As part of reinventing the main page blog, I've started a member of the week feature. Each edition will feature a new member along with his or her most memorable posts along with an interview. This thread will also contain the posts, so you can read and post comments and questions about the feature. Suggestions are welcome, as this is new and I'd like to hear what people think!


Here's the first edition:

In this new series, we'll be profiling a forum member each week. We'll include an interview, along with some of the member's most memorable posts.

Wildman was a natural choice for the first member of the week because of his thoughtful posts and willingness to help other forum members. This can be seen in posts like his contribution to our discussion of reasons for controlling the center and his discussion of his personal history with the Sicilian. One of my favorite posts of his was "Wildman strolls down memory lane," an analysis of a game he played back in the 1970's. He's also been an active participant in our group correspondence games, serving as informal captain of the white team in our latest game. He has also contributed a great deal of analysis for our correspondence match against the Cumnor Chess Club.

Here's our interview:

How did you get into chess?

Wildman: I was six years old and I saw a YMCA commercial on TV with two people playing chess. The camera angle was sort of low and it showed one of the players moving this odd looking piece diagonally across the board amongst a bunch of other looking pieces making a dramatic capture at the end. I just thought that was so cool. So I asked my parents if they knew how to play "chest" which is what I thought the game was called. Turns out that my father was about as strong a player as you can be (effective strength ~1300 UCSF) without studying the game or playing against serious players, and he taught me how to play and was my primary opponent for the next six years.

How long have you been playing?

W: At the risk of sounding Clintonesque, it depends on what you mean by "playing." Since I'm going to turn 50 in a couple of weeks, the literal answer is 44 years but the reality is a bit more complicated. From ages 6-12 chess was primarily a way to get my dad to spend time with me, since he was very busy professionally and didn't know how to relate to children very well. From ages 12-16 I was a complete fanatic, both playing and studying any chess book I could get my hands on. During those years I probably played 5,000 games (including a lot of blitz) and pushed my effective playing strength from ~1200 to ~1950 UCSF, though my highest rating was only 1713 UCSF since I never played in enough tournaments for my rating to catch up to my ability. From ages 16-47 I was retired and only played the occasional game when some friend or acquaintance challenged me. Over the last three years, I've been reading and studying again but playing very little. Part not playing has to do with being an older dad who has a 2.5 year old son; it's a lot easier to read a chess book holding a sleeping child than it is to set up the pieces and actually study something or go on the Internet. Part of it is has to do with not having fully exorcised the old psychological demons that caused me to quit when I was 16.

What do you play generally with white?

W: I've been a 1. e4 player all my life, though if I start playing seriously again that's likely going to change to 1. d4 (followed by a quick c4). Hanging around CV.TV though, it's hard not to have a little guy in red tights and a pitch fork sitting on your shoulder saying, "Play Bird's opening..."

What do you play with Black?

W: Back in the early 1970s I played the Sicilian Dragon against 1. e4 and the Grunfeld against 1. d4 -- and you never saw anything else. (OK, I had one tournament game where White played 1. c4, but that was it in four years of tournament play.) Today, things are so much more complicated since off-beat openings are so much more common. If I start playing seriously again, it'll probably be either the Sicilian Sveshnikov or the Sicilian Najdorf against 1. e4, the Dutch against 1. d4, 1... c5 against 1. Nf3 or 1. c4, and I haven't figured out what to do against most of the others yet.

Bishop or Knight?

W: Is the position open or closed?

If you had a choice between studying an endgame or going over an opening variation, which would you choose?

W: These days I'd have to say opening variation, though it would probably be better for my game if I studied endgames.

Do you have any favorite players?

W: Kramnik and Anand. Both of them seem to be gentlemen as well as great players. I had to remove Topalov from my list after Toiletgate, even though I really like the way he plays chess.

How did you find out about CV.TV?

W: I saw an ad on chessville.com.

Any other hobbies?

W: Movies (old, new, in English, subtitled, Samurai, you name it -- I'll even go to chick flicks with or without my wife); non-chess reading (especially science fiction/fantasy, but I'll read anything interesting); games (bridge, other cards, backgammon, Scrabble, go, Rummikub, etc.).

Anything else we should know about you?

W: Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA; married seven years; one son; went to school at Stanford; was an electrical engineer for 26 years with 52 patents to my credit; currently work as a patent agent at a medium size semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. Best chess results: equal first in the 1973 Los Angeles County Junior High School Championship, 5th in the 1974 Western US High School Championship, once drew a tournament game as Black against a player rated 2450 USCF.


That's it for this edition of ChessVideos.TV forum member of the week. If you have comments, suggestions, thoughts, or would like to nominate someone for member of the week, send me an e-mail (josh@chessvideos.tv)

Good idea and great interview!

