excitement, not a toddler with a new toy, but a toddler with an unlimited gift card to Toys-R-Us.
One month of hundreds of emails and limitless upgrades later, a near-perfect applet launched on a new website, www.chesstube.org, along with a diverse forum, comprehensive set of links, sophisticated and free registration process, and daily chess puzzle.

So, one year after the idea hatched, as I wait for my flight to the 2009 Supernationals Chess Championship in Nashville, Tennessee, my dad is carrying not only a deep pride at having his design become a reality, but a heavy stack of ChessTube business cards, pamphlets, and t-shirts!

A site was born.

Based on my teaching chess to young children, I have modified the principles usually describe by other authors to help chess players. Pay attention to the order of the principles because the ideas would likely occur at the beginning of chess games.

First Eight Chess Principles
1. Control the center. (In the opening, one immediately contest the center by moving a pawn two squares up into a central square. When signing autographs, GM Eugene Torre of the Philippines wrote “control the center” with his signature to emphasize the paramount importance of this principle. If your player would like to improve her chess dramatically, pay attention to controlling the center in the opening. By taking care of all movements in the center and ensuring dominance over this area, the player already wins half of the battle in the opening. When your child moves an outer pawn in the opening, you can always remind him that moving this outer pawn for the first move is not a good idea)…

2. Develop minor pieces quickly towards the center. (Minor pieces, the bishop or knight, should be developed in relation to fortifying the center. Remember, the fight in the opening is usually for space unless there is a premature attack. A player wants to occupy more terrain and this is done by controlling the center and not attacking the king right away. When developing pieces, it is better to support this control on the center squares.)

3. Do not move the queen out too early. (The queen is of course a piece but this is not the piece you want to develop early. This is because a queen is a valuable material, worth at least 9 chocolates. I used chocolates as a value system. A pawn of course is worth one chocolate. A bishop, three chocolates. A knight, three chocolates too. A rook, five chocolates. And the king, priceless and can be worth all the chocolates in the world in that one game and all of these will be gone when checkmated. When the queen is out too early, you can see the possibility of losing those 9 chocolates right away. The queen is vulnerable because what is offered in exchange by the opponent is just 3 chocolates. Beginning players usually try the Scholar mate, which checkmates black in 4 moves. Even GM Hikaru Nakamura, among the top if not the top player in the whole United States, being young and impetuous, tried a variant of the scholar mate by placing the queen on h5 the second move. He lost valuable tempo, and eventually lost his first try of the opening in a top tournament.)

4. Put your king into safety quickly by castling. (Proper timing of the castling is of course important. In general, castling quickly is preferred over the King being left in the center while the opponent mounts an attack. King hunt in the center is a favorite tactical motif. If you see the opponent’s king still in the center and all your pieces have been developed and your own king in his castle safely, a breakthrough or a beachhead could be established in the center by attacking the other king. Usually, breaking through the center by offering pawn exchanges or a minor piece sacrifice can be worth all the trouble when a king is caught in the center. This is of course a judgment, which has to be verified with an actual analysis of exact variations when attacking.)

5. Control tempo by exploiting weaknesses in the opening. (Though the emphasis is on playing solidly, there is a need to be vigilant as weakness may occur in the opening. It could be a hanging piece doubled with a check on the king, a knight to be pinned on the queen without another minor piece protection, or an attack on f7 without a proper piece to defend with.)

6. Always look at both Kings in every move for tactical attacks. (After the initial stages of the opening, it would always be wise to look at the kings first before anything else. If there is a check, determine if it is a good check or not. Even when your own piece is threatened to be captured, do not react in a rush by removing that piece right away. Check first if there is a check on the King and if that can be used to your own advantage. When the opponent’s King is in check, he certainly cannot just capture the threatened piece.)

7. Complete your development in the opening by connecting the rook and centralizing them. (The development is complete when the rooks are facing each other and therefore connected. There is no King or Queen between the rooks which makes them stronger and can go into any part of the back rank. They can be centralized to support the center.)

8. Make a plan based on the weaknesses of your opponent, and attack systematically. (After the completion of development, make a judgment on the position and check for weakness such as the timely pushing of the center pawn to e5, hanging pieces, weak squares, breakthrough on files that can be exploited to establish control with the rooks.)
With these first eight principles in mind, a decent game can be had by a beginner and these can make young players play better instantly. Instead of depending on memorized opening lines, these first 8 principles provide a framework for solid play

HERKY DEL MUNDO