My favourite player is Tony Miles. He is greatly missed. My 1976 simul game with him (I was black) began 1.d4 e6 2.e4 d5 3.Nd2 b6 ... unfortunately, I've lost the score: but it was a draw after White's Queen was exchanged for 3 pieces.

Some other favourites? OK. Viktor Korchnoi, for all the obvious reasons. Tal, Botvinnik, Petrosian and Smyslov. From the later days of the Soviet school: Romanishin, Vaganian, Lputian, Psakhis and Ehlvest. From the British new wave: Short, Speelman, Williams. From the Russian-Irish wave: Baburin.

From the Irish wave ... those who have written about the French Defence (Heidenfeld, Moles, Harding, Collins, O'Connor, Coffey), and those who played it (J.J. Walsh, J. Ryan, P. Short, S. Jessel, R. Beatty, et al).

A distinct aroma of burning prevails*. Fire and brimstone, probably, or one of the charred and singed chess sets in my possession.

Chessgames Present Hunt Clues Page

A Czech haiku, by Jan 'Honza' Cervenka:

Chceš-li remízu,
musíš hráti na výhru,
cíle tak dojdeš.

* "Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it."
- Christopher Marlowe

"Down these mean streets ..."
- Phillip Marlowe

"This, too, was one of the dark places ..."
- Marlow (Joseph Conrad)

I am deeply suspicious of 'social media'. I don't want my computer to think it knows my 'preferences', and I don't want my personal details passed from hand to invisible hand, or soul to poison soul. But I'm sufficiently open-minded -- or innocent -- to trust in the integrity of Chessgames.com, and the good people who run it.

Note: some folk may be more familiar with the kind of bio/profile that goes "Muh name is Peregrine Ng and ah play Bullet at PhyringRange.com and ah come to CG for thuh crab sandwiches..." ... sort of thing.

This isn't one of those. In fact, it was never really *written* at all ... more like 'left behind' after repeated moves. The fragments that remain intact have withstood years of deletions. Quite like me, really.

"A medium amputates the organ it extends".
- Marshall McLuhan

"I go without saying".
- Me, or somebody like me.

<The Game and Playe of Cheffe ...>

"Chess is a sea in which a shark can persuade a seagull to eat its skin parasites..."

"Chess is the art of cartesian coordinates with obsessive compulsive disorder..."

"Chess is the science of naughty molecules."

"Chess is sport for the disembodied."

"It is what it is."

"Except when it isn't."

<'His calmness, his authority in all circumstances! In a chess game he would win everything, merely by his nerves.' 'But he was not playing chess,' Smiley objected drily.>

(John Le Carré)

I'll say it again, though I can't recall saying it before: < Empathy is essential to any kind of intelligence worth having.> Although I seem to have some kind of attention surplus disorder.

On planet Earth (where most chess games so far are believed to have been played - Science Officer Chamitoff vs NASA Ground Control, 2008 and Soyuz 9 Cosmonauts vs Ground Control, 1970 are among the exceptions):

1. Brian Eno:

"Another green world."

2. William Burroughs:

"I don't want love - I don't want forgiveness - all I want is *outta here* --"

<A Phormer Phrontistery ... Frogspawn ... 20,000 Lashes ... A Phrontistery ... Phrogspawn ... Philoxenia ... Antarctica Starts Here ... Epigamic Ephebes ... Waxwing's Wah-wah Rabbits ... Opposition & Sister Squares ... Cosy Moments will not be Muzzled ...>

A dictionary helps. As does Modern Chess Openings or Fundamental Chess Openings (by Van der Sterren -- good on transpositions). Encyclopedias, whether wiki, text-based or fictional, have their place. But for a good knight's sleep try a bed, futon, hammock or some of my writing. Avoid Gerry McCarthy

"Brutality is out of date."
- Aron Nimzowitsch

"Keep violence in the mind where it belongs."
- B.W. Aldiss

"Combinations and chemistry are your only men."
- Er, <me>?

<"I used to be somebody else, but I traded him in."> M. Antonioni

"Chess is a marvelous piece of Cartesianism, and so imaginative that it doesn't even look Cartesian." - Marcel Duchamp

[reconstruction always in progress, please excuse noise, no refunds, no discounts, no hawkers, no spitting]

So what am I doing here? Simple: I like to play *with* chess...

<Writing, unlike chess, is a victimless crime.>

"J'ai une maladie: je vois le langage."
- Roland Barthes

<More First Person Gibberish>:

Fischer-Dylan Syndrome: <"You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way">.

Favorite Opening: The French, naturellement. After 30-odd years, I think I'm starting to understand its benthic deeps. Well, I had it for a moment ... seems to be gone again.

Basta. Enough chess, it makes my head spin. Anyone who has lingered in my forum (Frogspawn, Philoxenia, 20,000 Lashes, Antarctica Starts Here, usw) knows that much of the conversation isn't about chess at all, or even lingerie. I'm interested in *stuff* -- arts and sciences, shoos and sheeps and ceiling wicks, kibitzers and King Kong vs Gojiro in Dronning Maud Land. I like to make connections. I like people who make connections.

Bad puns, bad languages, bad breathing, bad breeding, psychological insights, literary allusions, surrealist manifestos, or the sound of one hand stentorating. I'm not going to name any of the people who make CG so much fun. You know who you are, O my droogs and Zapkinder.

One last chess snippet. I have never, in my entire life, played either side of a Spanish/Ruy Lopez in a serious game. I'm a Spanish Virgin. There, you knew I was a pervert, didn't you?

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<From <Gravity's Rainbow> by Thomas Pynchon:

"Queen, Bishop and King are only splendid cripples, and pawns, even those that reach the final row, are condemned to creep in two dimensions, and no Tower will ever rise or descend -- no: flight has been given only to the Springer!">

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Whatever you find in books, leave it there.
- John Cale

Know anything about chess? It can be a virtual life work, and what is it to absorb all a man's thought and energy? - William Burroughs

I am not the only one who writes in order to have no face. - Michel Foucault

ChessGames.com Statistics Page

Biographer Bistro

CG Librarian chessforum

User: chessgames.com

PGN Upload Utility

Chessgames Present Hunt Clues Page

FEN reverser (courtesy of <ajile>): http://www.zbestvalue.com/ChessFENR...

OlimpBase (courtesy of Wojtek Bartelski, aka User: OlimpBase): http://www.olimpbase.org/

Some *other* databases include:
http://www.365chess.com/
http://www.chesslab.com/PositionSea...
http://www.newinchess.com/NicBase/D...

ChessBookForum chessforum

Chessgames Present Hunt Clues Page

http://www.chessgames.com/playerlis...

Search Kibitzing

A statistical analysis by Jeff Sonas (thanks to <BadKnight> for bringing it to my attention): http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp...

Game Collection: The Even More Flexible French