There's a first time for everything

You probably all know the saying "There's a first time for everything" (yes, another post that doesn't have anything to do with chess improvement). Well today, (or maybe it was yesterday) i showed up on the ChessBookie game leaderboard for the first time :-)

Here's the proof


For those of you who do not know what the game is about, view this earlier post. All current bets are on Kramnik-Topalov World Championship Match. So far i have made 8 bets (5 of them are still running) and got it right 3 times. The winning bets were on who would draw first blood, who would be the round 1 winner, and who would be winning after 4 games. Respective winner in descending order; Kramnik, Kramnik, Kramnik :-) (i'm with Kramnik all the way)

Anyway, my stay on the leaderboard will probably be a short one as i have made some risky recent bets on the match with a lot of chessbucks on the line. I've betted that the round 4 first move would be a 1.e4 by Topalov, i've betted on the round 4 game length (i've predicted 30-39), and i've betted on the round 4 winner (guess who i've betted on).

!

I've recently switched to Blogger beta and it was brought to my attention that the URL to my RSS-feed might have changed. So if any of my faithfull readers isn't receiving my feed anymore, you might want to change the URL to one of the following;
http://beta.blogger.com/feeds/15994818/posts/full (Atom)
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http://beta.blogger.com/rsd.g?blogID=15994818 (RSD)

Finished tactics unit 7-11 (module 2)

Yes. I have been working on PCT. And no. Not as much as i wanted to. But i think i can get back to work on it more actively again. I just finished unit 11 and am a couple of problems into unit 12. The amount of problems presented in each unit, continues to grow as you can see in the image. I started out doing 90 problems per unit, which increased to 135 at unit 8. And now at unit 12, the amount grew to 150. While it may not seem like all that much, lack of activity can make finishing a unit a daunting task. Interesting side note, International Master Attila Turzo also likes using the Personal Chess Trainer software.

Bent Larsen selling 1927 portrait of Capablanca???

Apparently, legendary GM Bent Larsen is selling an original signed photograph portrait of world champion José Raúl Capablanca on eBay.

The picture is claimed to be the only existing portrait of the world champion from the period when he was challenged by Alexander Alekhine. In fact it was taken on the day before the start of the match. It goes without saying we are talking about a very unique item. An item I personally would like to hold on to. So what's up with that? Is the man in need of money? The starting bid stands at US $22,000 plus $50 shipping costs. At the time of the article which brought the selling to my attention, at ChessBase, you had only five days left to place your bids. Which makes it about three now. Too bad i don't have US $22,000 to spend.

Blogger beta

I've switched to Blogger beta. It promises all kinds of new stuff. Like customizing the design of your blog.

If only they were able to complete my request.

It goes without saying i've tried more then once. But from the looks of thing's, it seems i'm not going to be pimping my blog today. Anybody else made the switch?

So i got this email...

from DGT Projects (equipment provider to Vladimir Kramnik), asking me for a link and/or review of their ChessTheatre PGN Viewer & Publisher
. So here you have it. The PGN viewer & publisher requires that you have your own little webspace to upload it to. Webspace should be provided with your Internet connection. My best guess is that uploading it to some free web host will not work, because you need an ftp adress etc. etc. Then again, i'm not that much of a whiz kid when it comes to the Internet, so i can't say for sure if it's really out of the question. If you are more of a whiz kid then i am with time to spare, be my guest and see if you can get it to work on a free webhost. Anyway, it really is a great viewer/publisher for your games. Click the link and see/try it out for yourself.


Now what do i get in return for taking time out and advertise for free?

Question

Anyone of my readers familiar with this software?

Six World Champions
I have come across it (surfing the web) on a number of occasions and i would like to know your opinion about it. Especially when you have real experience with it. At first glance it looks interesting enough to make me want to purchase it.