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The Chess Advent Calendar

2025-12-02T09:23:52Z

This year's Advent calendar was made by Semja for me, and it's AWESOME! Chess all the way! :D

( Just look at this lovely modelling! )

I always admire when people are good at working with clay and/or modelling paste - it's one of the techniques I've tried, more than once, to no avail. Lucky for me that Semja has this skill!

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Spell Bottle

2025-04-26T00:03:26Z

Spell Bottle (530 words) by EllerWrites
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Chess, Fantasy, Magic, Dark Magic, Curses, Humor
Summary:

Oh, the things that can happen at chess tournaments... But no worries. Thilo has help from Henrik.

Very loosely based on a writing prompt from yhlee - thank you!!!

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Shadow Introductions

2025-04-24T20:09:27Z

Shadow Introductions (759 words) by EllerWrites
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary:

Vinn is sent to a chess club. Fennar, everyone's favorite shadow theater performer, handles the introductions. Everyone is being their charming selves.

A shorter and funnier scene today. :)

Remember how I was threatening to send poor Vinn to a chess club? Well. I did. XD For a simple "introduce the characters" scene, this was surprisingly hard: I first tried this from Vinn's point of view, but FAILED BADLY because Vinn doesn't have enough understanding of social dynamics to offer any kind of insight beyond basic physical descriptions. Which would be boring. So, uh, Fennar gets the honor. I almost wrote "no violence today", but that would be a lie. Anyway. No physical violence today. XD

I am not going to offer any further commentary, except, if you ever encounter this personality type in real life, I hope you know to RUN in the opposite direction, unless you know for sure he's a friend. He's fun to write, though. LOL

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Everyday Companions

2025-01-18T18:33:46Z

This was a drawing challenge: over at kakao-karten.de, there's a thread with weekly drawing challenges for one's sketchbook. This week, the task was to draw various objects that accompany you. Sure, I can do that! XD

Shown in this sketch:
One of my MANY MANY MANY puukkos. (Stacked birchbark handle with metal end caps; drop priofile, though that's not really visible from this perspective and at this level of scribbly-ness.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY travel watercolor boxes. (I refrained from adding paintbrushes, pencils, and pens - imagine my bag to contain a lot more art stuff than this! Also, yes, a watercolor box in monochrome looks kind of sad, but it couldn't be helped.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY travel chess sets. (No, I don't go anywhere without a chessboard. Not without chess pieces, either, but ~~I was simply too lazy to draw those~~ they would have distracted from the composition... Also, the wood of this set is actually much more reddish, but never mind.)
One of my MANY MANY MANY sketchbooks. (It's a new one that I received as a gift in my advent calendar from Taddi. Ironically, most of the art supplies I used to draw this picture - with the exception of the Liquitex marker and the book this sketch is in - are also from this advent calendar. It was a good opportunity to test the new art supplies!)

Not shown in this sketch:
The boring stuff. (Keys, wallet, feminine hygiene products, though in hindsight I almost regret not adding the latter.)

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook from antaresnox; a beige double page. (Yes, I deliberately used very thick black outlines and positioned the objects in a way to minimize the visual impact of the black bookbinding yarn... XD)
- Acrylic pens: Marabu YONO in black and white; Liquitex acrylic marker in Unbleached Titanium
- Glitter gel pens: Ohuhu Gel Ink Pen in gold and silver (on the knife)
- waterbrush (not in the photo)

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CHESS RUNES YAY!!!

2024-11-23T16:30:07Z

So, yhlee made me this super cool set of chess runes (THANK YOU!!!) that I absolutely have to show off! :D

( Some more pictures and descriptions behind the cut. )

I absolutely love this set because the whole concept is just such a great idea! I will have to play with these "runes" a bit to figure out what type of symbolism could be assigned to them in order to create a plausible (in the sense of: internally consistent) magic system. This is FUN! :D

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knight scribble

2024-06-28T17:31:32Z

A very fast drawing today. I was busy playing a game of chess (online) and scribbled while thinking. :)

Materials:
- suuuper awesome sketchbook; a light brown page this time
- Fineliner: Staedtler pigment liner, black, 0.4
- Markers: Faber Castell Pitt artist pen brush in Raw umber and Warm Grey III
- Acrylic pen: Flysea Acrylic Painter Extra Fine in white

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Shocking mail from antaresnox O_O

2024-06-24T18:50:46Z

...and I mean, shocking in a good way, but I was definitely shocked when I opened that package.

