User Profile: Once

Once
Member since May-19-08 · Last seen May-19-13

A chess player and a sometimes scribbler.
This is the way I see it. Every chess game is a story. There is the context of the game - possibly played in a world championship or a casual game between friends. There had to be a reason why two people sat down at either end of a chessboard to play a game.
Then there is the history between the players. There might be an old feud between them or the sometimes odd relationship between a trainer and pupil.
There are also stories in the game itself. Each piece represents a person, from a noble king to a lowly pawn. And each piece might play a pivotal role in the game or they might huddle on the sidelines. Heroic MVP or cannonfodder. The game itself could be won by a dashing commando raid in under 20 moves or it could be a WWI style trench war fought over more than 100 moves.
And what do we kibitzers do? We solve puzzles and play the game by using pattern recognition. A position might remind us of one of our own games, or a famous game that we played through once, or last week's POTD.
Put the two things together - stories and pattern recognition - and you get my approach to this site. When I play through a game I see patterns that are echoes of stories. A bishop sac on h7? That reminds me of a soldier lying on some barbed wire so that his colleagues can storm a machine-gun nest. A smothered mate? - the Casque of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. And on it goes.

And so I write the stories that the games demand. Not for profit or fame. Simply because they are there. Sometimes stories demand to be told.

>> Click here to see Once's game collections.

   Once has kibitzed 4647 times to chessgames [more...]

   May-15-13 Once chessforum

Once: My parents could afford to send me to an expensive school, so I went to a modest state school that couldn't quite stretch to birching. Still, don't think I turned out too bad...

   May-14-13 Abdel Irada chessforum

Once: A word of advice, for what it's worth. Your detractor on today's POTD is fishing for a reaction from you. Probably best not to give him what he wants!

   May-14-13 T Hickendorff vs R Van Bokhorst, 2005

Once: I suppose every chess player eventually discovers the power of the discovered check. Because the opponent has to get out of the check, the discovering piece has the freedom to go wherever it likes and cause mischief. It feels like a free move, as if the rest of the world was frozen and

   May-04-13 N Vitiugov vs Ding Liren, 2012

Once: If 21. e5 f6, the move I would want to make would be 22. e6: [DIAGRAM] A protected passed pawn that can't be dislodged plus we're winning g6 when the black queen runs away. There may not be an immediate mating attack for white, but that looks like an attack that will almost play ...

   May-01-13 V Tukmakov vs Schussler, 1983

Once: My wife sometimes criticises me for wearing odd socks. And when she does I usually retort - "they can't be odd - there's a pair just like them in the sock drawer." It's not much of a joke, even less of a defence, but it sometimes is prayed in aid when defending a mixed metaphor!

   Apr-30-13 V Vepkhvishvili vs K Shavgulidze, 1983

Once: Interesting that white first draws the black king into the centre (with 29. Rxe6), then kicks him away from the centre (with 31. Re1+). And in doing this, he pulls a black piece into the firing line (30...Nd5)and then kicks away its supporter (the Ke6 has to move). This isn't war, it's

   Apr-15-13 V Ouwendijk vs Y Gorter, 2005

Once: Oh, I know this one! It's the attack on the Death Star by the rebel alliance. The black queen is the millennium falcon clearing away the defenders so that Luke Warmwater in his x-wing rook can fly along the sixth rank and h file trench and drop a proton torpedo down the thermal exhaust

   Apr-09-13 Kasparov vs Mephisto, 1985

Once: See what I mean?

   Apr-08-13 Topalov vs Kasparov, 1998

Once: I think this is a case when the puzzle is not quite as interesting as the play that preceded it. Here's the position after white has played 45. Rd8: [DIAGRAM] It's a tense position with loose pieces and tactics in the air. Black is a pawn up and ought to win from here. But here ...

