Another <merciless sweep across Western Europe> for FROGSPAWN today?

<WBP> is drafting an article for the new Journal as we speak...

FROGSPAWN GROWS.... (like in a Cronenberg film, perhaps?) BEYOND THE CONTROL OF ITS MASTER....

In between a few Correspondence moves, I'm writing a 15 page paper on <Culture Jamming> of all things.

I'm constructing an <adbuster> image and then deconstructing it in a fifteen page analysis.

I finished my <adbusting> image just now. It's a cut n' paste of photos, in which <Ronald McDonald> is shoving a <McDonald's French Fry> into one of the crematoria at <Auschwitz>.

At the bottom, I have scrawled in black ink:

<Arbeit Macht Fries!>..

Do you think it will fly?

Should I run it up the flagpole and see if the money salutes?

Oh wait it's supposed to be AGAINST the ad industry. Hmmmm..

I'll have to "think" about this while I plow through yet MORE Foucault.

Very dense. It's almost like he wrote in a different language or something!!!

Frogspawn Report:

I’m late reporting for Frogspawn Duty today – I’ve been off doing my Georgy-Peorgy routine, lisping manfully at Dragons and trying not to become toast. Various fascinating results, but most of them will have to wait for the Giant Extended Frogspawn Report on the <Chessica-samikd Variation> of the Sicilian Dragon Yugoslav.

Meanwhile, matters arising. Back in 1993, when the Kasparov-Kurtz match inadvertently brought the whole uncivilized world crashing down and signalled the end of proper zonals, interzonals, candidates matches and uncontested biological world champions, the art of chess databases was still relatively undeveloped. Kasparov had everything in his head, and reportedly had chessbase in his hip pocket as backup. Short began by relying on ‘the beast’, a multimillion game collection owned and operated by Kavalek. When they fell out, and Short fired Kavalek mid-match, the Beast went with him.

He subsequently explained the significance of the database as psychological weapon, and why you should never let your opponent know that a novelty is really a novelty. Suppose, he said, he had beamed happily at Gazza and said “Why yes indeed, Garri, 19.Nh1 is my own invention, I made it up at home just for you…” And suppose Kasparov checked his own huge database, and found an old tournament in Omsk where 19.Nh1 was played. He would then know that Short was missing the Omsk tournament, and could check all its other games for potential weapons to use in the match.

So, back to the Jessica-samikd dragon. The cruder sources for moves tend to dry up around 12.h4. MCO relegates it to a footnote: “Wild complications result from 12.h4 Rfc8 13.h5 Qa5 14.hxg6…”

More sophisticated ones, including Opening Explorer, the Fritz Book, Chessbase and Chesslab databases, go a bit further – with up to 50 games in the line you played, 12.h4 Rfc8 13.g4 Qa5 14.Qg5 …

Here things get trickier. Even Opening Explorer says the moves played here are 15…Qxg5 or 15…b5, with no mention of samikd’s 15…Qc7. Was it a novelty?

Was it, hell. After some digging in places that don’t actually exist under any normal meaning of the Existenz concept, I found 35 games with 14.Qg5 Qc7, including 10 with your move 15.Bd3. A full report will follow.

BTW, apart from 15.Bd3, other moves here include 15.a3, 15.Rh2, 15.h5, and the pusillanimous 15.Qd2, briefly fashionable (in Holland) for quick draws. My researches included the creation of a strange game between Fritz and Crafty, where 15.h5 was played, the kingside was blocked with 15…h6 followed by …g5, and Black won nicely. I’ll post it anon.

I’ve also created a suspiciously dragon-shaped graph of the popularity and success rate of various 15th moves between 1994 and 2006. At this stage I think I could write a book – not on the Dragon, heavens, no, but on this one variation of it, definitely.

I’ll just mention where some of those games were played. Event: Nyiregyhaza open. Event: Hallstahammar open. Event: DESC email…

Players include Tarmak, Racz, Mesquita, Szieberth, Delavekouras, Sobjerg, Brailsford, Szakall, Gershon – and the dashing Van Delft, who, twice in 1998 against the same opponent, played 15.Qd2 and drew by repetition after 15.Qd2 Qa5 16.Qg5 Qc7 17.Qd2 Qa5, und so weiter.

Omsk, is it? The Frogosphere is a lot weirder than that…

Hmm. Good line. You can almost see the Suits in the ad agencies salivating with irony-free concupiscence, or whatever the word is.

Isn't Canada the world HQ of Culture Jamming: McLuhan, Cronenberg (Videodrome!), Kroker, Wm Gibson ... ?? Is it something in the food? You do still *have* food, don't you, or is everything mediated and electroplated by now? A Latte Con Lecter and a shot of whatever she's having, please...

I'm making headway with Faulkner too, btw. Of course, with the Frogosphere and Synchronicity City being the way they are, I paused briefly to read a little bit of another of my favorite (living, reputedly) writers -- the great Robert Anton Wilson -- and saw "It was while reading Faulkner's Go Down Moses that I first understood..."

