Hi from new member Siva/ England.

Hi All,
my name is Siva and I live in England 35 years old male. I have joined ICS course to improve my chess skills.
Neither I am a beginner nor I am a very strong player. I have also recently joined in one of the chess clubs in London to participate in league matches initially. Mmm, what to say , I would like to become a GM in the future. Thats why this time i have taken it very seriously.

I have come across Blue Devil Night posts in internet and came across to this forum. This is a very nice place to discuss all the issues.
I was busy from past one week in collecting lot of materials and softwares for chess so that my preparation will go smoothly.

Hope I will find chess lovers who suits to my interests too. !!

Basically, I am a Software Systems Architect and mathematics related guy, so, hopefully I will find more fun in chess.

Thank you once again for reading all my crap in this post. I will be in regular touch with all of you and will share my experience with ICS material and preparation very soon & frequently.

Cheers
/Siva
London,England.
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Chess is a beautiful game it has to be played beautifully -.
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Hello and welcome. I'm sure if you stay committed you'll reach your title goal. Did you buy the openings module too? If not I'd recommend to buy that as well as I'm personally finding it very useful. I've been studying the course for 3 months now and have already jumped up 300 ratings points from 1500-1800 on the chess site I play on.

Hi,
Thanks for the warm welcome. Yes, i have taken openings module course too. congratulations on your progress. Hope, I will also improve myself.
yes, the opening material is very much useful. But, lets see how I can get most out of it.

Good then u are the senior to me to get good tips. !!

Great to have you. It seems the UK is getting better and better represented here!

Don't forget software engineers and mathematics, we are 2 now ! But if i count only software related guys, i think we are much more.

Great goal indeed, wishing to be a GM. Personnally, i did not put the helm so high.

G'day Siva. Nice to have you here :-)

I didn't set my goals so high either. I'd be happy with any kind of title, my first aim is top of my club. Second goal is to compete and do well at state level and if I get that far, I'll aim for IM. I doubt I'll get that far though.

And isn't any software development person going to be involved with mathematics?!

Welcome and good luck with your goals.

You already have a leg up if you know software. Almost all chess software is poorly documented with an outrageous learning curve. If you find something really good let us know!

thank you guys for your wishes and welcome messages.
Well, as I have told before, I was collectin all my material to move forward along with ICS. here what I have followed.

1. Subscribed to ICS. ( i am in now in first month )
2. Bought Deep Rybka x64 engine ( commercial )
3. Fritz12 ( commercial ) ( which will give one year playchess.com premium account)
4. StockFish 1.8 engine ( second to world champion rybka ) ( Free )
5. Playchess.com premium account ( commercial-yet to be activated ) , i will be playing only in playchess.com where it is good and we can attend seminars from GMs and play with them in exhibition matches
6. joined metropolitan chess club in london (commercial - 80 pounds per annum)
7. Arena GUI software with stockfish ( Freeware )
8. Scid software ( freeware )
9. chessbase database ( commercial)
10. chessbase light premium (2009) ( commercial)
11. Follow the below link for all very good chess games and u will find very good collection no need to have commercial database.
http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/ ( free )
12. http://pgnmentor.com ( free chessgames)
13. I am trying whether I can download chessassistant 11 if I can get in internet for free -), if not will have arrange my budget in it.
14. chessmagnetschool free version which will give very good amount of puzzles to progress further.

Books
14. B-ford Modern Chess openings book ( around 13 pounds )
15. 5334 chess puzzles from amazon ( 13 pounds )

Mmm, for next 5 years, i have very good sufficient material to master.

One way I can judge myself is If I am able to hold my equal position both with DEEP RYBKA & STOCKFISH till 55 moves on board without a checkmate ( only 1.5 hour games ), then i can say its time to beat anybody in classical game of one hour in the world. !!

If you have any more information, please let me know, so that I will include your suggestions in my plan. !!
Cheers

well, regarding mathematics ..... !!!

I am a computer science and engineering graduate. so, obviously, I am good at mathematics. Btw, currently studying astrophysics and financial mathematics in london ( preparing myself for next master degree ) will be starting from next year. !! so, i have to be good at mathematics. !! Usually, all are not related to mathematics, although they belong to software, so I am lucky in that point of view. !! cheers.
I never know, may be one day i will develop my own software chess engine will be posting for free just like stockfish -. !!

Don't make a chess overdose.

siva.uk75 wrote:thank you guys for your wishes and welcome messages.
Well, as I have told before, I was collectin all my material to move forward along with ICS. here what I have followed.

1. Subscribed to ICS. ( i am in now in first month )
2. Bought Deep Rybka x64 engine ( commercial )
3. Fritz12 ( commercial ) ( which will give one year playchess.com premium account)
4. StockFish 1.8 engine ( second to world champion rybka ) ( Free )
5. Playchess.com premium account ( commercial-yet to be activated ) , i will be playing only in playchess.com where it is good and we can attend seminars from GMs and play with them in exhibition matches
6. joined metropolitan chess club in london (commercial - 80 pounds per annum)
7. Arena GUI software with stockfish ( Freeware )
8. Scid software ( freeware )
9. chessbase database ( commercial)
10. chessbase light premium (2009) ( commercial)
11. Follow the below link for all very good chess games and u will find very good collection no need to have commercial database.
http://www.chessgameslinks.lars-balzer.info/ ( free )
12. http://pgnmentor.com ( free chessgames)
13. I am trying whether I can download chessassistant 11 if I can get in internet for free -), if not will have arrange my budget in it.
14. chessmagnetschool free version which will give very good amount of puzzles to progress further.

Books
14. B-ford Modern Chess openings book ( around 13 pounds )
15. 5334 chess puzzles from amazon ( 13 pounds )

Mmm, for next 5 years, i have very good sufficient material to master.

One way I can judge myself is If I am able to hold my equal position both with DEEP RYBKA & STOCKFISH till 55 moves on board without a checkmate ( only 1.5 hour games ), then i can say its time to beat anybody in classical game of one hour in the world. !!

If you have any more information, please let me know, so that I will include your suggestions in my plan. !!
Cheers

That's quite a collection!

I'm not sure what Scid is, I think I reall it to be a freeware similiar to Bookup which is what I use for managing my openings.

If you have Chessbase there's probably not much value in buying Chess Assistant. I use CA because it costs a lot less.

One interesting software not on your list is Freezer. Basically it allows extending endgame table bases to more than the 6 man tables currently available. It's not for everyone; what I like about it is that once I've set up the rules and generated the tables I can freely move the pieces and get a good feel for endgames. In fact I often us it in place to the tablebases because of the interface. I also benefit in the rule construction which requires considerable thought on how a position could be played.

Maybe with your skills you can put all of these features under a single GUI and save us all a lot of time, headaches and money.

Hi Pawn,
thank for the info, mmmm , seems, freezer i have missed it lets see whether i can get some free freezer -.
I think once I reach end game level, may be i require it. !! Thats nice,

will include freezer in my list. !! tomorrow evening is my club night lets see how many games, i will loose ... ;)). !!