A blog about stuff. Mostly.
Ever been invited to join a Who’s Who directory? (And then order a copy? And then maybe upgrade to a multi-year Platinum membership? And then order more copies for friends and family?)
Most of them are of dubious value and some are outright scams. Your gut may tell you this (or not), but a consultant name Ben Rothke went to the trouble of collecting emails, recording phone calls etc and wrote up the process. Highly entertaining.
When we sat down to play chess at the club Tuesday, my opponent David Harris tried to set up his digital clock and found the battery dead. I pulled out my ancient Jerger windup. Seated on a neighboring board, Rolf Wetzell offered to lend his digital clock instead, but David, in his typical dry humorous manner, made a dismissive gesture and said “Who needs increment? Tonight, let’s play like men!”
So we did.
Harris (2070) – Slater (2128)
1.e4 In ancient Persian and Indian forms of chess, anyone who played the un-manly 1.d4 was unceremoniously fed to wild animals.
1…e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Bb4 The testosterone-fueled McCutcheon variation! Named after a bloodthirsty Scot who rebelled against England and killed all his battlefield victims with dental floss.
5.e5 h6 6.Be3 Ne4 7.a3 Ba5 8.Qg4 Kf8 Castling is for cowards!
9.Ne2 c5 10.b4?! A manly sacrifice! White plans to attack on both wings at the same time! See diagram 1.)
10…Nxc3 11.Nxc3 cxb4 12.axb4 Bxb4 13.Bd2 Bd7 14.h4 Nc6 15.Rh3 Ne7 16.Bd3 Rc8 17.Rg3 g6 18.Ne2 Bxd2+ 19.Kxd2 a6 20.h5 g5 21.f4 Nf5 22.Bxf5 exf5 23.Qf3 Be6 24.fxg5 hxg5 25.Qa3+ Kg7 Mutual hyperaggression has earned both players a terrible position!
26.Qe3 Kh6 27.Qb3 Rc7 28.Rb1 Qe7 29.Rc3 Rhc8 30.Rxc7 Rxc7 31.g3 Qd7 32.Qa3 Qe7 33.Qe3 b5 34.Nc1 Rc4 35.Nd3 Qa3 36.Rb3 Qa1 37.Nb2 Rc6 38.Nd3 Rc4 39.Nb2 Rc8 40.Nd3 Qh1
Ha ha, on to sudden death! (I laugh at sudden death!) Second time control is g/30.
41.Nf2 Qh2 42.Rb1 f4 43.gxf4 gxf4 44.Qe2 Qg3 45.Rb3 Qg5 46.Qf3 Bf5 How’s that bad French bishop look now, Mr. Phelps? See diagram 2.
47.Nd3 Rc4 48.Qf2 f3+ 49.Kd1 Qxh5 50.Ne1 Be4 50…Rxd4+ didn’t occur to me – 51.Qxd4 f2+ wins, though White can keep slogging on for a few moves with 51.Nd3 instead.
51.Ra3 Rc6 52.c4 Trying to close lines and keep the Black rook out.
52…bxc4 53.Qe3+ Kg7 54.Nxf3 Rg6 Simplification is for cowards!
55.Kc1 Rg3 56.Rxa6 Fighting to the end! See diagram 3. This could still go badly for Black with 56…Qxf3?? 57.Qh6+.
56…Qh1+ 57.Kb2 (57.Kd2 c3+) Qb1+ 58.Ka3 Rxf3 0-1 Afterwards we all went outside to drink beer, smoke cigars and shoot stuff.
Yes, yes, yes. The final challenge got absolutely everything right.
A beautiful setting and no gimmicks. Cook a four-course meal that shows your progression as a chef. First food memory, dish that made you want to be a chef, something representing your first restaurant, and then a dish to show where you’re going in the future. With each chef’s top sous chef at their side to assist, and fantastic ingredients.
And then the Mexican chef beat the French chef and the Italian chef. Wow.
Did you not want to climb through the screen and taste every single dish?
The stock market isn’t chess; it’s a game of RPS (rock paper scissors).
from Operatunity:
The audition process followed a casting call for submitted videotapes, that resulted in some 2000 entries from a colorful group of which a hundred were auditioned in person, on a bus tour that encompassed regional auditions, which led to a series of London workshops for the final six participants, including an investment banker, a builder—who stood on a scaffolding at a construction site to belt out a Neapolitan song— an ex-police officer, wrestler and model, a supermarket cashier, and a blind mother of three.
This particular sentence reads like an entry in the Bulwer-Lytton contest.
[For Yermolinski] winning the U.S. Open in a six-way tie is no big deal. “I have nothing to add to my titles. I won this tournament four times,” he adds, noting that in 1995, 1997 and 2000 he won the event outright.
Ah yes. It is the irony of success: Once you have reached your goals, what is left to achieve?
Alexander the Great, having conquered everything, sat down and wept for the prospect of overwhelming boredom.
Aspiring pop-queen Alanis Morissette (a longtime supporter of this blog), having scorched the charts with Jagged Little Pill in the mid-90s, flew to India to find balance in yoga and meditation.
Donnie of Liquid Egg Product, first among equals at the Houston Open, now wallows in the same un-directed-ness that consumed me after I tied for first (with four-year-old Chris “The Bear” Williams!) in the Class A section of the New England Open in 1946 (or was it 2004?).
Once you have won everything, really, what next?
The British Chess Championship is wrapping up today.
In the unlikely event you haven’t been glued to your screen watching every move – you’ve missed a lot.
This first diagram is move 10 from GM David Howell versus IM/book author Richard Palliser on board one, in round 9.
White won.
The type of chess being played is, dare I say, not what you’ll find in the Absolute Russian Super Mega Ultra Championship. England seems to be awash in self-taught 2500-ish GMs who steer away from the dry and technical and toward the crazy and tactical. (Post title refers to earlier groundless speculation about linguistic/cognitive differences between east and west.)
Oh, full game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1552828
This second diagram is GM Gawain Jones against GM Simon Williams (a personal favorite as he sometimes blunders with 1.d4 f5?!). In this position White played 15.Nxe5.
There’s a lot more to this sacrifice than might first meet the eye – aside from just the first idea, 15.Nxe5 Bxe2 16.Rxe2 dxe5? 17.Ba4+ and gets the queen back.
Black played for a long time without his kingside pieces. In fact, when White resigned on move 44, Black had still not moved the bishop from f8.
Full game: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1552829
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