Chess and Astrology

To all those dismissing Astrology: can I ask how much research you've done on it?

You would be surprised just how much.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves"

Not as nifty as the previous nod to the Bard but not bad.

Why would we bother researching something that is unscientific?

I'm very quick to dismiss it for a number of reasons, but the main reason is that I have yet to see any solid evidence that supports the conclusions it makes.

This is very good, pertinent, and amusing.

Your chess horoscope for the day

ARIES (Mar 21 - Apr 19)
You are the pioneer type and hold most people in contempt. You are quick tempered, impatient, and scornful of advice. You are not very nice. You play chess with dead people (and lose). People can't wait until you are dead. You like to take back moves and don't like touch move rules unless it's your opponent who tries to take back a move. You should sell insurance. Buy WorldCom or GM stock. Avoid passed pawns. (Korchnoi, Smyslov, Portisch, Kasparov, Najdorf)

TAURUS (Apr 20 - May 20)
You are practical and persistent in your chess games. You show no original thought. You have a dogged determination and work like hell to win, but you lose a lot of games. Most people think you are stubborn and bull headed. Sometimes you play chess with God (and offer him a pawn odds). You are not very good at the endgame. You get into time pressure a lot. You think astrology is a bunch of Taurus. Move your pawns with caution. Avoid back rank mate. Let others risk their own pieces. (Spielmann, Steinitz, Euwe)

GEMINI (May 21 - June 20)
You are a quick and intelligent thinker and like to play blitz chess. People say you are too boring. You are inclined to expect too much for too little. This means you are cheap. You have this hidden desire to beat up your father for pushing you into chess. Most of your games are won by swindles. Pick up the pieces from the floor when you lose and the game is over. Go home and start collecting stamps. (Karpov, Reti, Short, Kamsky, Petrosian)

CANCER (June 21 - July 22)
You are sympathetic and understanding to your opponents and you give up draws too easily. Your opponents think you are a sucker. You are always putting things off. That's why you'll never make anything of yourself. You like to take poisoned pawns. You think playing 1.f4 is for the birds. You like gambits. You like to be pushed to the limit. Push back and push your pawns forward. Tune out advice from others; it will only get you mated sooner. (Bird, Benko, Gelfand, Anderssen)

LEO (July 23 - Aug 22)
Your determination and sense of humor will come to the fore. Your ability to laugh at your opponents for making bad moves will be a blessing because you've got a day coming you wouldn't believe. You consider yourself a born leader. Others think you are pushy. Most Leo people are bullies. You are vain and dislike honest criticism. Your arrogance is disgusting. Leo people are thieves. You expect people to throw gold coins at you everytime you win a game. You don't like to analyze your games with your opponents. Leave the blitz games to others. Laugh, love, and learn. Let others blow smoke in your face while you turn the other cheek. Castle long. (Judit Polgar, Marshall, Botvinnik)

VIRGO (Aug 23 - Sept 22)
You are the logical type and hate disorder. This nitpicking is sickening to your friends. You are always adjusting your pieces. You are cold and unemotional and sometimes fall asleep while making love. You are good at blindfold chess, but have a poor memory at everything else. Resentment and jealousy will only turn obligation into torture. New chess strategies will soon become apparent after you lose all your games. Take up music and remember, pawns are the soul of chess, but queens are more fun. (Philidor, Zukertort, Koltanowski)

LIBRA (Sept 23 - Oct 22)
You are the artistic type and have a difficult time with reality. It's hard for you to accept losses or that you won't make it as a chessplayer. Your desire to play good chess is overshadowed by your desire to be nasty and a decent meal. Someone is watching you, so stop staring back at your chess opponents. You suffer from penis envy. You are obsessed by flies on your head. Trust that your seconds will be there for you and analyze your position while you are sleeping. Explore your romantic side. See a shrink. Fianchetto your bishops. (Fine, Rubinstein, Ehlvest)

SCORPIO (Oct 23 - Nov 21)
You are shrewd and cannot be trusted. You will achieve some success at the chess board. You may develop a drinking problem later in life. You lose games to idiots because you get too over-confident. You like to accept gambits, but you always lose being a pawn down. Avoid the endgame. You have many secrets to share with only a few people. Like being a Nazi. Answer questions with other questions until your curiosity is satisfied or when you pass out drunk. Remember, a knight on the rim is dim, but a rook on a7 is heaven. (Alekhine, Nimzovich, Tal, Tchigorin, Capablanca)

SAGITTARIUS (Nov 22 - Dec 21)
You are optimistic and enthusiastic when you play chess. You have a reckless tendency to rely on luck since you lack talent. People laugh at you a great deal because you play so poorly. You collect chess books but don't read them. You prefer comic books. You do not know how to win with knight and bishop vs king endgame, so avoid endgames and sudden death events. You are a fast player and a fast lover. Get away for the weekend. Go shopping at K-Mart for Martha Stewart checkered table cloths and play chess during a romantic dinner. (Reshevsky, Pillsbury, Blackburne, Timman, Anand)

CAPRICORN (Dec 23 - Jan 19)
You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You hate gambits. You don't do much of anything and are lazy. This is why you lose games on time. Opponents will win brilliancy prizes from you. You always end up in 2nd place and never take 1st place. You are a loner, but seem to like it that way. Some areas of your chess life are better left unexplained. Like all the games you threw to those Russians and on chess.com. Friends respect you for saying j'adoube when you adjust your pieces. Indulge yourself. Play in blitz events. (Keres, Browne, Em Lasker, Teichmann)