And this, mind, is in a book about the skeptical approach to meta-conspiracy theories, or something. Not *quite* what one expects to find chez Faulkner, or indeed the home life of our own dear queen.

Gonna check stuff out over the board now.

A full-length FROGSPAWN article based on your work here is clearly demanded...

I'm not kidding about trying to make a "go" of FROGSPAWN outside CG.com...

All Zines started somewheres....

We gotta lotta combined brainpower (frogpower)? Do we know any French people?

Interview Etienne Bacrot and convince him it's a good idea. Even though he NEVER plays the French (I checked)...

1917!!

Oliver Cromwell is a war criminal!!

I take my hereticality heretically, as you can see. Odd thing: I stayed in a hotel in Belfast once, on Cromwell Street. And I thought dimly "that's odd, we don't have these at home..."

Then I remembered the Ancient Attitudes. I attended a school which boasted an adjacent field named Cromwell's Avenue, as the Protector was rumored to have used it as a shortcut between massacres.

And in remote parts of Kerry, about 200 miles away from his actual flightpath, old men still reputedly say things like "The curse of Cromwell upon ye".

This could mean "may you menstruate as the Lord Protector did", but I doubt it.

I don't do Saint Bloody Paddy neither, just hunker down for the weekend and hope nobody burns me at the stake for witchcraft.

- Well, it's witchery all right, but there's sod all craft to it. More like Witch Amateur Night on Reality TV...

Where wuz I? Right, back to Froggespawne. That Dragon is something else, even when practically refuted.

I know you missed a goodly chunk of the World-vs-Nickel game, but did you ever take a proper look at it? There should still be a link up top (me being a nostalgic sentimental sucker at heart).

The French have style. Forget saints -- a national day named after a small sugary fruity sweet is Le Style Meme.

If a post is past a certain length, a red type warning will come up telling you it is too long, and suggesting you break it in to parts.

so Post <Part One>, etc.

I'm watching Wilson's MAN V MACHINE event in Yahoo New Chess, advanced lounge 8, table two...

Your influence grows daily....

An Illustrated Scholarly History of the French Defense: A Testament of Despair by C. Kinbote Jr. (To be posted on <Frogspawn.> And I am NOT a frog, I am not an animal. I am a human being!)

Disclaimer: The content, opinions, and views expressed herein do not reflect those of the forum master, the honorable <Domdaniel,> nor the site itself (Chessgames.com). In fact, they do not reflect those of any person--living, dead, or as yet to be born--even including the author himself. No, these supremely inhuman views were inflicted upon the author by a truly awful power, that unremittingly cruel and heartless taskmistress, Caissa, who has compelled him against his will to undertake this grim task of relating the story of her dreadful offspring, Frogspawn. Yes, my dear reader, Frogspawn. Consider that name. Frogspawn. Frog spawn. Frogs’ pawn. How can we unlock this mystery? How are so many women and men drawn by Frogspawn to Caissa’s fatal flame, only to be consumed and destroyed with such indifference? These dark pages provide, I hope, the answer.

Note: My editor and I fought heatedly over much of the text that follows; luckily, I, not he, was in possession of a hatchet.

Frogspawn and The French Defense Frogspawn and the French defense are one; or they are not one. At the heart of the matter is this conundrum, which many say finally took the life of Wittgenstein (who fretted ceaselessly with its many ramifications and was finally <spawned> [definition : “spawn”: 1. to produce eggs or offspring. 2. similar to “spam,” but in this case the spammed has been spammed by <Frogspawn>]).

The French Defense (1.e4, e6, and then usually 2.d4, d5, though 2.Qe2 [Tchigorin’s idea, often employed by this author] can also be played) is a relatively old defense in the annals of chess. Its chief advocates have included World Champions Lasker and Botvinnik, Grandmasters Maroczy, Korchnoi, and Short, and (and few can explain this) Jerry Lewis. For a brief period (2002-2004) the French Defense was called the <Freedom Defense,> said appellation achieving only a limited degree of acceptance (though it did spawn--oh, my god, that word!--a short-lived TV situation comedy).

The French Defense is ideally suited for those players of the black pieces who have not quite figured out what to do with the queen bishop (c8 bishop). Most players possess some plan or idea utilizing that piece; but there are some (and I went through a phase like this) who consider that bishop to be merely an extra piece that clutters things up. Thus in the French Defense, that forgotten clergyman typically languishes the game away on the lamentable d7 square, desperately and hopefully awaiting an endgame that might relieve his overwhelming boredom.

I won't ask which of the tiered narrators is the one playing 2.Qe2 -- Kinbote, perhaps? I eagerly await the next chunk...

I'm forced to play the <French> now in two of my Correspondence games.

Luckily, I'm allowed to read books, databases, and, most importantly, obviously, <FROGSPAWN>...

if you likeWatch what he was able to do with <plato> and <rookfile>..( two storical enemyes....) and give me your stimated opinion

Keres vs Botvinnik, 1948

Sorry, I did not see this, before, you miserable git. I change my felicitations to a sincere hope that the celebrators don't break your windows.