Like... Maybe you remember the lovely little handmade sketchbook that antaresnox had sent me? You remember how super happy I was? Well. They did it again. Only this time... uh.

Yeah. That's a HUGE PILE OF HANDMADE SKETCHBOOKS and I totally did not expect this. I mean, they had told me there's more where that first sketchbook came from, and asked me if I was interested (which, I mean, HELL YEAH), but I was thinking it would be, like, two or three maybe (which would already have been extremely generous, considering all the work that goes into something like this!) not... um... THIS.

It's a fascinating assortment of different papers, too - a lot of them have toned pages (which is my personal preference for sketching), but there are also some books with watercolor paper (including some papers I don't know yet but am very excited to try) and "normal" sketching paper for pencils or fineliners - in short, everything an artist needs! (I imagine this will actually keep me busy for a while...)

Now, there's a bit of a dilemma: of course, I want to SHOW OFF all those pretty sketchbooks, but I guess you guys don't want to look at sooo many pictures of paper all at once! XD So, uh, let's just start with the first of these books I'm going to use. (I will show the others in more detail when I get around to using them.) And, of course, I immediately grabbed the CHESS SKETCH BOOK WHEEEEEEEE!!!! ....ahem. Can you tell I'm excited about this?

Look at this! It's a button hole stitch binding, with a chess pawn as the button hole, and it's AWESOME!!!

Roughly postcard size (a bit smaller), toned paper in various colors inside, and I LOVE IT!!! (It's an extremely eller-y product - antaresnox knows my taste extremely well!) And the best thing is, antaresnox mentioned something about wanting to make the other 15 pieces as well, which... O_O Uh. I mean, I have no idea what I did to warrant that kind of effort, but, um, I'm hardly going to complain, right? XD It's in my bag now, so, I suppose you'll get to see a few sketches on toned paper in the next few days... (Yes, that was a threat.) I can already tell this is going to be soooo much fun! I always love handmade things, and the book lies completely flat when opened, which means it's going to be perfect for my purposes. Happy Eller is happy! :D

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Five Questions (again, because this meme is fun)

2024-05-14T01:15:56Z

Questions from yhlee. :)

If anyone wants five questions from me, just say so in the comments.

1. You can magically make any THREE watercolor pigments lightfast that aren't currently, but you have to GIVE UP a pigment forever that you currently use in your main palette(s). What are your choices?!

Oh, that's easy. I want alizarin crimson, real indigo blue, and aureolin yellow in lightfast versions, please. For that, I'd be willing to give up even my beloved indanthrene blue (PB60), because I'd replace that with the indigo and feel okay about it. Though it would probably even easier to give up my current standard cool yellow (PY184, which is very similar to aureolin in hue and wonderfully intense but unfortunately more opaque than I like) for magically lightfast aureolin.

2. What food/drink local to you confuses foreigners/tourists the most?

Mett. (Wikipedia says: "The name is derived from Low German mett for "chopped pork meat without fat", or Old Saxon meti for "food".") That's raw pork, usually eaten on bread rolls. It's very typical, and very confusing to tourists who can't believe anyone would eat this. Or should I say, it grosses out virtually all tourists?!? Tastes great, though. (Geographical food rule of thumb: the further up north you go, the more likely you are to find cultures willing to eat raw meat. It's possibly related to vitamin D intake?!?) Americans are typically entirely unwilling to even try the stuff, which is unwarranted: it's typically served with onions, which are not only a spice but also pretty good disinfectants... (Also, unsurprisingly, the local food safety rules around meat are really strict when compared to the USA.)

3. You gain the ability to magically talk to one animal species (they can talk to you too) - which one is it?

With my luck, it's probably squirrels. Dumb, noisy, aggressive towards anyone and anything, love to throw stuff... Yep. Squirrels. I'm sure those are going to be some great conversations. (If I get to choose, I'd love to talk to an octopus, please. But if it's the universe that assigns superpowers, um, yeah, I'm afraid it's really squirrels.)

