User Profile: Once

Once
Member since May-19-08 · Last seen Jun-18-13

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.

I've just published a website - will-once.com. The plan is to upload some of my more creative posts onto it, and also to promote my non-chess writing. Feel free to drop by and let me know what you think.

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

   Once has kibitzed 4655 times to chessgames [more...]

   May-29-13 V Zvjaginsev vs Bologan, 2010

Once: For some reason, I was in a defensive mood today. With a bit of retrograde analysis, I figured that black's last move must have been 34...Qf4, setting up a perpetual with Qc5+ and Qf1+. If white blocks the Qc5+ with b3, then Qxc2+ and we are perping on c2 and c1. Worse, if white ...

   May-27-13 T De Wit vs R Brandenburg, 2005

Once: I think the crunch position comes here, after white has played 17. Bd3 [DIAGRAM] Now I imagine black had a long think. He (she?) has probably read a few books about the modern defence, and that was influencing his thoughts about what to do next. And there are two things which books ...

   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 ...

indicates a reply to the comment.

The story shop

< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 49 OF 55 · Later Kibitzing>
Feb-16-12		scormus: <h3> Sorry, perhaps I wasnt clear enough. The <pawn> could have been on h3 instead of h2 and still the WR on g3 would not be lost. If you look at it you'll quickly see why

Feb-16-12		Once: Ah, I see what you are saying. The h pawn protects the Rg3 even if it is on h3 because of the sequence Qf4+,Rg5,h4. It turns out that we don't even need 28. R1g3. Fritzie thinks that the rook is perfectly safe on g1 because of the line 28. Rxh5+ gxh5 29. Qf4+ Kh7 30. Qxf5+ Kh6 31. Bg5+ Kg7 32. Be7+ Kh6 33. Qxf7 Rxg1+ 34. Kc2

Feb-17-12		LIFE Master AJ: <Once> I truly meant it when I said I was offering to put your old columns on my website. (That was in earnest.) Personally - as an author - you have a real responsibility to post your old columns in PDF format. (You owe that to any fans that you have. And ... as well as you write ... there must be many of them!!!) I - for one - would enjoy reading any of your old columns, especially seeing as I have never gotten BCM on a regular basis! The TROLL (http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp...) who popped in and tried to start trouble is nothing more than a sad mockery of life, and is not even a real human being. And to avoid further conflict, I have created a special web page ... just for "the troop." (http://www.ajschess.com/for_the-tro...) In the future, I will try to avoid bantering with these goons, and will only post this link as my response. And while we are on that subject ... (about apologies); if anyone is owed one, I would think I would be the one that was definitely due that - since I did not instigate that prior conflict! (It was - in my mind - a totally unwarranted and baseless attack.) However, I (also) can adopt the policy of "forgive and forget," about old arguments, especially if the other party is of the same mind ...

Feb-17-12		LIFE Master AJ: I hope that many of the rest of CG users ... will (also) ask <demand?> (with one voice) that you provide us with your old columns. And my offer remains vaild. If you lack the time or the expertise ... or simply don't feel like it ... but will provide me with the copies in PDF format ... I will happily post them on my website as a free download ... for the whole <chess> world to enjoy. Take care. As ever, I enjoy your daily "Once whimsies" on the POTD. They are as easily as enjoyable as one of my (old) favorite comic strips ... like "Peanuts." (Charlie Brown and company.)

Feb-17-12		Once: Thanks for the offer. As I said before, I'm not in a rush to pull the old posts together. I have a couple of other projects in the pipeline and I try not to get distracted by doing things out of sequence. So the idea of a website or a book or something is in on the list. But not just yet. Thanks for the offer all the same. As to the other stuff, I'm sure you are right about avoiding the conflict. For me, that is one that would come higher up the list of priorities. It's the one I would start with first. But I did say I wouldn't offer you advice, so what you do is entirely up to you.

Feb-17-12		LIFE Master AJ: Good idea! And I have nothing further to add ... so have a great day.

Feb-17-12		scormus: <Yes, you and Fritzie are correct> After quite a bit of debate on the forum and time for reflection, one sees that Bh6+, though clearly winning in the line following 28 R1h3, is not the only B moves dis+. Though whether anyone would have wanted OTB to play 28 Rxh5+ and have to depend on B not being able to find a way to exploit the threats on g1 and b2, when they had seen it was necessary. This game, 28 W to move would have made a good puzzle, nespar?

Feb-17-12		Once: 28. white to move would have made a good saturday or sunday. I liked the singularity of purpose behind R1g3, but e6 was better. Even if it would take a computer (or very good player) to spot it.

Feb-17-12		dzechiel: One of your better efforts today. Mr Smith is a wonderful foil.

