A Year of Anniversaries

This year we'll be seeing some big chess anniversaries:-

• 50 years: Fischer - Spassky Title Match; Reykjavik, VII-VIII, 1972
• 30 years: Fischer - Spassky Rematch; Sveti Stefan/Belgrade, IX-XI, 1992
• 25 years: Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue • 1st match: Philadelphia, II, 1996; 2nd match: New York, V, 1997

Those links are to my own pages, showing that I have at least passing familiarity with the subjects. Starting with Kasparov - Deep Blue this month, I expect we'll see the pundits out in force to remind us of the importance of each of those historical matches.

On a more personal note, I'll see a couple of significant anniversaries myself:-

• 70 years prowling the third stone from the sun
• 50 years playing correspondence chess
• 25 years documenting the World Chess Championship (m-w.com; WCC site)
• 16 years blogging

That last item might seem out of place, but the blogging anniversary is today. The number 16 -- which, as every computer person knows, is 10000 base 2 -- is just as significant to computers as 100 base 10 is to humans. Through the years I've noted the anniversary of the blog on several occasions:-

• 2006-05-01: Another head?
• 2007-05-01: M'aidez, M'aidez
• 2012-05-01: FEB in May
• 2016-05-01: Tenth Anniversary!
• 2018-05-01: Silk Anniversary!

This might well be the last blog anniversary. A few years ago I announced, The End of Daily Blogging (September 2019). As the following table shows, the number of posts last month was about half of what it was the year that I made that announcement.

Posts in April (count):-
- 2018 April (19)
- 2019 April (22)
- 2020 April (12)
- 2021 April (15)
- 2022 April (11)

The previous tally of personal milestones across my own web resources was 2500 / 20 / 500 (August 2017). Later this year I'll be closing down the WCC site, probably after the next title match -- 'C30' using my method of counting the WCC cycles since FIDE took over. Will he play or won't he play? Carlsen that is. I'm as curious as the next person to find out. After that, it's time to put the whole thing to sleep. We will always have Wikipedia, won't we!