4. You're trapped on a desert island with a chess grandmaster, past or present. Which one and why?

Oh hell no, that would mean something has gone very wrong in my life. I mean, of the present ones, I would have to choose one of the guys I'm personally acquainted with, simply because that's less awkward and would assure at least a minimum of cooperativeness towards mutual survival. Otherwise - I'd really want to play chess against Mikhail Tal, but that's the predictable answer, isn't it? For non-chess issues and general attitude... Probably David Bronstein. He was interesting.

5. What is the most cracktastic/bizarre Nibelungenlied-inspired work of art (opera, novel, poem, artwork, whatever) you've experienced?

I think some Nibelungenlied-inspired Third Reich propaganda fits the bill of bizarre for sure, though the 'work of art' aspect is usually questionable... (Humor is if you laugh anyway.) Otherwise... The Wagner opera stuff is also pretty bizarre on the narrative/fanfic level though at least parts of the music are pretty good. Um. And obviously there's a lot of pretty kinky fanart that's cracktastic but also true to the spirit of the original.

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Life and chess gossip WHOOPSIES

2024-05-13T20:32:52Z

So, today I found out that Mom runs into Coach (yes, my old chess coach, you know, the guy who taught me when I was an annoying little chess!kiddo) more or less regularly these days and stops to chat. O_O The thought is horrifying. Also, apparently, they gossip about recent players - Mom doesn't actually enjoy chess (though she knows the rules, obviously: it's impossible to avoid in this family) but she's kind of emotionally invested and wants to know all about chess-playing kiddos. She was asking Coach about L. (the 9-year-old girl who's strong enough to play on the adults' team), something like, "so, she's a likeable girl?", and apparently Coach was all like, "LOL NOPE SHE'S GOOD AT CHESS!"... Um... Perfect thing to say to a 'chess mom', I guess.

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So, I wrote something

2024-02-05T18:46:00Z

The Unforeseen Gambit (100 words) by EllerWrites
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Human Character(s), sentient sword - Character
Additional Tags: Chess, Swords, Fantasy, Chess Tournaments, Drabble, Magical Artifacts
Summary:

Eileen and her magical sword are playing a chess tournament.

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Five questions!

2023-10-24T22:20:05Z

I got five questions from landofnowhere, thank you! :)

1. Favorite chess opening?

That's easy - my heart belongs to the Ruy Lopez / Spanish opening with white! :D With Black, I'm a Sicilian player, but really, I'm happiest when I can play the Ruy Lopez, which is not just one of the first openings I learned as a little girl, but also frequently results in positions that suit my style well. I have something like a ridiculous 80% win rate in that opening, and I'm just sad I don't get it on the board more often.

2. Tell me about an interesting book that hasn't been translated out of German (or at least not into English)?

Huh... Books... That's an interesting question, since a) I'm not a very bookish person, and b) large parts of my collection consist of political propaganda (of any affiliation whatsoever; I'm just fascinated by the concept) and erotica (which I'm sure you don't want me to discuss here in detail). But I'll combine this with the topology question and recommend - the complete collected writings of Brouwer (yes, the guy with the famous fixed point thingy). I believe his math papers have been translated if they weren't in English in the first place (he published in different languages) but he also wrote some philosophical and personal musings that I read recently, and... Okay, frankly, I concluded the guy was insane or an utter asshole (and that's an inclusive 'or'), but this stuff sure was entertaining - and I don't think anyone ever bothered to translate it. XD

3. What's some interesting wildlife near you?

Wolves. They're cute. :) Interesting, too - some local sheep farmers keep complaining about wolves killing their sheep, and asking for compensation money from the government (which they're getting). The most interesting thing is how many of the sheep carted off to the government show gunshot wounds upon closer examination, so, at some point, the local wolves have learned how to operate firearms! Isn't that fascinating? :D

4. If you could add something to the standard school curriculum, what would it be?

Different techniques for brainstorming / systematic / prompted / assisted thinking and problem-solving. Most school stuff, unfortunately, consists of rote memorization, and even that doesn't work equally well for all learning types, so... Yeah, I'd love teachers to at least mention there are different ways to approach unknown problems, and ideally provide several methods the students can try for themselves. Otherwise? I wouldn't add anything to the school curriculum. I'd remove half the content, though. And that's being generous. Speaking as someone who used to skip a lot of school due to chess: if I return to classes after a two-month absence and haven't missed anything important, clearly, the time of young people is being wasted.

