The canonical pattern element is <24.fxe6++>, a pawn double-check for a triangle mate with R+(protected-P). Here, the pattern is shifted 1 rank south, so the R entry isn't a triangle mate-in-1, as Black can retreat to d8 -- but it's an epaulette mate-in-2, which is even more charming.

Backtracking, the pattern sac would normally be Qxf7+ to set up the double check (and the N would be protecting the P :). White reverses the roles: the N hops to sac, while the Q protects the P. <25.Qxg6> steals an N back, untouchable by the mate at the end of the pattern.

He was for about a year, that year being 1976, when he won three tournaments in Bulgaria and also had the best score at the Haifa Olympiad. Shortly afterward he took a job as a real estate agent; according to Commons, when he tried to play in tournaments after that he wasn't really able to do justice either to his chess or his real estate work, so he stopped playing."

Thanks for this.

<Albertan: Hi Richard Taylor. For your information here is Commons' record against opponents:...>

'Domdaniel': most definitely the undersea dungeon, originally from an 18th century translation of 1001 Nights (Kitab 1000 + 1, The Book of a Thousand Nights and a Night, 'Arabian Nights' etc ... binary-using chessplayers might call it "9s").

It's also been generalized to mean "a magician's castle or fortress" and "a hidden domain". Just one of my favourite words, I suppose - I wrote a few things under the pseudonym about 20 years ago, so I think I have squatter's rights.

It was only when I began using it here on CG that I found out about Septimus Heap and other uses - there is, or was, a Dungeons+Dragons-type game with Domdaniels as baddies. Always the bad guys.

Then there was the rumour that I was Dominic Lawson in drag, because he'd written a book about Nigel Short and I played Nigel in a simul. A few years after the Lawson rumour, true, but these things don't conform to the usual laws of time and space.

I also found some amusing anagrams. Somebody said "Die, old man!" during an argument once, so naturally we became good friends. And I use both <Idle Nomad> and <Idle Monad> as the mood takes me.

The Eye, in contrast, was a whim that stuck - a response to some long-forgotten joke. I didn't even notice the mascara at first. I'd hate to change it now.

Which just goes to show you can't always judge people by their representations here, either visual or verbal -- as, um, I did when I leaped to hasty conclusions about your Waltonoid moniker and the yin/yang symbol which looks like sperm whales indulging in interracial harmony. I apologize for that.

I used to use the username 'Offield', but people thought I was a football fan. I'm not ... it was a deliberately gauche translation of 'Duchamp'.

Innaresting point, actually. I can think of some members here who picked a name on the spur of the moment and stayed stuck with it - even though it conveys an image that isn't 'them' at all.

And since you refer to <thirty years ago>, even you may not be a young fellow called John.

We're all in disguise, aren't we? Some people are clever enough to keep their alter egos consistent, but mine are a bunch of accidents.

It's always a pleasure when somebody gets one of my cryptic comments. Feel free to say anything at all at my forum, Frogspawn.

Funny thing is, I've found all his games from Plovdiv 1982, but can't find *anyone's* games from Plovdiv '76. I'm sure it took place - it was a big old-fashioned 15-round all-play-all, popular among Soviet bloc GMs who weren't trusted to head west but fancied some Bulgarian sand and sea.

The Bulgars were terribly secretive in those days, though. Maybe the 1976 event was a state secret, and Commons smuggled his brilliancy out in a tube of toothpaste. I'm sure estate agents make good spies.

I am definitely not a youngster. How many youngsters have the slightest idea what "the Waltons" was? As you can read at my page, I was weak master strength in about 1980 as a 20 year old. Time has a way of instilling patience, and I've given up the Sicilians and KID/Benonis of youth for a more boring game that probably suits my nature. My guess is I play now at about 2300 level (supported by 30 min per side games I play with several very strong players from time to time). But mostly my game is a struggle to get out of the opening with enough positional cohesion to give rein to my ability to compute pretty well through mayhem.

No offense taken. I laughed. Water off a duck's back.

Hah. As a recent college grad in 1988, I did a solo walk-thru / "solution" of Gygax's G3 <Hall of the Fire Giant King> using the GenCon tourney party printed in the back of the module. Decades later, the only names I remembered were Beek Gwenders (half-elf ranger), Fonkin Hoddypeak (high elf f/mu), and Faffle something (human magic-user).

For Diablo, I made up <Gilmoy Faffle> because I thought it sounded snappy and appropriate for a mage. AFAIK, "Gilmoy" is original. In 2006, I bought the G1-G3 PDF from TSR online: it's "Faffle Dwe'o-mercraeft", which I think is lame.