Once Member since May-19-08 · Last seen May-25-13 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.

Once has kibitzed 4653 times to chessgames   [more...]

May-23-13 Karpov vs Csom, 1977    Once: 50...e5 51. Rh7+ Nxh7/ Kg8 52. Qg7# The queen still mates on g7 - she just takes a different route to get there.      May-22-13 I Berezovsky vs V Rusel, 1984    Once: That took a little while to see. First I had a couple of little adventures with 11. Qg8+ and 11. Nf7+. It was only when I'd convinced myself that they don't work that I was able to see 11. Qf7 - not a check or a capture but a mate threat.      May-22-13 Korchnoi vs I Krush, 2007    Once: And I think what Irina was actually complaining about was unnecessarily critical kibitzing.      May-20-13 F J Moyano Morales vs C Merlo, 1967    Once: There's a strange three-step dance that we see in these puzzles. Let's call it wish-can't-can. It starts with a <wish>. The black king has no moves. I wish I could put my queen on the g file as that would checkmate him. But then comes the <can't>. I can't play 20. Qg5+ as ...      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

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The story shop

< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 37 OF 55 ·  Later Kibitzing> Aug-02-11    midknightblue: it is in noun form everywhere, is it not? Aug-02-11    OhioChessFan: I think the usage was more of a discrete noun than normal. Instead of <a> whimsy, you usually see <bit of> whimsy, <act of> whimsy, etc. Aug-02-11    jessicafischerqueen: <Ohio> is correct. I meant the kind of whimsy you could hit someone over the head with. Which wouldn't be an act of whimsy, ironically enough. Aug-02-11    OhioChessFan: http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofil... Aug-06-11    Once: I think whimsy as a noun is what the dictionaries would call "archaic". Perhaps that's why I like it. Aug-08-11    midknightblue: point I was making is whimsy is a noun, no matter what words you put before or after it. Whatever your whimsy, it is difficult to change this particular noun into a verb, adjective or adverb. Aug-08-11    Once: whimsical? Aug-11-11    chesssantosh: I m sorry to hear about riot in london.hope you and your family are allright.may normal life be restored very soon Aug-11-11    Once: <chesssantosh> Thanks for the thought. We're about 30 miles outside London in a very sleepy little town called Godalming. A long way from the violence. But some of our friends have seen the rioting first-hand. And right now we are thinking twice about venturing into the capital. It's very scary how fast society can break down. And there seems to be an odd mix of anger against the Government/ the police and downright greed. Strange times we are living in. Aug-24-11    hms123: <Once> I found some Auchentosh. The local store had "Classic" (which I could afford), and "Triple Wood" (which I bought). I still haven't opened the Cragganmore yet because it is too darn hot (36 C). I hope the weather breaks before I do. Aug-24-11    benjinathan: <h> I could just imagine the reaction I would get at home if I brought home a bottle of that: http://www.lcbo.com/lcbo-ear/lcbo/p... Recently I brought home a bottle of $16 pasta sauce and it was none too pleasant. Aug-24-11    hms123: <benjinathan> You will just have to visit and hope that some is left. Aug-24-11    benjinathan: When I do I will sneak a bottle of $16 pasta sauce across the border... Aug-25-11    Once: True, it's expensive, but the trick is to drink it in very small quantities. Then a bottle lasts a looong time. I generally have two whiskies open. A bottle of cheap and cheerful blended to drink with ice and water. And a good single malt. The cheap and cheerful goes down much more quickly. And if you're going to have more than one glass in an evening, have the single malt first ... As the Mem says, life is too short to drink bad wine. Aug-29-11    dzechiel: I enjoyed "Permission to be Brave" today. Aug-30-11    Once: Thanks, Dave. It was a more thoughtful piece than some of my wilder fantasies. I wasn't sure if many people would get it. Only the more sophisticated, perhaps?! Aug-30-11    FSR: <benjinathan> A $16 jar of pasta sauce?! I hope it was good. I have to hide new chess books from my wife. I have no intention of ever telling her what http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... and http://www.newinchess.com/A_Few_Old... cost. Aug-30-11    LIFE Master AJ: Nakamura vs A J Goldsby, 2003 <<ProjectR: <GSM> A user called <Once> said the same thing as you last month,now he has Life master AJ on ignore after having help thrown in his face !!>> Just the fact that I am able to post here shows that this person is incapable of telling the truth. (He also has ststed many other lies, including the fact that the main in-mate that I am helping is fictional.) Aug-30-11    Once: I don't have anyone on ignore. Tried it a couple of times in my early days on this site but it didn't feel right. Instead I believe in tolerance, patience and respect. That and good whisky. Aug-30-11    Once: <FSR> Honey, I've done a very bad thing ... Wasn't it Pulp Fiction that had the £10 milkshake? It's what the mem and I call an OSI moment. OSI = Oh, Sod It. We might as well get the most expensive one. Normally followed by reaching for the credit card. I suppose the scariest one of all is our son's education. If you say it quickly enough it doesn't sound so bad. Somewhere north of £200,000. Possibly a quarter of a million. Gulp. Aug-30-11    perfidious: <Once> Where is your son going to university? A quarter-million quid seems a lot, even with what I know of the costs here in USA, which aren't cheap at all. Aug-31-11    Once: We've not got to the University stage yet - he's only 10. But that's what a private education from the age of 5 through to 21 or 22 adds up to, assuming the level of University fees that are being proposed. Aug-31-11    ProjectR: <Once> Thanks for your post to me in todays puzzle,i missed the perpetual check. I would have addressed you there but my post could have got burried amongst the others,and i wanted to apologise for saying you had the life Master on ignore,its just i noticed you reached a point during the clone wars where you just stopped responding to him,so i presumed you'd finally had enough and stuck him on ignore. Well done for trying with him though,but i think people have been trying for years and years,and still getting nowhere. All the best <projectR> Aug-31-11    Once: No worries! And no need to apologise. This ignore stuff can get pretty confusing, so it's quite understandable that no-one quite knows who is ignoring who. AJ is what he is, I suppose. He has the unfortunate knack of being able to annoy lots of people. I don't think he realises that he's doing it. I don't even think that he means to do it. And when he does annoy someone and they react and attack back, he thinks that it is all their fault and that they are picking on him. That is why he has something like 100 people on ignore, and he is absolutely convinced that they are all out to get him. He doesn't stop to wonder why these 100 people have decided to take a disliking to him and only him. I tried to help in two different ways. Firstly I tried to get his critics to stop attacking him. Some of the stuff that was being levelled at him was really unpleasant, and I felt genuinely sorry for him. It was also damaging this site. Secondly, I tried to get AJ to realise that he was, at least in part, causing the problem. And that it doesn't have to be this way. He didn't like that bit! And he still doesn't. I'd rate it as a partial success. The worst of the flaming has died down. I think even AJ has started to moderate his behaviour. Sometimes it feels like we take 2 steps forwards and one step back. But that's much better than the alternative. It's a shame that I've lost a few friends in the process, including AJ, but I think I've made some new ones along the way too. And you've got to stand up for what you believe in, even if it costs. Sep-02-11    mworld: FYI Turns out there is a better bottle of Cragganmore available. AD Rattray has a bottling of it. Maybe christmas can come early for you =] Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 55) < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 37 OF 55 ·  Later Kibitzing>		Advertise on Chessgames.com

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