The pause that refreshes

Ready to start blogging again after a vacation in the Provence region of France, where I was cut off from the Internet. Although only a few hundred kilometers from Turin, I had no news about the Olympiad or about the FIDE Presidential election.

The American teams did well in the Olympiad and deserve congratulations. I was hoping that Kok would win the election, but knew that he had little chance against Ilyumzhinov. The incumbent's advantage is almost insurmountable. I haven't yet had the chance to read what the chess blogosphere is saying, but am sure there is general disappointment with the results.

When I returned home, I found 14.000 email messages waiting for me. Around 13.800 of them were spam. This is about 1.000 per day, which is the current average. Things have improved since two years ago when I routinely received 4.000 or so per day.

The next post will continue with Alekhine's brilliancies.