Chance

That was my haircutter’s name: Chance.

It seems…inauspicious.

Then again I’m glad he isn’t a bomb technician.

A fond remembrance on the occasion of Rick Wagoner’s exit from GM

In late 2001 I went to Detroit to write an article for CIO Magazine about GM’s various IT and e-commerce initiatives. I got 20 minutes to interview Rick Wagoner.

Waiting in the lobby of the executive suite high up in the Renaissance Center, I eventually realized that the GM public relations person I was with, Chris, had never met Wagoner before. I think he was more nervous than I was.

I had of course done my homework. Wagoner came out and introduced himself very cordially. Hit me as an extremely likeable and unpretentious person. As we walked up the steps, I said “So I see from my reading that you are a Duke man.”

Recall that in 2001, UNC basketball was suffering through the darkest of the Doherty years. I can hardly describe the glee with which Wagoner pounced after discovering my alma mater.

Afterwards, PR Chris said, “I can’t believe you got 20 minutes with Wagoner and spent the first ten talking hoops.”

A very short chess opening lesson for class C and below

See this move? This Bb5? People keep playing it in blitz.

Don’t play it.

It’s a very bad move. (Or else it’s good in such a sophisticated way that most of us won’t be able to follow through on the ideas.)

Here’s why it’s so bad.

Look at the pawn structure. The pawn structure dictates what plan each player must use in the next phase of the game.

White has a central pawn chain that gives him more space, and particularly freedom to maneuver on the kingside. If Black castles short, White is likely to make a good attack. That’s White’s most obvious plan.

Black wants to undermine that pawn chain, blow it up, liquidate it to free his pieces. The current base of the pawn chain is d4. So Black will attack d4. Thus has it ever been in the French defense. His most critical way of doing that is by attacking it with a pawn (…c5) and threatening to capture. That’s Black’s most obvious plan.

So what happens after this bad Bb5 move is that Black plays …Nc6, and White typically plays Bxc6 . (What else would the bishop be doing out there? Its ability pin something to the Black king is very short-lived as Black will play …Be7 and …0-0. Either you trade it or you just completely wasted a tempo by putting it there.) Black will respond …bxc6.

Now look at the new position. What piece would have been really useful in White’s kingside attack? A killer bishop sitting on d3, scoping the g6 and h7 squares. And what again is the key to Black’s counterattack on the center? The c-pawn.

By playing Bxc6, in one fell swoop you have tossed overboard one of your best attacking pieces and also given Black AN EXTRA C-PAWN. So he’ll trade on d4 and then get to play …c5 AGAIN! Your ability to execute your plan is weakened and Black’s ability to execute his plan is strengthened.

Do not do. Many failpoints.

Wish I had a nickel

for every time I’ve finished a win or draw in chess and my opponent has said, “…but I really thought I was killing you [earlier].”

And usually they were.

And I’m not gonna take it any more

After the fact, everybody says we shoulda seen this collapse coming. The crazy risks, the lax oversight, the lack of accountability.

Well I’ll tell you where we’re headed for our next quagmire, and something needs to be done IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER, because the Chinese Fortune Cookie manufacturing industry is so wildly lacking in accountability that you KNOW they’re getting reckless and stupid. It’s like they can publish ANY DANG THING THEY FEEL LIKE SAYING.

The other day I got this one: “Good fortune and new opportunity will befall you soon.” But has it? Has it really? Of course not. You go to the shop, you confront them, you know what you’ll get: a lot of shoulder-shrugging, a lot of “you just haven’t waited long enough”, a lot of non-quantifiables and mushy ambiguities.

It’s disgusting that they can make these promises without regard to accuracy, without any repercussions whatsoever.

All in the name of selling a few more cookies.

10 simple universal chess truths

1. Winning is great and losing stinks.

2. Drawing from a won position stinks, and drawing from a busted position is almost better than winning.

3. In order for you to win, your opponent has to play REALLY BADLY.

4. You will never understand the Gruenfeld, for either side.

5. Masters walking by your middlegame will show no interest. Masters walking by your endgame will stop and study the position.

6. Computer chess is an interesting computer issue but not an interesting chess issue.

7. Blitz hinders your growth.

8. Team tournaments are way better than individual tournaments.

9. The world championship will always be a mess, because money ruins everything.

10. Any time you study in a restaurant or public space, several people will walk up and say “Hey, who’s winning!” and guffaw at their own cleverness. This will continue until the day you die.

Fluff

Setting aside ardent pretentions of depth or professorial tweediness, and furthermore all professed disdain for NASCAR and ballads and vapidity in favor of soccer and chess and Radiohead and Queens of the Stone Age … the truth is, fluff is good too.

I like Beyonce’s Single Ladies, I liked a Maroon 5 song, I thought Fergalicious was as funny as My Humps was brain-dead. I laughed myself stupid at Talladega Nights and Step Brothers.

Either I’m really more open-minded that I appear, or I just plain old Got No Taste. Can’t figure out which.

p.s. OH YES - and I love Randy Jackson Presents America’s Best Dance Crew. Love it.

Stunning

March Madness: Time for sports headline writers to go into overdrive, describing at least one result per day (and often many more) as “stunning”.

Even in the hyperbole-oriented web world, this is irritating and lazy. Perhaps on occasion they could toss in shocks, drops, tops, stops, slaps, knocks, floors, flattens or – are you sitting down? – “beats”.

I am going to use this post to document the stunning phenomenon over the next month or so.

3/12, all on NBCSports, just for starters:

• Baylor Stuns Big 12 Champ Kansas  (This one is mildly legit; it’s the first time in conference history that the 9 seed beat the 1 seed.)
• Last-Place Ga Tech Stuns Clemson (And yet, “Actually the outcome wasn’t that much of a surprise. For the third time in four years, the 12th-seeded team in the tournament opened with an upset of the No. 5 seed. And Clemson failed again to win the most prestigious of league tournaments on its 56th try — the only original member of the ACC lacking a championship.”)
• West Virginia Stuns #2 Pittsburgh (WV has won 23 games and is coached by Bob Huggins.)
• Syracuse Stuns UConn in Big East Marathon

3/14, ESPN headline: Another 1 Stunned (#1 seed UNC, minus starting PG, loses to #4 seed Florida State. Yeah, who coulda ever imagined.)

3/15, Fox Sports: USC Stuns ASU to Steal Tourney Bid (Inigo: “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”)