5. A fun topology thing?

All topology is fun... But, since I already mentioned Brouwer's fixed point theorem, let's stick to the historic fundamentals - I'll give a honorary mention to Milnor's Analytic Proofs of the “Hairy Ball Theorem” and the Brouwer Fixed Point Theorem since that's clearly the most amusing math paper in existence. Simple! Elegant! And... I laughed my ass off! :D Definite recommendation.

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The sketch book! :D

2023-05-24T15:35:44Z

Everyone, look at this, yhlee made me a sketch book! (To fully admire the craft that went into binding the book, look at his journal entry with more pictures and descriptions how it was made.)

The chess position on the cover isn't random - rather, it's the end position of my favorite chess grandmaster game ever, Tal - Hjartason, 1987. I squeaked when I unpacked the mystery package and saw this diagram! (It's the kind of super-weird position that, uh, has a lot of recognition value.)

The back cover is chess-themed, too. :)

And the book holds a selection of different papers in different colors! YAY! I knew some of them, but others were new to me, so I couldn't wait to test them all! The book is suuuuper fun to use, and for dmonstration purposes, I decided to show the first page of each paper section, with the picture I painted on it. Recently, I've mostly sketched with black and white acrylic pens and my watercolors, so that's what I've used here as well.

( Behind a cut, because hey, these are a lot of pictures. )

As you can see, I'm enjoying the book a lot already! :D It's not full yet, but... Only a matter of time. ^^°

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Easter fire... and Easter baking.

2023-04-09T13:09:32Z

Guys, if you're thinking that by 'Easter fire' I'm talking about the lovely Pagan tradition, you're wrong. We did not go to the Easter fires last night though I'm sure there were plenty along the riverbanks. Rather, there is a fire in some warehouses, and the city is under a dome of toxic smoke. When we woke up this morning, we were surprised there were no church bell sounds whatsoever, which was a huge surprise - usually, on Easter, all the bells are ringing, and I mean, Hamburg has many old churches with bell towers. We wondered what was going on. Oh, yeah, there's a disaster warning. Citizens are supposed to stay at home keep their doors and windows closed and switch off any ventilation systems, and if even the Christians (who were all for keeping church events open during the pandemic because the lockdowns "interfered with their religious freedom"; I still wonder how many elderly people they killed with that) collectively support that message and cancel their Easter services, I guess shit is serious.

Meanwhile, I was displaying the most important virtue of the good German lady: simulate normalcy while the world is burning. I was planning to bake today, so, I baked!

That's a traditional Easter wreath, in case you were wondering - it consists of a slightly sweetened yeast dough with milk. I used this recipe with some slight alterations. First, I halved the amount of all ingredients, because this thing needs to be eaten today (not just because of tradition but also because tomorrow it will be dry) and also, a larger one would likely not have fit in the oven. Then, the ratio of ingredients (250g flour, 125ml milk, 40g sugar, 40g butter) resulted in something that was too wet to shape properly, so I had to add a bit more flour. Oh, and I used dry yeast. By the way, the recipe's suggestion to use lemon peel in the dough is decidedly nonclassical but I went with it, and I mean, it works! (I deviated further and used a frosting made of powdered sugar and limoncello; might as well amplify the theme...) I'm kind of appalled by the idea to use extra eggs as 'placeholder' for the easter eggs while baking, as they did in that recipe, though. Wouldn't have done that even before eggs began to cost their weight in gold. It's a waste of food (I mean, you can't eat them after more than half an hour in the oven), so I simply left more space between the strands. The easter eggs I painted last night are held in place by the frosting anyway! That being said, the result tastes good, so, the recipe isn't bad, it just needed some adjustments.

