Not-Bobby

There’s discussion over at Mig’s Daily Dirt about a Bobby Fischer movie and who should star as the man. Tobey Maguire not well received there; Josh Lucas and Ryan Gosling both put forward as better suggestions for looks and/or ability.

More interesting: What would be the WORST choice for playing Bobby? Remember, Bobby was tall, intense, moody, dashing, charming at times, and incipient-crazy.

So, for starters: 

• Sylvester Stallone
• Kevin James
• Leslie David Baker (Stanley Hudson from The Office)
• Charlene Tilton*  (*I make one Charlene Tilton joke per year because Matt P laughed at the first one.)

Your nominees?

UPDATE: Matt wins, both for ingenuity and for exceptional photo editing skill.

 

Splat: a USATE leftover

Not precise, but fun.

Collins (1915) – Slater (2129)
USATE 2010 rd3

1.d4 Nf6

2.c4 g6

3.Nc3 Bg7

4.e4 d6

5.h3 0-0

6.Bg5 Na6

7.Bd3 e5

8.d5 Qe8

9.Nge2 Nfd7

10.a3 Ndc5

11.b4 Nxd3+

12.Qxd3 f5

13.0-0 h6

14.Be3 f4        

White doesn’t mind Black pushing the pawn to f4, as it takes the pressure off of e4 and allows White to pursue his queenside ambitions – namely preparing and playing c5.

If he’d played 14.Bd2, he would now have time to play 15. f3 and be good to go. However, he didn’t.

15.Bd2 f3

Denys Shmelov, in a beer-round postmortem: “After f3 appeared I expected the game to be over very soon.”

16.Ng3 Qd7       

Black wants White to take on f3. White does not want to do so. The pawns would be both a target on the f-file and a wall keeping White’s pieces from helping save the king. As it so often happens, though, that might have been less dangerous than leaving the pawn on f3 as in the game.

17.Nh1 Qe7

18.Rae1 h5        So that after 19.Re3 Bh6 20.Rxf3 Rxf3 White would have to double the pawns after all, because his queen is busy guarding the Bd2.

19.Qe3 Rf4

20.g3

20…Bxh3

Wins in a cool manner, though afterwards Denys pointed out 20…Qd7 is instantly 0-1!

Funny – I played that very move 4 moves ago, but here it never crossed my mind.

I guess I was preoccupied with calculations around 20…Qg5 (21.Kh2 Bxh3! 22.Kxh3 Rh4+!!). Then I decided 20…Bxh3 was more forcing than …Qg5.

21.gxf4 Bg4 

The key move. Down a whole rook, Black is simply going to go Qh4-h3-g2 mate. It takes three tempi, but White just can’t stop it without giving up his queen as follows.

22.fxe5 Qh4

23.Qf4       

Sneaking the Queen to the kingside - but after Black’s reply she doesn’t have any safe squares there.

23…Bxe5

24.Qg3

24…Qf6       

No rush. It’s trapped.  25.Kh2 h4! makes it even worse — because he’s forced to play Qxe5 instead of making me take on g3, when White can recapture fxg3 allowing a rook to cover g2 on the second rank).

25.Nd1 Bxg3

26.fxg3 Qd4+

27.Rf2 Re8

0-1

White has some material but it’s wildly uncoordinated (Nh1 anybody?) and he’s going to lose his center pawns.

50 churches, give or take

David Churbuck, a former colleague who set me down the blogging path, has become a serial religious service visitor.

He writes about it in his blog series 50 Churches, One Mosque, One Temple – a fascinating exploration of religion viewed respectfully by an outsider. Great photos and observations.

Of Scams and Squidoo

Playing around with Squidoo. Created a page (“lens”) about spotting online scams.

Interesting? Fun? (I’ll expand it considerably over time.)

I began to chew the snail and then was beset by doubt

He was most likely either helix aspersa or helix pomatia, though I can’t be sure.

These are the ones native to France, and I met him at Pigalle, which is run I think by a highly decorated American pretending to be French. And which has a fun website. And which is named after the red-light district in Paris.

Viewing this picture will help contextualize the following.

He was served with two friends and some lobster, in a broth of lemongrass and other seasonings.

He was black, and large, in a bowl of green soup. There was no way to tiptoe into the experience. You couldn’t hide him in a big spoonful of broth and pretend he wasn’t there.

So I ate him.

There was nothing particularly strange about the texture. Chewy, yes. (Apparently escargots are cooked for 8 hours to make them manageable.)

My wife pointed out that it was much like a clam, and that helped a little.

But I cannot tell a lie. Once I started to chew, I had second thoughts.

Though it was all in my head, the outcome was not entirely certain until the deed was done.

