“Once you have tenure, it’s all edible panties, firearms and blow.”
- professor/theoretical physicist Mark Trodden, as quoted on Cosmic Variance.
Archive for September, 2007
As previously mentioned, the summer of 1987 was the high point of my tactical performance in chess. The game recounted in that post qualified me for the Kentucky Closed State Championship.
The championship itself was a bit of a mess.
The state’s only active master had won the title five years running, I believe. But he wasn’t really so active any more – to the best of my knowledge he didn’t play rated chess between his ’86 title and this ’87 tourney, which was a round-robin with the master, four experts and a B player from the high school ranks. I wasn’t scheduled to play the master until the final round.
Rust kills: the master lost on time against Larry Foushee in the first round. Meanwhile I played badly and was fortunate to score two draws and a win (against the B player) on the first day. Larry’s family generously put me up for the night and after we got to his house, the phone rang and Larry was informed that the master had lost on time again (to Walter Alexander this time) in round three – and dropped out! That made a hash of the round robin pairings but there wasn’t any truly fair solution.
So with a full-point bye on the docket for the final round, I played my only good game of the tournament in round four on Sunday morning:
Foushee (2150) – Slater (2080)
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 b5 5.dxe6 fxe6 6.cxb5 d5 7.e3 Bd6 8.Nc3 Nbd7 9.Qb3 Qe7 10.Be2 0-0 11.0-0 Bb7 12.Rd1 Rae8 13.a4 Bb8 14.h3 Ne4 15.Bd2 Ng5 16.Be1 d4 
[diagram]
Some day before I die I’d like to have a pair of bishops like these again.
White plays a passive defensive concept here that seems doomed. Fritz would know better but I always thought 17.Nxd4 was worth a try. Black’s big center would be destroyed and the White rook could lift via d4 to help protect the kingside. Then again, maybe 17.Nxd4 Nxh3+ wins immediately.
17.Nxg5 Qxg5 18.Bf1 Ne5 19.f4 Nf3+ 20.Kh1 Rxf4!
Now 21.exf4 Qxf4 22.g3 Nxe1+ is death, but the same concept is going to resurface in a few moments. 21.Ne2 Rf6 21…Nd2 was faster, since after taking on f2 Black will threaten to chop off the Bf1 which is guarding the g2 mating square.
22.Bf2 Rh6 23.Nf4 [diagram]
23…Bxf4 24.exf4 Rxh3+ 25.gxh3 Qxf4 26.Bg1 Ne1+
0-1
With no final-round game to play and my ride present, I went home. Later I got the news that Larry and Walter drew in the fifth round, which gave me the title at 4-1. I suppose there should be an asterisk in the books, but as my friend Jeff Hellmann advised, I’m not giving the trophy back…
Of or like twilight.
The day faded from crepuscular gray to fuliginous black.
In zoology, used to describe animals that become active after sunset or before sunrise, such as bats, and therefore a term potentially useful in horror novels and movies.
I took Mr. Shereshevsky with me on my Vegas trip, along with a newly acquired mini-magnetic chess set. But though I futzed around with the set, some openings, etc, I confess I never cracked the endgame book.
Instead I picked up a book in the airport. In those situations – confronted by a 5-hour flight – I gravitate toward more mindless fare to pass the time. In this case I wound up with the 500-page horror novel The Ruins, by the same fella who wrote the book that turned into the critically acclaimed Bill Paxton – Billy Bob Thornton snoozer flick A Simple Plan.
I don’t really read horror much, or see many horror movies (the most recent I can recall seeing in its entirity was probably the execrable and derivative Event Horizon, featuring a complete mail-it-in performance by Laurence Fishburne) but the popularity of the genre intrigues me. The Ruins has cover raves from Stephen King and others. And unlike the very little Dean Koontz I’ve had the misfortune to scan, The Ruins is *very* well-written. I don’t say that casually. The guy can write.
But it’s ultimately unsatisfying. Icky, yes, but not really disquieting as promised. That’s a pretty significant difference.
If you want something disquieting, disturbing, palpable, plausible, order a copy of my former boss Lew McCreary’s novel The Minus Man (later made into a less-disturbing movie starring Owen Wilson, Brian Cox, Sheryl Crowe and others). Now that’ll make your skin crawl. Especially if you work for the author.
I edit a magazine and (soon to be rebuilt) website about security – physical and digital. We started covering both topics about 4 1/2 years ago. At the time some folks said we were crazy to mix the two; now those folks look silly.
Don’t know what your perception of physical security might be. Many people seem to think it’s dullsville. My goodness, nothing could possibly be further from the truth. The reason I was in Vegas was to attend the annual ASIS trade show and as much as I dislike trade shows, this one geeks me out in the very best sense. I wander the show floor watching videos of trucks hitting bollards – the immobile posts that, um, stop trucks. Go here and click on any of the “video” segments; search YouTube for “bollards” for more fun.