Now, I'm watching the chess world championship (GM Ding Liren vs. GM Ian Nepomniachtchi) livestream. Today's the first game, and while I missed the beginning and joined in the middle of the game, it's very interesting! They're both players with very entertaining styles, so I'm very happy it turned out to be these two playing a world championship match! Also, the commenters on chess24 (GM Daniel Naroditsky and GM Anish Giri) are doing a great job. (It's a fascinating pawn endgame with knights and bishops, and without commentary by these top players I'd have no idea what's going on!)

EDIT: Ah, it's a draw now.
EDIT2: The fire seems to be under control now. I think I'll wait with opening the window, though.

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Chess Easter Eggs!

2023-04-08T22:53:02Z

It's after midnight, so, it's technically Easter Sunday now where I live... Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates, and a wonderful time to absolutely everyone! I actually don't celebrate, but I participate in the fun local traditions anyway - and clearly, the best of those is getting to paint eggs! (I'm just treating it as a generic celebration of spring.) Any excuse for some creative activity! :D

This year's easter egg theme was actually a bit of an emergency solution - I usually prefer having a variety of colors, but the only eggs available in all the local supermarkets were brown (and, let's face it, with the food situation being what it is, we were lucky there were eggs), which means I was somewhat limited. (Green and blue dyes only look good on white eggs, and yellow on brown? Forget it!) I mixed red and orange food colorant to get the background color, because I figured pure red would be too dark for proper contrast with the drawings, and pure orange wouldn't really show up on brown eggs. I drew the chess pieces with a brand new food pen (you know, the kind you also use for drawing on fondant and the like) that will be getting a 1-star review from me because it ran out of ink and I wasn't able to fill the dark areas properly, which if you ask me is wholly unreasonable after only six tiny drawings. Anyway, as improvised as they are, I'm happy I have chess easter eggs now. Silhouette style always works for me! And they were so much fun to paint! Maybe I'll eat them while playing online chess? Then again, I wanted to do some old-fashioned baking tomorrow, so, we'll see. :)

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Chess Papercut

2023-04-04T17:39:20Z

Part 1, Shadow theater, the process
Part 2, Papercuts and storytelling
Part 3, Shadow art, paper art
Part 4, Palaeolithic Animation
Part 5, More Shadows and Silhouettes

The little silhouette series goes on! This is again my own work: a fast one I did last night when I couldn't sleep. (Tidy this is not...) The material is stuff I grabbed: one of these small note paper thingies (you know, the ones that come in those cubes of, like, 1000 sheets), mounted on a white index card (A6). I'm showing it not so much for its intrinsic artistic value, but because I experimented a bit with the technique, and this is the first time I'm incorporating value gradients (created with watercolor sprinkles) in papercut work. One thing I learned is that these little note paper squares are not papercut paper. They don't just take any opportunity to tear (which is to be expected from ordinary paper, but they deform under stress. I ended up with a piece that was decidedly not a square anymore... which caused problems in the end, when gluing inevitably led to creases because the lower edge had miraculously elongated. (It's magic!) Still, I kind of like the effect with the gradients, and I'll definitely do that again - preferably in a more controlled manner. :) This was fun!

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Still More Awesome Kolthainn Fanart

2023-01-11T12:45:25Z

This time, it's super awesome fanart by yhlee that I had in my mailbox a few days ago. YAY!!!

Click here to see the wonderful ATC

The ultimate chessmaster and Shadow Queen! :D (I'm the luckiest person in the world to receive super nice fanart!)

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Awesome Kolthainn Fanart WHEEEE

2022-12-20T23:01:45Z

Look at this! I received absolutely wonderful fanart again, this time from Sockenzombie, who drew an ATC featuring Dev, some very large and very suspicious translucent chess pieces, and... an ocean.

Title of this masterpiece is "The Ocean Edge" and is, of course, a little joke about the fact that my characters believe they live on a tetrahedron. (This is not the case, but gives me the opportunity to include really weird math into my stories. It makes navigation so much more fun!) Basically, poor Dev has to assume that somewhere in the distance the ocean is dropping over an edge. :D

Maybe interesting for the artists among you: Sockenzombie wrote a detailed blog post with WIP steps and explanations.

