And don't mention bloody Sweeneys, pls. I mean, the fantasy bird in the treetops guy is fine, but you oughtta see some of the other specimens.

Just in case we overlook the stature of Uitelky's opponent in <The Great Hotel-Key Hippo>, here's an example of Nezh at his best: Polugaevsky vs Nezhmetdinov, 1958

The Fondue Set and their two albums *Stick A Fork In It* and *In A Blue Vein*(I kid you not).Extreme cheese.

From the <GMNS> Forum--

<chessgames.com: Off-topic posts will have a very short lifespan on this page. This is not a new de-facto The Kibitzer's Café. If you want to discuss administrative actions, the proper venue is the Chessgames.com chessforum. Thank you for your cooperation.>

Maybe it's not such a good idea to recommend fora for me to visit? I'm certainly not taking all the credit (or blame!) for this, but it does seem suspicious that whenever I venture out of the safe confines of <FROGSPAWN>,

Trouble follow, wherever I goooooooo..

Thank God there's hard work to do for <FROGSPAWN> to keep me from the so many Comedic Temptations found in the <Mr. Kurtz> forum.

"He was lucid, though his mind was focused upon itself with a terrifying intensity-- but his soul was mad."

I think that goes very nicely with the Chesterton Piece (geddit?) that Eyal found for us, viz:

"After the detailed life of the household had been thoroughly exhibited, the judge requested the Premier again to step forward, which he did with quiet dignity. The judge then said, in a sudden, grating voice: `Get a new soul. That thing's not fit for a dog. Get a new soul.' "

<Dept of Odd Birthdays> Bobby Fischer was 64 on March 9, as any fule kno. But John Cale was 63 on the same day, and David Cronenberg is 64 today. An inspirational generation, what?

First, the natives were unruly before you arrived.

Second, you simply pointed out their inanity, celeb-strickenness and/or vitriol-spewings.

Thirdly. Ah, thirdly. This is where it gets tricky. Unfortunately, your incisive intervention proved counter-productive, as all the juvies began to drool in a highly gender-specific manner.

I guess you could plead guilty to the crime of <being female with malice aforethought> if you *really* want to be guilty of *something*. Otherwise you're free to go ma'am, we apologize for the inconvenience, and no, we don't have a cabfare budget.

On: Certain misleading effects in Opening Explorer caused by the presence of weird games in the database.

Our example, naturally, is from the French Defence. Specifically, the Winawer with 5.a3 Ba5 (Botvinnik’s move, aka the Retreat Variation, aka the Swiss-Armenian Variation, aka The Swarm.

Note: the actual movie The Swarm (1978) was directed by Irwin Allen and involved Michael Caine, Olivia de Havilland, Slim Pickens, Henry Fonda, Patty Duke Astin, Richard Widmark, etc – your standard 1970s top-heavy all-star blockbuster cast, plus a heap of those Killer Bees. The bees infiltrate a nuclear missile base in Texas and sting the button-pushers, who respond by changing jobs and being elected president, where they can push all the nuclear buttons they want without being stung.

No, no, hold it, that last bit is from an alternative version of the screenplay. I knew they should have got Cronenberg to direct it. Happy birthday, Mr Cronenberg, this Swarm’s for you…

After the reasonably standard opening moves 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Ba5 (C17, or The Swarm) 6.b4 cxd4 7.Qg4 Ne7 8.Nb5 Bc7 9.Qxg7 Rg8 10.Qxh7, what happens next? (Note that these moves can be played in a different order, eg with Nb5 before Qg4, etc)

This was the question I found myself facing exactly a year ago this week, when I played 5…Ba5 for the very first time, after years of playing the mainline Winawer 5…Bxc3+. I thought I’d prepared it: in fact I’d concentrated mainly on two other lines, one with an early Nb5 by White, and the other where White captures bxa5, ie: 7.Qg4 Ne7 8.bxa5 dxc3 9.Qxg7 Rg8 10.Qxh7 Nbc6, and so on. I’d gone into this stuff pretty deeply. But I’d neglected to spend much time on the line played, with both Qxg7 and Nb5, and now I had to do some thinking.

I knew Vaganian had played 10…a6, but I didn’t really want to force White to play Nxc7, seeing as I’d gone to such trouble to retreat the Bishop. I also knew that 10…Bxe5 had been played before, and might be a bit dodgy, but what the heck… I played 10…Bxe5 11.Nf3 Bf6. I also knew this had been played before; that it could well involve sacrificing material; but exchange sacs are routine in this variation anyway, and often very good for Black.

Now, if you follow this line on Opening Explorer, you’ll find Black doing reasonably well, even after 11…Bf6. But this is almost entirely due to the presence in the chessgames database of K H Schneider vs R Fengsrud, 1989, where Black won quickly. Actually, 11…Bf6 is a blunder.

I checked this out later, when I’d lost. The database game was played in a Correspondence event where everyone played this opening line. Of ten games with 11…Bf6 that I found elsewhere, White won nine. The single exception being the aforementioned K H Schneider vs R Fengsrud, 1989 (sod it) where White simply blundered a piece and resigned. He probably had his board set up wrongly, or got ahead of himself, or one of those corr-style blunders: it’s not a ‘real’ game.

My game continued with 11…Bf6 12.Bf4 Rh8 13.Nc7+ Qxc7 14.Qxh8+ Bxh8.

I went in for this quite happily. I’d had to sac the exchange: so what? I’d preserved my Bishop and even worked it back around to the long diagonal, via Bf8-b4-a5-c7-e5-f6-h8. But with queens off and an undeveloped queenside, I never really got compensation. My teenaged opponent survived everything I threw at him, and eventually won.

My later analysis reached this conclusion: Vaganian’s 10…a6 is best. The Swarm is not about ‘preserving’ the DSB: once you play 3…Bb4, the Bishop is gone, gone. It’s just a question of which square he exits from – c3, a5, c7, etc. If you really want the Gufeldian bishop on the long diagonal, play 1…g6 and 2…Bg7.

I’d made the mistake of not preparing in sufficient depth, and then trying to preserve the DSB when I should’ve let it go. 10…Bxe5 is possibly just playable, if followed by 11.Nf3 Nc6 (which was what my opponent suggested). I’d prefer 10…a6, however.

That game: K H Schneider vs R Fengsrud, 1989 is a monster, a freak, an aberration. And it totally screws with and skews the stats on this site, especially as the other nine CC games aren’t in the database.

I’m not blaming CG for my loss, naturally. First, it was my own fault for not studying this line properly. Secondly, I wasn’t even using Opening Explorer, but other, mostly print, sources. And thirdly, there was a happy ending, because later that same day I played my 2nd ever Swarm game and won rather nicely: the same game that was posted here before.

Hmm. Maybe I should simply mail those other nine games to the CG database. They’re all pretty ugly from the Black point of view. Which, of course, is also the Frogspawn POV.

<"On Certain misleading effects in Opening Explorer caused by the presence of weird games in the database.">

Brilliant!!! FROGSPAWN will soon capture the imagination of the Chess World everywhere.

I think we should start advertising outside of <CG.com>...

We need more articles man.

<Dom> <responsibilities>:

<FROGSPAWN> is a stern Mistress!!!

Did <Henry V> abdicate his responsiblities at <Agincourt>?

Huh? Huh?

Scared Knights after "Tim the Wizard" keeps blowing things up with his wand:

<Graham Chapman> to "Tim":

<"You are a BUSY man...>"