   Apr-02-13 World Championship Candidates (2013)

Once: We do seem to be making a meal of this. First we had the conspiracy nonsense, now we are struggling with the idea of a tie-breaker. And all through it there has been these odd fanboy sentiments where "my guy" can do no wrong and "everybody else's guy" can do no right. Get over it. It ...

indicates a reply to the comment.

The story shop

< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 55 OF 55 · Later Kibitzing>
Dec-25-12		Once: <Morf> Happy Christmas! England is wet at the moment. Very very wet. We can't seem to shake off successive waves of torrential rainfall. This means that much of lowland Blighty is currently flooded. Not exactly how Dickens painted it or Bing sang about it ... "I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas"?? I must admit that your clam chowder sounds very tempting. We're about to sit down to a traditional Christmas dinner - roast turkey, roast parsnips, roast potatoes, sausages wrapped in bacon, crackers and silly hats. I'd swap for your chicken soup and chili ;-) Hope you have a great holiday. Best wishes to you and your family.

Dec-26-12		morfishine: <Once> Good Evening Sir! I hope you enjoyed you Christmas Dinner, silly hats and all. If we can't have fun, whats the point? (I don't know if I ever mentioned this, but Benny Hill and Dave Allen are two of my favorite comics) I wanted to add I received a CD of the most lovely Christmas Music I've ever heard: 'Celtic Christmas' A wonderful medley of flutes, piccolos, violins, mandolins, bagpipes, guitars and harpsichords (as well as some unidentified instruments). I never heard such beautiful music before, and that includes Mozart. And then it hit me: its all instrumental; no human voices intervening with their 'yodeling' or jazzy spin as they destroy perfectly good Christmas songs Oh, and I learned something new too: Celtic is pronounced 'Kell-Tick' not 'Sell-Tick' as in the Boston Sell-ticks...Don't tell Larry Bird :) Finally, a prosperous New Year to you and your loved ones!

Dec-27-12		Once: <morf> Ah, the mystery of "Celtic". When it refers to the football team, it has a soft c, as in "selltic". But when it refers to the race of Celts, the c is hard as in "Kelltic". That's the funny thing with UK English compared to US English - we have more exceptions than we have rules! Or at least it feels that way sometimes. Don't know the CD "Celtic Christmas" but I'll look out for it. Sounds like my kind of thing too. The most touching part of Christmas for me was the fact that my elderly Mum couldn't be with us for the Christmas day meal. She is much too ill and virtually housebound. So we did something a little different. We went to see here before Christmas and we gave her as many of the trappings of our Christmas meal as we could - a bottle of champagne, a couple of crackers, a napkin (identical to ours), the same starter and so on. Then on Christmas day we set a place for her at our table and put John's laptop in that place. Then we skyped her into the meal. She ate her meal at the same time as us, and we could talk to her as if she was in the same room. We didn't know if it would work, but it did. It sort of felt like she was there with us. The funniest thing was watching John playing charades, with my Mum playing along even though she was more than 100 miles away. How about you? How was Christmas chez Morf?

Dec-27-12		morfishine: <Once> That was a fantastic idea to use Skype to have your mother with you at Christmas! God Bless her! Thanks for clearing up the Selltic - Kelltic mystery. This prompted me to read-up on Celtic history and was astonished to find they inhabited vast regions of Europe. I thought they were confined to Northern UK. And thanks for asking about our Christmas: We had a very nice time, quiet and relaxing. Its also the one time of year that we enjoy Prime Rib as the grocers customarily drop the price during the Holidays. I should've bought two!

Dec-27-12		OhioChessFan: Skype charades! That's great. Once in a while technology seems like a good thing.

Dec-27-12		Once: It certainly was a strange thing to bring together the very old and the very new. At our home, we had the mem and me in late forties/ early fifties, our 12 year old son and one 87 year old Grandma. Oh, and one place at the table for a laptop which was skyping my Mum in her seventies. That was certainly a case of technology bringing a family together for a very special day. Not sure how else we could have done it. It's funny how science fiction didn't quite call it right. We don't drive around in jet cars and have colonies on the moon. But we do have the internet and mobile phones ... and a Christmas meal with someone more than 100 miles away. Priceless.