Anyway, I'm suuuper happy!

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Interview meme

2022-11-20T22:58:16Z

By way of yhlee:

Comment below and I'll ask you five questions. Answer them in your own journal, offer to give the first five commenters their own sets of questions, and let the cycle continue!

1. If you could play chess against any chess player, present or past (or even fictional), who would it be and why?

Mikhail Tal, who else? :D I mean, I'm told often enough that my style is as weird as his - unfortunately, that's not the case, because he was brilliant and my chess is just weird but not nearly as good... But, oh, the result would be fun!

2. What is your favorite dulcimer song?

Eh. Are there songs specifically for dulcimer? I'm clueless. XD If it's "song that can be played on a dulcimer", that would be German folk songs like "Es geht ein dunkle Wolk herein" or "Ich hab die Nacht geträumet". They'll work on any type of zither, really.

3. What is your favorite meat dish?

Steak. XD
...okay, that's a primitive answer, but really, I love a good steak. I also like any and all casserole dishes involving ground meat, like moussaka. I love roast wild boar in plum sauce. And I like pizza with salami and bacon. And... I like most meat dishes, really!

4. If you had to use a limited palette of six colors/pigments, which would they be? (Sorry not sorry, my obsession with limited palettes is a DISEASE.)

Oh, that's easy.
PY154, PG7, PB15:3, PV19, PV23, PR254. These are the ones I keep buying and keep running out of. Where does all that PG7 disappear to, I wonder? XDD

5. What is one algorithm that you find aesthetically really pleasing?

This could become a very long list. :D One of my all-time favorites is one I learned as a little kid: the Monte Carlo approximation of Pi by throwing darts at a circle drawn in a square. Soooo much fun, and I remember being very impressed by the beauty of that approach! (It's also one of the first algorithms that nerdy kids learn; every single programming book and course has it as one of the first examples. Guess what? That's BECAUSE it is so neat.)

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Chess cheating, next level?!?

2022-09-08T17:11:47Z

I love GM Eric Hansen's suggestion that Niemann used vibrating anal beads for cheating. What a fun theory! I almost wrote, "that's some next-level paranoia", until remembered that no, no, it actually isn't. Not among chess players. (Compared to some incidents Korchnoi was involved in, this seems almost normal...) I guess I've been away from the serious tournament scene for too long.

Also, now that idea is in the world, someone will use it, sooner or later. It actually seems workable, so, congrats, GM Hansen. What's next, cavity searches before high-level tournaments?!? I'm SOOO glad I'm not a chess arbiter.

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Chess scandals, how I love them... LOL

2022-09-07T11:04:16Z

Sooo, the chess world has its newest scandal: a young player, GM Hans Niemann, is accused-but-not-quite-accused of cheating after winning against Magnus Carlsen in the Sinquefield Cup. Magnus Carlsen rage-quit the tournament with vague insinuations but no direct accusation. This is understandable either way. If Carlsen seriously suspects cheating, he'd bring that up with the arbiter(s) of the tournament, but would not say anything in public: if the accusations can't be proven, there's a real risk he'd be sued for slander. His re-tweet of a certain Jose Mourinho statement is a pretty clear implication, though. Now, does he suspect slander or is he simply being a sore loser? Of course, without hard evidence, there's no way for me to tell. I'm just interestedly observing everyone's reactions. And I mean everyone's. Everyone is talking about this! (So am I. LOL)

The facts of the case:
- Magnus Carlsen lost to Hans Niemann in round 3 of the Sinquefield Cup, an on-the-board tournament.
- That was not a particularly good game by Carlsen's standards.
- It was an extremely good game by Niemann's standards. GM Niemann has "only" a rating of around 2700, which is GM level but not world-class GM level. However, he's also only 19 years old, improving fast, and may be a better player than his rating indicates. Anyway: he won against Carlsen. (For that matter: repeatedly.)
- Hans Niemann has apparently been previously suspended on chess.com, presumably for cheating in online games. (No details are known, but the 6-month ban is a fact, and difficult to explain otherwise.) This may explain why some well-known chess personalities are unwilling to give him the benefit of the doubt.
- After the game, GM Niemann gave an extremely weird interview, in which he a) came across as a complete a**hole (which is not the weird part but rather usual for chess grandmasters), and b) claimed to have looked at just that super rare opening just before the game (statistically very unlikely but not impossible) and had some weird mix-ups in his chess evaluation of the game.
- Carlsen did not show up for the next round of the tournament. He did show up on Twitter, though.
- World-class player and popular chess streamer GM Hikaru Nakamura also showed up. (It needs to be mentioned that Niemann is also a chess streamer.) I guess he simply enjoys the drama, as usual.
- A summary of what everyone tweeted can, e.g., be found here: https://worldchess.com/news/all/did-hans-niemann-actually-cheat-all-the-info-so-far/