AQUARIUS (Jan 20 - Feb 18)
You have an inventive mind and are inclined to play original openings. That's because you hate to study openings. You lie a great deal. On the other hand, you are inclined to be careless and impractical, causing you to make the same chess mistakes over and over again. People think you are stupid. You like to kick people under the table. You are a poor loser and easily lose your temper. Go write a chess book. Or a hundred books. No one will read them anyway. Speak up for the timid chessplayer. Say "check" real loud when you get your opponent in check. Avoid isolated pawns. (Spassky, Mecking, Reinfeld, Chernev, Loyd, Gligoric, Taimanov)

PISCES (Feb. 19 to Mar. 20)
Look for the good things in life. Carry the American Express card and a weapon. The chess world is yours today, as nobody else wants it. You have a vivid imagination and often think you are being followed by the CIA, FBI or State Department. You have minor influence over your opponents and people resent your flaunting of your chess games. You lack confidence and you are generally a coward. You hate to lose, so give up the game and invent another one. Make random chess moves if you can. Give radio interviews when you can. Help a Jew and remember that moment the next time you feel lonely and useless (which is a lot lately). Take control and find strength with the revelation of your skills, talents, and potential. Go on a diet, but don't eat you chess pieces. You have a tendency of always getting in a bind. Accept all gambits. Think about moving to Iceland.  (Bronstein, Tartakower, Mieses, Schlechter, Geller, Maroczy, Tarrasch, Fischer)  

When somebody can give any kind of real scientific evidence that astrology is anything more than very old superstition, I will happily give it serious consideration. Until then, I'll file it right up there with the bogeyman, the loch ness monster, and the existence of ghosts.

If astrology were credible, I would feel in good company as a gemini with the likes of Karpov, Morphy, Reti, Short, and Petrosian.

Kinan, If there is a correlation, you should then be able to look at chess games without knowing who the players are and predict with some degree of accuracy their astrological signs. Are you up to the challenge?

I have coffee up my nose now and almost ruined my monitor. Thanks for the laugh!

Yeah, gravity is a real bummer, it's always got me down.

look to the left, drink some water and tell me what you see. 

Okay, here is an absolutly devastating argument against astrology; one of many I might add. Identical twins are often observed to have similar personalities. Fraternal twins usually have different personalities; sometimes extremely different just like non-twin brothers and sisters. If astrology was true, then all twins should be very similer whether they are fraternal or identical because they are born minutes apart and therefore have nearly identical astrological destinies.  I know this isn't chess related but neither is the question really.

 I'm tempted to answer you, just so that they'll lock this thread and it will go away.

What he said! -- fantastic quote padman thanks. Who's speaking? *edit* -- oh just looked it up on google. Shakespeare is so amazing... Who would speak against assigning fate by birth? who has a giant chip on his shoulder about the circumstances of his birth? ... Edmund, the bastard who would be King, villian of Lear. Perfect.

Great joke but does anyone know Prof. Stephen Hawking or do they know his chess.com account

I can shoot fireballs from my hands, it's a power given to me by the stars and planets around us.

No Aquarius?????/

Interesting.

Ok, i wanna answer some posts here but first let me say that i also didn't believe inastrology and thought it's crap, that was 3 years ago, but after studying it, i changed my mind..so i know what are you talking about guys.

Some people here say that if astrology is true then i should be able to recognize the sign of the player just by looking at one game of chess he played.

first all , let me brag a little, in the last 6 months, i have never failed to guess the sun sign of strange people i sat and talked with for 2 hours.

and after 3 years of studying astrology i can detect scorpio people for example from miles, by experience.

To answer that question, style of play can be very hard indication to the sun sign, but it's possible, there are one thing ou should kno though, there are ascendent, moon, venus and like 9 other effects, that's what called birth chart.

your ascendent is what you show to new people you meet, sun sign is your inner sign, moon is your mood and venus is the way you love etc..combined wih each other, a very complicated system is apllied to determine what's you charachter is.

Sure the way you are raised, the enviroment you have been raised in and your own improvemnt of your personality have influence on you, but the core, the base, is astrology.

to be continued...

I am not telling anyone to blame his sign for his failure, it's a stupid thing to do.

Ok, my theory about astrology is that it's the system that God run the world by, sure God has powers and he can just create people just like that, but why doing that if he can do it in "scientific'" way, everyone of us has a place inthe universe and everyone of us was born with qualities that nobody else has because of the million of calculations and aspects that the birth chart provide, and we are also born with negative things taht we should overcome in life, and from there the concept of the phoenix is created..the bird that rise from the ashes and fly high.

in the case of twins, they were born in the same place, the same time..they are astrologically identical, and i don't know anyone who would deny taht both of them have the exact same personality till they are raised in different ways, here the enviroment , the way each has been raised, and other effects play a major role in giving them 2 different personalities.

If you people believe that energy exists, then you believe in astrology, whether you know that or not, like it or not.

The bone structure IS affected by astrology, actualyl most of my guesses are based on the shape of the bones, Leo females have almost the same shape of face in the point where the eyes, nose and mouth are close to each other.

pisces women also have detectable pattern in bone structure at the bottom of the face, most pisces men have the same eyes.

most libra men are tall, and most scorpios have penetrating eyes..haven't you people heard of the mighty scorpio stare? ;)

Kinan, I'll take your roundabout evasive answer as a "no" to the challenge. I guess you believe in astrology but you don't hold to the belief of "put up or shut up".