Jan-05-13		Tiggler: <Once>:<Tiggler: <Once>:<Someone may be able to convert chess into a formula, along similar lines to Fermat's last theorem> Not a great example, because Fermat's last theorem was proved partly by means of exhaustive computer analysis. We are still waiting for the genius who can prove it without this.> I only just noticed your reply to this, so sorry for my tardy response: You are correct, and my statement above is wrong. Happy New Year (also a bit tardy!).

Jan-06-13		Once: Happy new year!

Jan-08-13		morfishine: Hello <Once> Here is some Claude Bloodgood stuff: D Wedding vs Barak, 1994

Jan-08-13		Once: so Don was real after all? That's almost a shame. I do like a good conspiracy. I suppose the thing about Bloodgood is that the truth was sufficiently amazing that we don't need to embellish the story.

Jan-08-13		morfishine: Dear <Once> The story is fascinating enough without 'Don Wedding' at all; What with Claude's Dad and the Abwehr, and U-boats, and Kathryn Grayson and the criminal future of Claude, its quite a story Don turns out to be an average chess player prone to blunders...though he gives a good interview...

Jan-10-13		Once: Quite a story indeed. Have you by any chance read a book called the Complete Chess Addict? it's one of my favourites. It doesn't teach you how to play, but it does tell a lot of great stories about characters like Bloodgood. Well worth hunting out a copy if you haven't seen it.

Mar-11-13		morfishine: Good evening <Once>! Good to hear from you and I hope you enjoyed your play with your 'mem' (can I assume thats your wife?). I've noticed you don't post as often; As long as you don't leave us altogether, that would be fine with me; semi-retired is much better than completely retired....and in any case, from what I've read, nobody really retires anyways... I will check out your recommended book 'The Complete Chess Addict'. Sorry for the slow response on this, but I'm on the case, or caper, or whatever Agathie Christie may term it...

Mar-11-13		Once: <morf> Good to hear from you! I've temporarily slowed down on the chess writing. Some heavy stuff at work and non-chess writing. But I hope to get back in the swing soon. The mem is indeed the good lady wife - an old colonial expression. The Agatha Christie was fun. Not great, but diverting. The mistress did it, in the drawing room with poison.

Mar-11-13		Once: Incidentally, the term "mem" is short for "memsahib" which is Indian for a high class woman. Most memorably used in the classic film Carry on up the Khyber, where Sid James plays Sir Sydney Ruff-Diamond and refers to his wife as "the Mem".

Mar-11-13		hms123: <Once> <The Agatha Christie was fun. Not great, but diverting. The mistress did it, in the drawing room with poison.> Spoiler alert! ;-)

Mar-12-13		morfishine: Ok <Once> I think I got all these 'mems' and 'mums' (per the UK) straight in my head now: Mem = Wife Mum = Mother Mom = Mother-in-Law Mam = Mistress That leaves 'Mim' whose basic definition is 'affectedly shy or modest' or 'imitative of the act of pursing the lips' [ie: kissing] Digging further, I found 'Mim' has been used interchangeably with 'Mem' going back to the Phoenicians and the Egyptian heiroglyphic symbol for water; 'Mem' is also associated with the Tarot, specifically 'The Hanged Man' (now we are getting somewhere) where it is also symbolic of water "and the path between Geburah and Hod on the Tree of Life". One could interpret this to mean that a married man lives under the threat of 'hanging' if he should stray from his faithful vows. But this is too dour as it relates to forward looking Egyptian life philosophy. More than likely, what it means is when a man marries, the old, wild immature single man dies [ie: 'hanging'] and the new married man is now one with his wife. I hope