Nice interview!

I think there could be even more questions.

Some suggestions:
What is your greatest achievement in chess?
What is the most useful chess wisdom you have heard?
How would you describe your style in chess?
What is the best thing in chess?
What is the worst thing in chess?
What is the greatest chess game you have seen (with link to chessgames or somewhere)?
What is your greatest strength in chess?
What is your greatest weakness in chess?
What is your favorite chess book?
What it takes to be a good chess player?
What is the best way to learn chess?
How big percentage should openings study be from total chess study time?
What single thing you did or learned helped you most to get better at chess?
etc..

Glad everyone likes it. And thanks for the suggestions poGGa! The question list is evolving, so I'll keep those in mind

Very good interview. And a good pick for the first interview. Wildman always comes across as very helpful and just an all around class act when it comes to everything. (Not that there aren't a whole host of other people I could say the same thing about here, which must have made it a really hard choice.)

Aw, shucks... You guys are going to make be blush...

BTW, I just noticed I acquired a new title under my name instead of "rook" or whatever I was before. Does that mean that next week my title will change to "Member of Last Week"?

L8erz...
=wild=

This week's member of the week is.... ARMIS!!

Here's the front-page post, complete with pictures (which I couldn't quite get working on the front page):

ChessVideos.TV member of the week: armis!

armis is one of the most active and helpful forum members. Early, on he gained a reputation as an “endgame virtuoso” after posting an excellent video on endgames involving bishops of the same color. It's still one of the best endgame lessons in our video library. Additionally, armis is the moderator and mastermind of “armis' Exercises to Solve”, a collection of fun and instructive positional exercises he wrote (although there's also a fascinating one member Oginschile wrote). Finally armis' excellent training journal provides an entertaining look at his development as a player. Whether through his analysis or puzzles and videos, armis is one of the friendliest and most helpful posters we have at ChessVideos.TV.



How did you get into chess?
I fell in love with chess when I was 17 years old. Here is my story: My other passion besides chess is skateboarding. So once I hurt my leg badly and had to spend quite some time sitting at home. I decided this shouldn't be just a waste of time and came up with a solution. Isn't chess the game of the clever ones? I thought, why not learn it then? My brother used to play with father from time to time. As an older brother I thought this should be a piece of cake to beat a 11 year old. My mistake, I lost but I really really liked playing! So I got a copy of chessmaster10th and slowly started learning the game by watching Josh's Waitzkin's tutorials and getting my butt kicked against computer opponenets. I just couldn't stop

How long have you been playing?
Two to three years now

Who is your favorite player of all time?
Hmm... Not sure because I like the way they all played: Either it's Petrosian's prophylaxis, Tal's crazy sacrifices or Capablanca's endgame genius. At first Tal was my hero, then Fischer, now I kind of don't have my favorite. Booooring... Ok I pick Kasparov

Have any chess books had a major influence on your development as a player?
My first chess book was a really old one by Capablanca. I think it is called "Chess Fundamentals" However I was really lasy reading books ( I still am! Although I try to change this ) because there are so many lectures in video format these days: Chessbase DVDs, ICC lectures and so on. Though I was mainly influenced by Josh's Waitzkin's lectures in Chessmaster10th, those had a major influence for sure

What is your best chess result?
Once I played in a 15min team tournament and in one of the rounds we got paired with the strongest team which eventually won the tournament. I was on board one and faced a 2200+ guy. My team mates even wrote the result ( 0-1 which means I lost )before we started playing And then an amazing thing happened: he won pawn but I started an attack, eventually he blundered and had to give up a piece! I had about 50 seconds on my clock and he had more than 4 minutes left and offered me a draw. I thought I would rather loose that game on time than accept a draw. I won!

Do you have a favorite chess game?
Garry Kasparov vs Ulf Andersson Tilburg, 1981 One of my favorite games of all time. I was thinking about making a move by move exercise out of it one day...

Do you have a favorite chess quote?
This one cheers me up “Why must I lose to this idiot?” Aron Nimzovich

Bishop or Knight?
Ouch.. This is my biggest weakness! I am a big fan of the bishop pair. If I have a chance I relentlesly try to grab the pair and often get into serious trouble because of that

How did you find out about CV.TV?
I was just looking for cool chess sites on google and found this one. This is by far one of my greatest discoveries! And I have to admit it might be as great as the Christopher Columbus one

Any other hobbies?
I've been skateboarding since I was like 15 or so. I did it and liked it so much that I even got sponsored by a local skateshop which is really cool. Here are some photos of me





I still do it these days, though not as frequently as I used to

Anything else we should know about you?
Born in 1988 15th of may, a lasy 19 year old student of physics in the Vilnius university. My parents are divorced so I live with my mom and my brother. It's dangerous to leave me and my brother in the same room for more than 15min we are fighting all the time! I almost have a zoo at home: a guinea pig, a rat and a dog who often times thinks he is a dinosuar. I'll limit myself to my dinosaur's photo, here he is with all his charm:

Great interview, cool skateboarding pictures, cute dog picture, go armis!

