Phony Benoni Member since Feb-10-06 · Last seen May-19-13 Greetings, O Seeker After Knowledge! You have arrived in Detroit, Michigan (whether you like it or not), and are reading words of wisdom from a player rated 2950--plus or minus 1000 points. However, I've more or less retired from serious play--not that I ever took chess really seriously. You only have to look at my games to see that. These days I pursue the simple pleasures of finding games that are bizarre or just plain funny. I'd rather enjoy a game than analyze it. For the record, my name is David Moody. This probably means nothing to you unless you're a longtime player from Michigan, though it's possible that if you attended any U.S. Opens from 1975-1999 we might have crossed paths. Lucky you. If you know me at all, you'll realize that most of my remarks are meant to be humorous. I do this deliberately, so that if my analysis stinks to high heaven I can always say that I was just joking. As you can undoubtedly tell from my sparkling wit, I'm a librarian in my spare time. Even worse, I'm a cataloger, which means I keep log books for cattle. Also, I'm not one of those extroverts who sit at the Reference Desk and help you with research. Instead, I spend all day staring at a computer screen updating and maintaining information in the library's catalog. The general public thinks Reference Librarians are dull. Reference Librarians think Catalogers are dull. My greatest achievement in chess, other than tricking you into reading this, was probably mating with king, bishop and knight against king in a tournament game. I have to admit that this happened after an adjournment, and that I booked up like crazy before resuming. By the way, the fact I have had adjourned games shows you I've been around too long. My funniest moment occurred when I finally got a chance to pull off a smothered mate in actual play. You know, 1.Nf7+ Kg8 2.Nh6+ Kh8 3.Qg8+ Rxg8 4.Nf7#. When I played the climactic queen check my opponent looked at the board in shocked disbelief and said, "But that's not mate! I can take the queen!" Finally, I must confess that I once played a positional move, back around 1982. I'll try not to let that happen again.

Phony Benoni has kibitzed 12200 times to chessgames   [more...]

May-19-13 Phony Benoni chessforum   Phony Benoni: <keypusher> Well, there are several things: 1) Good ballplayer with a .322 lifetime average who played on five pennant winners in his ten-year career; 2) Tragedy factor: died from Bright's Disease at the age of 30 3) New York bias; played entire career with the Giants; 4)      May-19-13 H Simonian vs Lutsko, 2007    Phony Benoni: Looking at the contrast between White's queen and Black's king, I might have preferred "The Tortoise and the Hrair."      May-19-13 Yifan Hou vs Lahno, 2012    Phony Benoni: I predict that nobody will get the exact sequence of moves today.      May-18-13 Ding Liren vs Aronian, 2013    Phony Benoni: <mmmjv> There are several moves where White could have taken the d7. He probably didn't because the b6 was actually a stronger piece than the ...      May-18-13 Lasker vs Showalter, 1902   Phony Benoni: The New York Times (10/22/1902) reports that the game was adjourned at the 51st move. Showalter later resigned without resuming (Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10/27/1902).      May-18-13 Blackburne vs F J Lee, 1904   Phony Benoni: <My Face> Not quite. There's a reason it's called Anderssen's Opening: Anderssen vs Morphy, 1858 And the database actually has games with it dating back to 1839: Kieseritzky vs H H Boncourt, 1839 Now, it's now been the most successful of openings; White only scoring ...      May-18-13 technical draw chessforum    Phony Benoni: Laughter, the Best Medicine. From the "New York Times", April 19, 1902: <"Dr. Nathaniel Marston Freeman, a wealthy retired physician ... died suddenly in the Aschenbroedel Club ... last night from heart disease. "He had been playing chess with one of the club members when ...      May-18-13 Kenneth Rogoff    Phony Benoni: From the "New York Times", March 15, 1902: <"It matters not that the 'Game of Chess' was not the first book printed in England--that honor being possessed by 'Dictes of the Philosophers,' 1477..."> So even before there was Chess, there was The Rogoff Page!      May-18-13 Biographer Bistro    Phony Benoni: <thomastonk> I don't know if the history of 19th century national chess associations in the United States has been researched in detailed. One place to look for some fragmentary information is the Book of the Fifth American Congress. This contains a brief memoir of each ...      May-17-13 Reti vs Breyer, 1913    Phony Benoni: I'm not sure what to say. I suggested this pun, but for an entirely different game. But it was removed from my "Pun List", so maybe I get half credit. Not that it matters. "Spoonful" is not going to be easy to beat this year.

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Let's play two!

< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 390 OF 484 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jun-13-12    Phony Benoni: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... See fielding stats at the bottom. Apparently, they spent only a few years together; Ferguson left the team after 1976. He was the regular catcher in 1973, but by 1974 Yeager had the lion's share of the platoon and afterwards was the regular with Feguson spending more time in the outfield. Jun-13-12    Jim Bartle: I'd thought Ferguson was with the Dodgers longer than that, but when they traded him they got Reggie Smith. Pretty good value. Ferguson was considered the better hitter of the two, especially had more power, but Yeager was a much better defensive catcher. Jun-13-12    Jim Bartle: Here's what had me confused. Ferguson was traded back to the Dodgers in 1978 and played four more years for them, but only 50 games or so at catcher. Jun-13-12    Phony Benoni: Ah! I didn't notice the later stint. Had the same impression as you, and was surprised they seemed to have spent so little time together. Jun-13-12    Jim Bartle: But look at the trades. They got Reggie Smith for him the first time, a great trade which contributed to at least two NL pennants. And then they got him back for two players to be named later (one of whom was Jeffrey Leonard, a good player who wouldn't have fit in on the Dodgers.) And he seemed to be about the same player before and after. Jun-13-12    Jim Bartle: It used to be so much fun to hate the Dodgers when the O'Malleys owned the team. It was largely a homegrown team usually, always a really good pitching staff, plus good villains (Regan, Drysdale, Wills), Garvey later on. But in truth Giants fans sort of admired the 1970s Dodgers with that infield, plus Baker, Monday, Smith. Now they're more like just another team. Of course free agency and other factors have had a big effect, but I still think the most important change was no more O'Malleys. Went to the last Friday night game in 1982 and watched Jerry Reuss mow down the Giants with a shutout, but it was still pretty exciting. Monday's grand slam, the only runs of the game, landed about twenty feet from us. Jun-14-12    Shams: Lance Armstrong is screwed. No way U.S.A. Cycling would move against him at this late date unless they had the goods. Jun-14-12    Jim Bartle: Ho hum, another no-hitter, a perfect game. Jun-14-12    Phony Benoni: There's an unusual number of players under the Mendoza Line this year. The night Verlander pitched his one-hitter the Pirates had five or six starters down there, including the guy who got the hit. Jun-14-12    WannaBe: My friend, who works for the SF Giants, and was at the stadium for the game, text me even before ESPN flashed the news/highlights. =)) She is mighty excited about M. Cain's Perfect-0. Jun-14-12    Jim Bartle: As usual, one great play to keep the no-hitter alive, a great catch in the seventh: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?c... Right-center really is a huge area in SF. A couple of videos later there's a monstrous home run by Jim Thome to straightaway center. 600 homers, has to go into the Hall of Fame. Jun-14-12    Phony Benoni: And you think sports betting is out of hand these days? This is from the <New York Spectator, September 1, 1827>: <"One of the wealthiest Polish Lords, Count Savinskie, has lately had another piquet match. Some time ago while on an embassy to Constantinople, he won from a Captain Pacha, at chess, 12 slaves, with 16,000 leopard skins, which he later sold in Hungary for 1,600,000 francs. He set the slaves at liberty on the spot. In his late game he has lost 26,000 acres of wood, with a magnificent mansion, on the banks of the Ester, to the Prince Dolgorouki."> Jun-15-12    OhioChessFan: Where's Travis when you need him? http://aol.sportingnews.com/nfl/sto... <Apparently Charles Tillman isn't amused by the notion of his Chicago Bears losing to the Green Bay Packers. Even if it is mentioned in a student's homework assignment. So when he learned that a teacher in a suburban Chicago school has posited the notion in a word problem, Tillman, also known as "Peanut," was peeved enough to write a note to the teacher.> Jun-16-12    The Big Lebowski: Dear Mr Presley, I live in Venice Beach California presently but me being of Polish descent, (all Pollocks come from Chicago, I still root for my Beloved Bears! The Bears players don't play that with non-believers of Da Bears! That knucklehead educator is lucky Dick Butkus didn't reply to that traitor of a teacher! The Dude, Go BEARS! http://img2.bdbphotos.com/images/or... Jun-16-12    The Big Lebowski: <Phony Benoni> The Bears have no love lost on The Lions either! Jun-16-12    Phony Benoni: <The Big Lebowski> Oh, we're used to their petty jealousy. Really a pity they had to move from Detroit to Chicago to escape the winters here. Jun-16-12    The Big Lebowski: <Phony Benoni> Sorry for the aggressive post. I'm a pacifist by philosophy but The Chicago Bears bring out my dark side! About those cold winters, (Chicago isn't Florida in the winter), don't The Lions play in a Dome? :>) Jun-16-12    Phony Benoni: <The Big Lebowski> No problem. Good-natured ribbing is not out of place around here, as long as it doesn't get out of hand and personal. Actually, if it were a choice between Chicago and Green Bay, I think most Lions fans would root for the Bears. We may talk some trash, but there's a grudging admiration for Chicago, a blue collar bond. Jun-16-12    The Big Lebowski: I always look forward to the constant of The Lions playing Football on Thanksgiving Day! Jun-16-12    Phony Benoni: Miguel Cabrera hits his second home run of the game: http://detroit.tigers.mlb.com/mlb/g... Jun-17-12    Phony Benoni: Looks like the Brooklyn manager should have been watching the pitch count: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Jun-17-12    WannaBe: we almost had 2 no-hitters on Saturday... Jun-17-12    Jim Bartle: There's got to be something else behind that Cincinnati-Brooklyn game. I don't see how a manager could leave a starter in for an entire 13th inning to get battered for 10 runs. Jun-17-12    Phony Benoni: I'm not sure what was going on in Brooklyn in early 1919. Here's another game from about two weeks earlier: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Maybe Wilbert Robinson thought they weren't in good enough shape coming out of spring training and wanted to give them some extra work. Of course, I understand that taking Burleigh Grimes out of a game was much like yanking Bob Gibson. And look at the opposing pitcher: Joe Oeschger. Yes, the same guy who pitched that 26-inning tie against Brooklyn in 1920. I can imagine him telling the wife, "Hold my dinner, honey; we're playing Brooklyn!" Jun-17-12    Jim Bartle: A heck of a box score. And they called it the "dead ball" era? More like "dead arm," looks like. I wonder if 24 hits is the record for the most hits given up in a game. Now I've read that before 1920 pitchers didn't always throw their hardest (since there was little chance of a home run), saving their best for when there were runners on base. I think this was one of Christy Mathewson's bits of advice to young pitchers, not to throw too hard until they were "in a pinch." So it might not seem quite so strange that pitchers could go for so long. It wasn't Spahn vs. Marichal over and over. Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 484) < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 390 OF 484 ·  Later Kibitzing>		Advertise on Chessgames.com

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