And I did not eat his friends.

USATE 2010: Finale

Cambridge Springers took home the gold, winning on tiebreaks over youth teams, one featuring GM Robert Hess.

Team standings are posted here.

EVENT IS RATED – crosstable here. (Thanks to Greg K for finding.)

Congrats to Bill Kelleher, Joe Fang and company. All prize results listed at uschess.org. Joe Fang went 6-0 scored 5.5 (not 6-0 as initially reported) and I caught a bit of his last game – a very interesting opposite-color-bishops ending where his passers were on the flanks and his opponent had passers in the middle (easier for Fang’s king to stay in touch with). (Game posted in uschess.org writeup – link in next graf.)

Good blogging by Jim West, who has lots of pictures and whose team we played in the last round; Michael Goeller, who played on the top board in round 5;  Polly at Castling Queenside - I saw Polly briefly at the tourney and was sorry to see her on crutches; Elizabeth Vicary, whom I met briefly for the first time after The Beer Round. Add: Lengthy coverage by Jen Shahade now up at uschess.org.

Quotes of the weekend:

1. “Are you sure?” Jim West’s second board lost his queen FOR NOTHING by move 20. He continued to play against Charles (rated 2400) for many, many moves thereafter, without a shred of counterplay or hope in sight. Even in the team context this seemed a little ridiculous. Finally he resigned, and West on the adjacent board immediately turned to him and deadpanned “Are you sure?”

2. “I didn’t even consider it.” A few weeks ago I played Denys at the local club here outside Boston. Afterwards we talked about the game and of my early move f3, he commented “This move is so bad I didn’t even consider it.” Nothing personal, just a fact! Matt and I found this quite hilarious and took to repeating it this weekend in Parsippany. Then in the last round Matt played Nd4+ instead of Nxe5+, passing up a free pawn. I asked him afterwards why he didn’t play Nxe5, and he said “This move was so GOOD, I didn’t even consider it.” A true mantra for us patzers.

3. “We’re cruising on all four boards.” Outside the playing hall someone asked Greg how his team was doing, and I thought that’s how Greg replied. “Famous last words,” I responded, and I was kidding. But Greg’s team got killed that round – they scored one-half point out of four games. Afterwards I asked what happened – turns out he said LOSING, not CRUISING.

Denys grinds out 2Bs versus Jim West's rook - round 6

Top teams by average rating - see how tough it is to win this event?

Three of the Jackson Four: Charlie Mays, Greg Kaden, Carey Theil. Seeded 7th overall, finished 5-1 (like us).

USATE rounds 5 & 6 (short version)

Round five: Finally behind the ropes. We played Jay Bonin’s squad; Denys beat Bonin in an exciting game (they have a history from the US Chess League); Charles won nicely; I lost to a 2100 and Matt also lost to an expert. So a disappointing draw.

That dropped us down to board 10 for the finale. We won 3-1 and my opponent, with a FIDE rating of 2100, played … the Latvian Gambit. So you think I won easily because this is not a respected opening? Nothing is easy!

Meanwhile, the Cambridge Springers were playing for a top prize and Lawyer Times’ team had clawed back up to a high spot. At 5-1 with decent tiebreaks (a couple of 4-0 matches), we could win the top Massachusetts team prize (whatever that is).

Games, photos, results, ridiculous analogies still to come. Thanks for playing along on your TVs at home.

USATE 2010 round 4: Those darn kids

It’s a scene from Mr. Cranky Old Chessplayer’s nightmares: You expect to be paired up, but instead you see your opposition listed around 1800. And then you see they have 2.5 from three rounds, which means they upset somebody. And then they sit down to play and you see that they’re all about 11 years old. And then … and then … ( scary music builds to a crescendo) Sunil Weeramantry walks up behind you to look at how they’re doing.

Yes, you’re paired against a bunch of well-coached, under-rated children with solid opening repertoires and the tactical vision you think maybe you mighta had long ago.

The Shmelov Money (our team) drew in round three, and thus we found ourselves (puzzlingly) moving UP to board 11 (STILL not behind the ropes!) and being paired down against the aforementioned kids, dubbed the Mating Maniacs.

I had a terrible opening and later made the dubious decision to “go for it” tactically. Four hours of suffering later, my opponent fell at the last hurdle and walked into a most unjust checkmate. This completed a 4-0 washout for our team.

Now waitaminnit, you say. Why’s it so scary playing kids if you win 4-0?

All I can say is, try it.

[*Sunil Weeramantry is a longtime chess trainer and also the step-father of decorated wunderkid Hikaru Nakamura, who's broken into the top 20 players in the world.]