Impressive! You have gotten good very fast!

Hey armis,

Welcome to your 10,080 minutes of fame! It goes by faster than you think...

L8erz...
=wild=

PS -- I too am impressed that you've only been playing three years. You've come a long ways in that time.

Woo Armis!

Nice pics of you skateboarding, quite cool.

Congrats Armis!

Thanks to all of you

I was really nervous about this interview getting posted. Wondering if I didn't write anything too dumb... Thanks for your support

This week's member of the week is.... ROBOFRIVEN!

Here's the front page post:

Robofriven is one of the most active posters in the ChessVideos forums and is one of the hardest working players on the site. Since joining, his chess strength has increased tremendously, in large part due to his hard work on his training journal, where he's posted lots of excellent analysis. Robofriven has also posted lots of detailed analysis in the game replays forum, including this annotation of a game Wildman played. Robofriven has also acted as ChessVideos.TV's resident chess journalist, securing an interview with chess author Jeremy Silman. Thanks for everything you've contributed to the site, Robofriven!

Here's our interview...

How did you get into chess?

I learned to play chess when I was a little kid, like everyone I knew, but didn't really get into it. It seemed to be really involved and I couldn't really get the grasp of how things were done. I still remember the first time someone castled against me and I yelled at them for 10 minutes calling them a cheater. Through the years I'd play a little here and there until finally I gained a little appreciation for the game. When I was 19 (6 years ago now) some of my friends liked playing chess so we'd play while we drank at their house. I still wasn't very good at all, and hated waiting while one of my friends would move because I wanted the game to move fast. About a year ago I got back into the game and started going through all the lessons on chessmaster 9th edition, I loved how Waitzkin would talk about the game and probably my love for the game now can be credited to those very lessons.

How long have you been playing?
Very much off and on through the years, but I think I've only been actively playing and studying chess for about 4-6 months.

Who is your favorite player of all time?
I don't know that many chess players, but I have to say that possibly either Waitzkin for instilling the love in the game that I have through his lessons and listening to his passion for the game or Silman for just being an all around awesome guy who was really fun to talk to (over e-mail) and so helpful in giving tips to people who e-mail him and of course being nice enough to do the interview for me.

Have any chess books had a major influence on your development as a player?
The first chess book I bought was a discounted used copy of Chess for Dummies, it was pretty good (as all the... for Dummies books are) But I'd say the book that has given me the most help in my game has definitely been How to Reassess Your Chess.

What is your best chess result?
I haven't been lucky enough to play in a tournament yet, but I"ve had a few really good games against people rated int he 1750 range on FICS which I am quite proud of.

Do you have a favorite chess game?
I haven't been studying as many chess games as I should or have been meaning to. But I looked at a game the other day that I really liked. I got it off of Silman's website, it's B. Gurgenidze vs M Tal Moscow 1957 ( http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game-re ... hp?id=1929 ) I really like the way his sacrifice and the dominating bishops take over the whole thing.

Do you have a favorite chess quote?
The quote of the day here led me to this one: "The blunders are all there on the board, waiting to be made." - Tartakower It reminds me of my play because I still make blunders far more than I should.

Bishop or Knight?
I've always been partial to bishops. Knights have their charms as well, but I've been stronger with Bishops as long as I can remember.

How did you find out about CV.TV?
I was looking for chess stuff on the internet and this site popped up. I actually looked at the front page 2 or 3 times before I finally payed any attention to the site, once I finally started looking at the content I was hooked.

Any other hobbies?
Physics has always interested me, I'm also in the SCA a group the re-creates the middle ages where we do dancing, crafts and put on armor and fight with wooden weapons and shields and such when I can afford to go to the tournaments.

Anything else we should know about you?
I have a tendency to be rather verbose, so thanks for wading through my blatherings. (I also like emoticons but ALWAYS make them with a nose, cause they look weird without it.)

That's it for this edition of ChessVideos.TV forum member of the week. If you have comments, suggestions, thoughts, or would like to nominate someone for member of the week, send me an e-mail (josh@chessvideos.tv).

Hey Robo,

Way to go! Welcome to your 10,080 minutes of fame!

armis and I will save a chair by the fire for you!
_____

Hey armis,

Welcome to the ranks of the formerly famous...


L8erz...
=wild=