Posts made by KaLeu

@djensen I see… yes, that may be the case. However, I suppose it’s also possible that other users are having the same issue I had and which has now been solved by following Panther’s suggestion (see above). Especially if ‘Invisible’ has become the default after the conversion. On the old forums, my own setting was ‘visible’.

@Panther said in The new forum has been a lot of work and it's not done yet:

@KaLeu Please perform a hard refresh (reload) with your browser the next time you set yourself to “online” and try again, then.

Thanks, that worked. After I did a Ctrl-F5, I could indeed set it and it now remains at ‘Online’, even after logging out and in. Problem solved!

@Panther Thanks. As for #1, I’ll just wait and see, it’s not a big thing.

As for #2: regardless of what I select, it stays at ‘Invisible’ and I still can’t see myself at https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/users?section=online
I can see a few others though, so there must be a difference somewhere. And I think that more people are having this issue because the number of people I see online is typically much smaller than with the old forums.

@Topmat To which I respond 2… d5, making it a Caro-Kann indeed.

@Panther Thanks, that’s excellent. Who knows, maybe others will start other games there as well.

Alright, let’s give it a shot! I won’t use engines, databases, chess books, or the advice of other players. But I can’t make any promises on posting frequency either. Life does tend to get in the way and my tendency towards procrastination doesn’t really help there.
But if that’s all fine with you, then here is:

1 … c6

Good luck!

Thanks again for all the work done on the forums!

I have two questions, rather minor issues really.

1. My posts show my login name now instead of my full name, as it used to be on the old forums. I’m sure that this has been addressed before, but I can’t find it. Is it a setting I need to change somewhere?
2. When viewing the online users, I don’t see myself. Is this also a setting?

Thanks in advance for letting me know!

I think of myself as a retired chess player, though I occasionally consider un-retiring myself. At my best, some 25 years ago, I was a pretty strong player, and I’m still rated at well over 2300 on FIDE’s rating list, FIDE being the world chess federation. That rating no longer reflects my current playing strength of course. There are several reasons for me not to play anymore. Time constraints, other interests – but also, annoyance at my own game and performance. To reach my former level would require a massive time investment. It’s a difficult game.

But playing in a chess tournament can be a very rewarding experience. The chess crowd is very diverse and you’ll meet people from all walks of life. I fondly remember tournaments I played during summer holidays long ago, with a group of friends from my chess club, visiting great cities like London or Berlin, and having a very good time overall. So by all means, go for it!

How to improve in chess? Well, it requires some work. Just playing will probably also help, but don’t expect miracles if you don’t study the game. I’ve known chess players who never improved even after decades of play. Not a big deal of course as long as they’re having fun, but some are more ambitious. It’s tempting to study opening books, but I’d recommend tactics, endgame, strategy. There are plenty of good books on tactics, but the easy way is just to try and solve online chess puzzles. Chess is a game of pattern recognition, and the more pattern’s you’ve seen the better player you’ll be.
As for playing - try to play strong opponents. Losing may not be much fun, but it won’t kill you and it will make you stronger. Some people think that it’s more ‘fun’ to just play against equally strong opponents, but they typically won’t get past that specific level. Which is not a big deal if that level suits you just fine! But the prime reason I once hit 2300 was that I had a group of friends at roughly that same level - some a bit better, some a bit worse, but we improved a lot by fighting each other over the chess board.

And DoManMacgee does offer some good advice here too: your overall physical condition is something to be aware of, and it’s a key factor for today’s world class players. Though I must admit that in the old days, my own ‘preparation’ didn’t necessarily exclude a night of beer swilling and blitz games……

Maybe my eyesight isn’t all that great, but I’m having a hard time seeing all the units at this resolution., especially the German ones. How many Germans are there in Eastern Poland? It seems to me like the Russians can hit that force, but I’m not sure, and I can’t readily distinguish the Russian planes either.
One thing I do see though, is a single Russian inf in Amur while there are also 12 Russian inf in Buryatia. I think that’s one too many?

Game 11 started less than an hour ago and is already looking drawish. Magnus seems to be aiming for the tiebreak which will likely favor him.