What would potential cheating look like, anyway?
- Is it possible to cheat in on-the-board chess tournaments? Yes and no. I think I've written extensively about the instances of cheating I've observed during my time as a chess-obsessed teenager. I've also mentioned that chess players tend to have a tendency to cheat. Anyone who ever organizes a chess tournament, however, knows this. Chess arbiters are some of the smartest, toughest, and most paranoid people on this planet. To cheat at a high-level tournament is... Near-impossible, I'd say.
- The first way would be direct communication with someone. This... is difficult when everything is being filmed. (At the board, there are cameras on the players at all times. Even microexpressions are recorded. You can be sure that body language experts are now all over the Niemann game to see if there's anything suspicious showing up.)
- The second would be computer use. Preferably done in the toilet stall, which is the one place that's (hopefully) not being recorded on video. However, I believe, these days, it's the standard that players and visitors are searched and have to pass a metal detector before the enter the venue. Bringing an electronics device would take some serious subterfuge. (Recent incidents of suspected computer cheating included compression socks and a tube of lip gloss.)
- The third would be off-the-board cheating. This would be... the easiest to manage, and (because of the absence of arbiters) near-impossible to prove. Basically, this would involve stuff like hacking Carlsen's computer with his opening preparation (though I don't think any of the top GMs are stupid enough to have that on a device with internet access), having someone break into his apartment (though I'd think someone at that level has private security), or paying off someone on Carlsen's team. (Seconds-turned-traitors are a good old chess tradition, after all!)

My personal take on this:
- I'm not going to hazard a guess whether there was any cheating involved or not. I don't have any evidence either way.
- Yes, GM Niemann is assumed to have cheated before. However, I'm being cynical here: even if that's true, that doesn't mean he's more likely to cheat than other players. It just means he got caught. (Also, he was a kid at the time. Kids make mistakes.) If anything, it may even imply he's just not very good at cheating, and as a result, more honest than the average chess player. We don't know.
- Also, Carlsen is known to be a sore loser. Rage-quitting a tournament with vague statements that are not-quite-accusations seems just like his style, whether he has grounds for suspicion or not. After he's also refusing to defend his world championship title, there's, of course, a lot of speculation about his current attitude and whether he even wants to keep playing professional chess or not... Again: we don't know.
- There's no evidence of cheating.
- There are other, innocuous, explanations for the weird interview: like, say, a lot of stress after a difficult game. Getting the details of your own tournament preparation wrong is still somewhat unlikely, but not unthinkable. Also, you'd think that someone who just successfully cheated against the world champion would be careful not to comment the game on camera... Though, of course, weirder things than that have happened, too.
- Computer assistance would not just be difficult to pull off. If anything like that occurred, however, several top players have pointed out that Niemann's style during the game in question was "human", that is, he made weaker moves where humans generally go wrong compared to engines. That is: the player would have to be able to decide when not to accept the engine's suggestions... Which, at that level, would imply a level of play that makes engine use quite unnecessary.
- So, if there was any foul play involved, my guess is it was most likely off the board... Which will make an interesting chess story one day. Because, hey, chess players are highly paranoid individuals, and circumventing a world champion's personal security measures would take something. XD
- Carlsen suspecting someone in his inner circle to sabotage him would, of course, also be an excellent reason to quit a tournament...

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Celebrations: The Ultimate Advent Picspam

2021-12-24T18:50:59Z

Merry Christmas, to all who celebrate – and a wonderful time to absolutely everyone!!!