This stuff is better than mixed martial arts. Buried perimeter intrusion detection systems, long-range acoustic equipment for eavesdropping, specialized locking devices for manhole covers, bomb-sniffing dogs, night-vision surveillance cameras, pepper-ball guns…you name it, it’s there.
In terms of sheer weirdness, Las Vegas is hard to top. One minute you’re flying over the arid beauty of desert mesas pocked by huge lakes that show no evidence of surrounding vegetation. Then suddenly you cross a line and the housing developments begin, still mostly devoid of plant life but decorated with the occasional pool. At night obviously you would then hit the neon shockwave.
Setting that aside…. It’s been about ten years since I first visited. Back then, Vegas was ending a transition out of the Mob era (I guess) and in the midst of a concerted effort to present itself as a family destination. The Luxor had a killer virtual arcade. Roller coasters and gondola rides were the kinds of attractions being built.
Nowadays, of course, the city’s marketing slogan is the infamous “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” which has entered the popular lexicon (even spawning the not-very-imaginative winning team name at the US Amateur Team Chess Championship this year: “What happens in Parsippany stays in Parsippany”). Give them credit for creating a slogan that excuses and encourages wild excess on the part of tourists, since that was obviously the goal.
You can smoke not only in the casinos but throughout the hotels, restaurants excepted. Girls in miniskirts still carry around trays of cigarettes and roses. In that respect you feel like you’ve time-warped straight to the 70s.
The signage is quite different now from what I recall of that first visit. Nightclubs in the major hotels have names like Tryst. There are “pool lounges” called Venus and Bare which evidently offer poorly- or un-clad lounge attendants. No, I’m not a patron and in the interest of whatever children may read this blog, please keep salacious commentary to a minimum :) My point is more of an observation about the marketing identity of an entire very strange city.
Of course, it’s a massive commercial success. The Venetian, already colossal, is just completing a second hotel tower which (I was told but have not verified) will bring it up to 7,000 rooms. Let’s VERY conservatively imagine that the average room rate is $200 and that on a Friday night they hit 85% occupancy. That’ll be more than $1.1 million dollars just in room revenue in a single night. That’s a lot of people looking for stuff that “stays in Vegas”.
Some while back I wrote about the best move I ever didn’t get to play.
Here’s probably my favorite move that I did get to play.
Slater (2050) – Hardin (1950), Kentucky, 1987
1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 0-0 5.0-0 d6 6.c4 Nbd7 7.Nbd2 c6 8.b3 Qc7 9.Bb2 Re8 10.Qc2 Nf8 11.h3 h6 12.e4 e5 13.dxe5 dxe5 14.c5 Nh5 15.Nc4 Re7 16.Rfd1 b5 17.Nd6 Bd7 18.Rd2 a5 19.a4 b4 20.Rad1 g5 21.Nh2 Ng6 22.Nf1 Bf6 23.Ne3 Ng7 
Don’t ask me to explain what either player is doing positionally. As I’ve mentioned before, I didn’t play positionally at the time, despite which fact my opponent has managed to get his own pieces in a tangle.
24.Nd5! I like this move because materially White gets only one pawn for the piece, and after it’s captured he has no immediate specific threat. On the other hand, the compensation isn’t too tough to figure out: that’s a deadly pawn roller on d5 and c5, and the bishop on g2 has suddenly come alive. Black is busted, but for purposes of practical resistance his goal should be to only give back material in ways that break up the pawns.
24…cxd5 25.exd5 Ree8? 26.Nxe8 Rxe8 27.d6 Qd8 28.c6 Bf5 29.Qc4 Ne6 30.c7 Nxc7 31.dxc7 Qc8 32.Qc6 Be6 33.Qxe8+ Qxe8 34.Rd8 Bxd8 35.cxd8=Q Qxd8 36.Rxd8+ Kg7 37.Bd5 1-0
It just dawned on me that it was 20 years ago that I hit my peak performance in chess – the summer of ’87, when I won various tournaments, busted a senior master, etc. The game above garnered me the highest score among Kentucky state residents in the Kentucky Open, qualifying me for a spot in the round-robin Closed championship. I have a couple more bloodthirsty games from that summer that I will post later.
Glad you asked.
I started with a miniature apricot-and-tequila scone. Quite fantastic. Then my sandwich arrived: spice-rubbed pork tenderloin on ciabatta with grilled red onion, chipotle mayo and arugula, plus fries and a cactus pear margarita.
There are so many expensive restaurants now going after the so-called “foodie” population with funky dishes and fancy decor, and much of the time they’re good. Not great. But this lunch was great. In fact, every bite was pretty much perfect. Would have ordered another one if I had even the tiniest bit more room left.
Who cares!? Is this what Liquid Egg Product would describe as an overwrought “grilled cheese post” giving the banal details of the blogger’s life?
Guess so. My only defense is that this lunch was at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill, overlooking the sports book in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas.
What did YOU have for lunch today?
:P
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