Kudos to both of you for all your hard work and dedication over many years.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the event that is commonly held to be the end of World War I: the armistice on the Western Front. Germany’s war effort was on the verge of collapse both militarily and domestically, and its allies had already signed separate armistice agreements during the preceding months. The signing took place early in the morning, the ceasefire went into effect at 11 AM.

Formally speaking, the notion that World War I ended with this armistice is incorrect. Hostilities had ended, but unlike the end of World War II, the armistice did not constitute a formal capitulation. So legally speaking, the war continued until the various parties involved had reached separate peace agreements, a process which took several years to complete – in the case of Germany, the Versailles treaty which was signed in 1919 and took effect on January 10, 1920. And the state of war with Turkey even continued until the 1923 treaty of Lausanne.

22 territories so far, for a total IPC value of 88.

Six tanks. Three in Novgorod, three in the Ukraine.

I haven’t tried it, and I most certainly haven’t invented it, but it seems like a good plan. All credit for the idea goes to Gargantua: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=40640.0

@Kreuzfeld:

1 uk mech in northern ireland

Northern Ireland is not a separate territory here - it’s one with Scotland.

The “On this day during W.W. 2” reminded me of Operation Market Garden, and I had a look at the map and started wondering whether it would have been such a great idea even if it had succeeded. The Allied armies would still have found themselves behind the IJssel river after crossing the Arnhem bridge. The IJssel is by no means as formidable an obstacle as the Rhine, but it would have provided the Germans with a line of defense. And even after crossing that river, the Allies would have been poised for the boggy marshland of Lower Saxony, a sparsely populated area of limited economic value. To get to Germany’s industrial heartland, the Ruhr area, they would have to make a sharp right turn there and cover the distance they had first marched north.

So as a “what if”, I was wondering whether aiming for the city of Venlo on the Dutch-German border wouldn’t have been a better idea. They could then have followed the old Haltern-Venlo railway which was actually in use as a German supply line at the time. And instead of the bridge at Arnhem, could have tried for the Wesel Railway Bridge.
The main obstacle would have been the northern part of the Westwall (aka “Siegfried Line”), which Market Garden attempted to bypass on the north. But the Westwall could be breached, as was demonstrated by US forces about a month after Market Garden. But Venlo wasn’t very far from the front line at that time and Wesel is a lot closer to the Ruhr than Arnhem.

So what do you strategists think? Would this have been a better plan? Were they going to hang out their washing on the Siegfried Line if they had tried?

This is an excellent summary that provides the community with a clear overview of how A&A deviates from the political realities of WWII, and it also serves as an inspiration for various house rules. But I’m afraid that I need to address my pet peeve once more:

@CWO:

… such as Poland and Holland and Belgium and France in the first year of the war …

Holland is not a country and it was not a country during World War II, nor was it a country at any point during its long history. It once was a county, later it became a province, and now it’s two provinces of a country the proper (short) name of which has been “the Netherlands” since as far back as the late 16th century. I have to concede though that the Dutch make little effort to propagate this bit of knowledge as they themselves use “Holland” as a pars pro toto all too often, especially abroad.

I like the general idea though of course it would have to be carefully balanced. As for the units, I’m not much in favor of the tank in Scotland, for realism’s sake. The Dutch had one small tank at home. The Belgians did have a significant number of tanks but evacuating them to the UK was evidently impossible. Having two Benelux infantry units there is already more than enough compared to the French who were far more numerous.
Dutch New Guinea might have an infantry unit, though. Dutch resistance continued throughout the war there, and the Japanese never completely conquered that territory.

I’m not sure I like the Siberia plan much, but it’s an option to be considered. But if I’d try it, I’d rather buy a fighter in Buryatia instead of a tank. The tank will die in Korea no matter what, but the fighter can make it back and make itself useful later on, either against Japan or by moving it back west. And there’s still 6 IPC left for that much-needed SZ98 sub.

That is, if we’re assuming a 20 IPC bid. Lately I’ve been reading that the Allies need more.

Oh, and because everybody including myself forgot so far: welcome to the forums!  :-D