I haven’t posted much lately – I’m very busy with science. This is a good thing, of course. Still, I really regret not showing you all the woooonderful things I’ve received during the Advent time. I had three Advent calendars this year (from smilestack, linaly, and Sam_Linnifer) and also received some lovely unrelated Christmas mail… So, this is going to be a picspam post – you have been warned. (Pictures are behind the cut.)

I can’t show everything I received, although all my gifts were awesome: there was a lot of fanart involving my own characters (YAY!!!), tea (I’m drowning in tea!), chocolate, other fascinating foodstuff, a virtual museum tour of a mineralogical exhibition, conducted by my own characters (double YAY!!!), and art and craft supplies to last me a lifetime. :D Also, I made some stuff for other people, but that will have to go into a separate post. This one is just for awesome handmade things I received!

Sooo - these craft projects were all made by other people for me; I’m giving the appropriate credits, of course… And I’m amazed (and, in some cases, shocked) how well people know me, my taste, and my occasionally odd preferences.

( Here are the pictures: )

THANK YOU!

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Checkmate!

2021-08-11T13:46:19Z

, pa

This is a painting I made for makkapakka. Originally, it was supposed to be square format, so most of the motif is centered in the middle - but I don't own any square watercolor paper, so... I filled the rest of the format, too.

The size of the painting is A6 (postcard size). I used a variety of materials, here: the drawing was made with black fineliners including a broad chisel-tipped one. The coloration was done mainly with watercolors (different manufacturers), with some acrylics and acrylic pens for highlights and to correct "mistakes" (especially on the yellow pieces) where I accidentally overpainted. The white sparkle is acrylic ink.

I really like the result, and I think the next time I get postcards printed this will be one of the pictures... Because, clearly, I'm suffering from a lack of chess postcards. LOL

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Status: chess training

2021-07-18T23:53:07Z

Some statistics about my training on Chessable:

- 178 courses on the dashboard. That’s a ridiculous workload, I know. But, as I’ve mentioned before, I become more efficient when there’s more to do. So, from a psychological standpoint, overloading my to-do-list means I really get more stuff done!

- 38 of those, I actually *finished*. Considering I’ve been on Chessable for 64 days now, that’s 1,7 days per course. Pretty efficient, I’d say – though, of course, many of these courses were free and very short. (Of course, I didn’t do the same amount of work every day: most chess was done on the weekends, with only a bit of evening nerdery before going to sleep otherwise. I have other things to do during my workdays… It's just that I spend the downtime others relax in front of the TV doing chess instead. LOL)

If we only look at the “big” courses I’ve finished, I was, fortunately, *still* efficient (at about one “big” course per week, that is, per weekend). Here’s a list of what I did! (Just ignore if you're not interested in the finer points of my training schedule.)

( cut for extreme chess training nerdery )
...as you can see, I'm pretty ambitious. XD

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Life

2021-07-15T15:26:27Z

Life's okay.

- I have received a few worried messages due to the situation in Germany right now... I'm fine. My family is fine. The north is not affected in the least - it's hot with only a bit of rain, while large parts of the south are flooded. (We don't know how high the floods are: some measuring stations are entirely under water, too. This is how you know things are bad...) I just hope they manage without further loss of life until the water level goes back.

- Things with mail delivery and food and stuff are a bit chaotic these days, but I understand why that is. Also, we have learned from the pandemic, and we have food supplies for several weeks in case things get disrupted worse. We're safe. (We may want to stock up on toilet paper, though.)

- If all goes well, I'll get my second dose of the vaccination in one and a half weeks. Yay!

- I received a very cute chess puzzle from yhlee in the mail! :D Bishop diagonals sure are evil... So are discovered checks. XD I'll send a postcard back, using my own set of chess stamps... I already know the perfect checkmate-in-two! (Just don't be too surprised if mail takes a while to arrive.)

- I don't have any time for creating chess content right now (very busy), but those who are here for the chess may want to look at this very nice composition by makkapakka. A beautiful checkmate!

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Fairy Chess

2021-06-13T21:08:06Z

Fairies playing chess on a flower that was, basically, made for it... :)

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