No-name engines

[BB+]

I happened to be in Schwäbisch Hall this weekend for the final 2 rounds of the German Schachbundesliga. In watching post-mortems, the players frequently said things like "I'll have to see what the computer says", but never once did I hear any of "Stockfish", "Komodo", or "Houdini" mentioned explicitly. Perhaps they have the impression that one program is as good as another, and it's the hardware that really counts (trusting the home computer > laptop > iPad).

[BB+]

Another habit that I noticed, from quite a lot of players, was the desire/need to twiddle with a captured piece/pawn of the opponent's while pacing around. Sometimes a player would even get up to look at other games, and then suddenly realise he forgot to take such a twiddling pawn with him (I'm not sure what you would do if nothing had been captured yet). On the other hand, when seated at the board there were still some notable twiddlers, but in alliance with etiquette it is mostly (if not exclusively) done when on one's own time.

[hyatt]

Did you ever see GM Walter Browne play (in person)?

(1) he had "the glare" made to intimidate, leaning over the board, glaring, not a hint of a smile...

(2) he would almost break pieces when moving at times. And we used to think "Feel sorry for that hundred-dollar Heuer clock".