by chessmaster.

Sicilian Defense Closed Variation, Grand Prix Attack

General chess advice from Joe Brooks: https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comm...

"On the chessboard lies and hypocrisy do not survive long. The creative combination lays bare the presumption of a lie; the merciless fact, culmination in checkmate, contradicts the hypocrite." ― Emanuel Lasker

"Life is like a chess. If you lose your queen, you will probably lose the game." ― Being Caballero

"Chess is life in miniature. Chess is a struggle, chess battles." ― Garry Kasparov

"Age brings wisdom to some men, and to others chess." ― Evan Esar

"The soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one's country." ― George S. Patton Jr.

"The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people." ― Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, and former U.S. Army Colonel

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. Luke 2:9, 10.

* Good Historical Links: https://www.saund.co.uk/britbase/in...

* JonathanJ's favorite games 4: Game Collection: JonathanJ's favorite games 4

* elmubarak: my fav games: Game Collection: elmubarak: my fav games

* Assorted Good games Compiled by rbaglini: Game Collection: assorted Good games

* GK's Scheveningen: Game Collection: Kasparov - The Sicilian Sheveningen

* LAST COLLECTION Compiled by Jaredfchess: Game Collection: LAST COLLECTION

* Internet tracking: https://www.studysmarter.us/magazin...

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils

poem by B.H. Wood, entitled ‘The Drowser':

Ah, reverie! Ten thousand heads I see
Bent over chess-boards, an infinity
Of minds engaged in battle, fiendishly,
Keenly, or calmly, as the case may be:
World-wide, the neophyte, the veteran,
The studious problemist, the fairy fan ...
"What's that? – I'm nearly sending you to sleep? Sorry! – but this position's rather deep."

Source: Chess Amateur, September 1929, page 268.

The Ass and the Little Dog

One's native talent from its course
Cannot be turned aside by force;
But poorly apes the country clown
The polished manners of the town.
Their Maker chooses but a few
With power of pleasing to imbue;
Where wisely leave it we, the mass,
Unlike a certain fabled ass,
That thought to gain his master's blessing
By jumping on him and caressing.
"What!" said the donkey in his heart;
"Ought it to be that puppy's part
To lead his useless life
In full companionship
With master and his wife,
While I must bear the whip?
What does the cur a kiss to draw?
Forsooth, he only gives his paw!
If that is all there needs to please,
I'll do the thing myself, with ease."
Possessed with this bright notion, –
His master sitting on his chair,
At leisure in the open air, –
He ambled up, with awkward motion,
And put his talents to the proof;
Upraised his bruised and battered hoof,
And, with an amiable mien,
His master patted on the chin,
The action gracing with a word –
The fondest bray that ever was heard!
O, such caressing was there ever?
Or melody with such a quaver?
"Ho! Martin! here! a club, a club bring!"
Out cried the master, sore offended.
So Martin gave the ass a drubbing, –
And so the comedy was ended.

Drive sober or get pulled over.

The Old Man And His Sons

All power is feeble with dissension:
For this I quote the Phrygian slave.
If anything I add to his invention,
It is our manners to engrave,
And not from any envious wishes; –
I'm not so foolishly ambitious.
Phaedrus enriches often his story,
In quest – I doubt it not – of glory:
Such thoughts were idle in my breast.
An aged man, near going to his rest,
His gathered sons thus solemnly addressed:
"To break this bunch of arrows you may try;
And, first, the string that binds them I untie." The eldest, having tried with might and main,
Exclaimed, "This bundle I resign
To muscles sturdier than mine."
The second tried, and bowed himself in vain.
The youngest took them with the like success.
All were obliged their weakness to confess.
Unharmed the arrows passed from son to son;
Of all they did not break a single one.
"Weak fellows!" said their sire, "I now must show What in the case my feeble strength can do."
They laughed, and thought their father but in joke, Till, one by one, they saw the arrows broke.
"See, concord's power!" replied the sire; "as long As you in love agree, you will be strong.
I go, my sons, to join our fathers good;
Now promise me to live as brothers should,
And soothe by this your dying father's fears."
Each strictly promised with a flood of tears.
Their father took them by the hand, and died;
And soon the virtue of their vows was tried.
Their sire had left a large estate
Involved in lawsuits intricate;
Here seized a creditor, and there
A neighbour levied for a share.
At first the trio nobly bore
The brunt of all this legal war.
But short their friendship as It was rare.
Whom blood had joined – and small the wonder! – The force of interest drove asunder;
And, as is wont in such affairs,
Ambition, envy, were co-heirs.
In parcelling their sire's estate,
They quarrel, quibble, litigate,
Each aiming to supplant the other.
The judge, by turns, condemns each brother.
Their creditors make new assault,
Some pleading error, some default.
The sundered brothers disagree;
For counsel one, have counsels three.
All lose their wealth; and now their sorrows
Bring fresh to mind those broken arrows.

The Charlatan

The world has never lacked its charlatans,
More than themselves have lacked their plans.
One sees them on the stage at tricks
Which mock the claims of sullen Styx.
What talents in the streets they post!
One of them used to boast
Such mastership of eloquence
That he could make the greatest dunce
Another Tully Cicero
In all the arts that lawyers know.
"Ay, sirs, a dunce, a country clown,
The greatest blockhead of your town, –
Nay more, an animal, an ass, –
The stupidest that nibbles grass, –
Needs only through my course to pass,
And he shall wear the gown
With credit, honour, and renown."
The prince heard of it, called the man, thus spake: "My stable holds a steed
Of the Arcadian breed,
Of which an orator I wish to make."
"Well, sire, you can,"
Replied our man.
At once his majesty
Paid the tuition fee.
Ten years must roll, and then the learned ass
Should his examination pass,
According to the rules
Adopted in the schools;
If not, his teacher was to tread the air,
With haltered neck, above the public square, – His rhetoric bound on his back,
And on his head the ears of jack.
A courtier told the rhetorician,
With bows and terms polite,
He would not miss the sight
Of that last pendent exhibition;
For that his grace and dignity
Would well become such high degree;
And, on the point of being hung,
He would bethink him of his tongue,
And show the glory of his art, –
The power to melt the hardest heart, –
And wage a war with time
By periods sublime –
A pattern speech for orators thus leaving,
Whose work is vulgarly called thieving.
"Ah!" was the charlatan's reply,
vere that, the king, the ass, or I,
Shall, one or other of us, die."
And reason good had he;
We count on life most foolishly,
Though hale and hearty we may be.
In each ten years, death cuts down one in three.

A Psalm of Life
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

"Life is fun. It's all up to the person. Be satisfied. You don't have to be ‘happy' all the time, you need to be satisfied." — Lucille Boston Lewis, eternal optimist 101 years old

"A man either lives life as it happens to him, meets it head-on and licks it, or he turns his back on it and starts to wither away." — Dr. Boyce

"Everything you've ever wanted is on the other side of fear." — George Adair

"He who imagines himself capable should attempt to perform. Neither originality counts, nor criticism of another's work. It is not courage, nor self-confidence, nor a sense of superiority that tells. Performance alone is the test." — Emanuel Lasker

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." — Colin Powell

7yRib Zahedifar iz Ssouthwest luv Old Zealancelot.