Mar-12-13		Once: Wow - a very scholarly post! I am deeply impressed, sir. I'll put a slightly different perspective, if I may. My elderly Mum's name is Gillian. She has had a love-hate relationship with her name all her life. Her beef is that other people can adapt her name to suit themselves. When she was a little girl, her mother would call her Gill or Jilly in the rare moments when she was being affectionate or the full Gillian when my Mum had done something wrong and Grandmother was being stern. So my Mum wanted to give me a name that couldn't be shortened. She didn't want me to suffer in the way that she had suffered. She wanted me to be in control of my own name. So she named me Iain - a name that can neither be shortened or lengthened. This hasn't had quite the effect that she expected. It has given me a name that I can't adapt to suit my preferences. And one that just about everyone spells wrong when they first get to know me. The point of the story is that we all need to be able to adapt names, to make them either formal or informal. Names can be used to show affection or subservience. My Mum may be Gillian, but to me she is always Mum, even as I'm close to my half century. Yet in some societies, a mother would expect to be called Mother or Mater. A father might expect to be called "sir". Reverting to Mem ... Mem is short for Memsahib, an indian word that means "Madame". And "madame" is one of those odd words with multiple meanings: 1. A female brothel keeper (!) 2. A customer in a shop 3. A precocious girl 4. (when shortened to ma'am) Her Majesty the Queen. Incidentally, "mistress" also has several meanings: 1. the female version of master 2. the female head of a household 3. a woman having an affair with a married man 4. when used by a servant, a female boss 5. a lady who wears high boots and has a surprisingly large collection of whips and handcuffs. Now, I love my wife very much but I struggle with her first name - Hilary. Too many syllables. Can't be shortened without sounding childish. And it's not a name that you can say with much affection. It has always struck me as a cold name. Hence the nickname, Mem. Affectionate, self-deprecating, quaintly British and a hidden reference to the Carry On films!

Mar-12-13		morfishine: Good morning <Once>! Whew, thats a relief! I was worried about all that hanging stuff! *Perhaps your mum decided on Iain vs the routine Ian, so you would be different, special

Mar-13-13		Once: I think that was her intention. Funnily enough, when it came to naming the best boy in the world, Hilary and I decided to call him John. Just John. We didn't want to give him a zappy name which was preloaded with our aspirations about what he was going to do with his life. Funny things, names. The murder victim in the Agatha Christie play was called Amyas as a forename. I'd never heard of that before, so we spent a fruitless few minutes trying to work out if it was an anagram...

Mar-18-13		FSR: Hi, <Once>. I refuted your math (more than three years after your post) at D Freeman vs Laufer, 1993.

Mar-19-13		Once: I stand corrected!

May-15-13		Tiggler: <Once: I stand corrected!> Did you ever get corrected in school? They used to do it with a birch in my school. But not everyone had my advantages.

May-15-13		Once: My parents could afford to send me to an expensive school, so I went to a modest state school that couldn't quite stretch to birching. Still, don't think I turned out too bad...

May-15-13		Tiggler: I suspect you are too young anyway. Could not buy that privilege at any price after about 1970.

Jump to page # (enter # from 1 to 55)
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 55 OF 55 · Later Kibitzing>

A free online guide presented by Chessgames.com

NOTE: You need to pick a username and password to post a reply. Getting your account takes less than a minute, totally anonymous, and 100% free--plus, it entitles you to features otherwise unavailable. Pick your username now and join the chessgames community!

If you already have an account, you should login now.

Please observe our posting guidelines:

No obscene, racist, sexist, or profane language.
No spamming, advertising, or duplicating posts.
No personal attacks against other users.
Nothing in violation of United States law.

See something which violates our rules? Blow the whistle and inform an administrator.

NOTE: Keep all discussion on the topic of this page. This forum is for this specific user and nothing else. If you want to discuss chess in general, or this site, you might try the Kibitzer's Café.

Messages posted by Chessgames members do not necessarily represent the views of Chessgames.com, its employees, or sponsors.

You are not logged in to chessgames.com.
If you need an account, register now;
it's quick, anonymous, and free!
If you already have an account, click here to sign-in.