Feb-19-12		hms123: <Once> I don't remember if you were active on the POTD page back in July, 2010, but I posted something similar to this at the time: <We (User: WinKing , User: kutztown46 , and User: hms123) are announcing an award for the best contribution or series of contributions to the <Puzzle of the Day> by a non-premium member in the past year. The award�a one-year premium membership from the <Rinus Award> fund in memory of User: rinus �will be used to encourage non-premium members to contribute to the <chessgames.com> community through the posting of analysis or other chess-related discussion at the <POTD>. Please post nominations at User: hms123 some time in the next few weeks. Although we will be paying particular attention to the nominations and votes from those premium members who represent some of the best of what chessgames.com has to offer, all (including non-premium members) are welcome to nominate and vote. We thank everyone at the site for sharing so much information with us.> We are going to make another award in the next few weeks. I would appreciate your nominations and your occasional reminding of the POTD denizens about making nominations. I have asked <dzechiel> to do the same. thanks--hms

Feb-19-12		Once: <hms123> Happy to help. Can I make multiple nominations or is it one vote per person? If I can nominate more than one, my three nominations would be: sevenseaman, lovethatjoker and gofer. If I can only nominate one ... I think I would get a headache!

Feb-19-12		hms123: <Once> Make all the nominations you like. I will copy your three above to my forum just so I don't forget.

Feb-22-12		shivasuri4: <Once>, I noted your observation on 'must of' with interest.Do you know if the use of the phrase 'amused from' is legitimate?Also, what's the difference between 'though', 'although' and 'albeit', a question I have asked a lot of people without a satisfactory response?

Feb-22-12		Once: <shivasuri4> I've never heard of the phrase "amused from", so can't help with that one. As for though/although, I googled it and found this: "As conjunctions, although and though are generally interchangeable: Although (or though) she smiled, she was angry. Although is usually placed at the beginning of its clause (as in the preceding example), whereas though may occur elsewhere and is the more common term when used to link words or phrases, as in wiser though poorer. In certain constructions, only though is acceptable: Fond though (not although) I am of sports, I'd rather not sit through another basketball game." The fascinating thing about language is that it is illogical, organic, constantly changing, fluid. No matter how hard we try to keep hold of it, it just keeps slipping through our fingers. So it's very hard to say that something isn't right. It could just be that it isn't right ... yet. How do you spell colour/ color? In UK English, we spell it "colour". But US English tends to follow phonetic rules. And with that in mind, anything spelt with "our" should rhyme with "sour". So colour is spelt as "color". Who knows? In years to come the original spelling of colour might disappear and all we are left with is color. And honor. And valor. And loootenant. Mind you, a few years ago I wouldn't have written a two word sentence like "And honor." Because it wasn't right. Or, as I should have said, wasn't right ... yet.

Feb-23-12		shivasuri4: Yes, i agree that language continually evolves.Thanks for helping out, <Once>.

Feb-25-12		morfishine: Dear <Once> Just wanted to drop a short note that your postings, stories, analogies and writings are a continual source of great pleasure to myself. Best, Morf

Feb-25-12		hms123: <Once> And to me as well.

Feb-26-12		Once: Thanks for saying that. I would far rather be writing here and getting feedback like that, than writing something that gets paid but doesn't get feedback.

Mar-03-12		sevenseaman: <Once> You gladdened my heart by your thoughtful visit to my fledgeling forum. Your experience and wise converse surely enriches it. 'Abseiling', thats a new word for me; nice and so appropriate. Up or down? I would hardly know. Is it a rock face or a ship, I cannot make up my mind even about that. (we did not understand the previous one at all). Come again, w/o having to look for excuses to do so. Thanks.

Mar-03-12		Once: Left a comment for you back at your place. Always good to visit a friend's new home.

Mar-05-12		morfishine: Good Morning <Once>! On your comment to <ss> regarding the exchange with <MEM> <In the final analysis, each of us are only competing with ourselves> Very well put!

Mar-05-12		Once: Thanks, and thanks for your calming influence too. There's been a little too much angst and heat recently - including between people who have a lot more in common than they may realise.

Mar-13-12		agb2002: <Once: ... Or an endgame manual gleefully telling you how to mate with knight and bishop, but not telling you that it happens so rarely that you hardly need to know it.> This is probably the first ocasion I disagree with you (unless I didn't notice a subtle irony): the essential aspect of the B+N mate is not the mate itself but the coordination of pieces to achieve it. And coordination is fundamental at any point of the game.

Mar-13-12		madlydeeply: that's a fun post about rooks wanting to be knights. I think Tal especially was lifting his rooks and sashayin' them around...

Mar-13-12		Once: <madlydeeply> I've got this strange image about rooks. I see them as these hulking powerful blokes who can't dance. So they stand at the back of the dancefloor watching enviously as the more nimble pieces strut their stuff. And as the night wears on, the disco gets quieter and there's space for the rooks to cut a rug. But all that rooks can really do is this step forward, step sideways dance. It's as if it's all they know, or all that their clumsy oversized feet can manage. Something like this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM4i... And I can't shake this image from my head. I must have written about it two or three times now. Mind you, Tal could make any piece dance!

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