<Dom>-<If we can take the time and trouble to produce real chess analysis, why not real English too?>

I'm pretty much on the same page with you, Dom... It's just that when on-line together, one tends to want to put the material on the page more quickly, well, it's just hastiness or laziness- and i'd like to avoid both, actually. No more isolanis then.

By the way, I'll be back, dressed 'normal' again, tonight...

To the death we analyse this random game - I liked that.

Yup; proof positive that R.E. Pollard is the finest chess philosopher since Nimzowitsch. In 'On The Tundra' (1992), the Fading Captain belts out:

<Don't we know it
'cause with my second guessing
the subject for the testing...

Look over our blunders
Our two-fisted wonders>

Then there's this, 'Edison's Memos' from the 2001 release 'Choreographed Man Of War':

<Whether or not you see the move/ distance discovers patterns
Coming up close but far away
But known to crush and crumble schools
We're new discovery channel's fools>

Looking over our blunders to discover patterns, whether or not you 'see' the move at first. Simple.

Then again, Bob also sang:

<Pike fly mighty, everything tries to/ In the uphill crick
Kings and queens the same-fan that flame, and
Hot soup boils in the wretched spoils of the clock collector's clique>

(A Crick Uphill, 1999)

which is bollocks; kings and queens are *never* the same.

<Jess> Celt Mines, heh. They only have that kind of Celt in Glasgow, Boston, and, um, Cavan. The rest of us are Keltoi and Celtiberians, o <Limpet Mine>.

The <Witchhazel Age> was a short interlude before the Iron Age, yes? A sort of Proto-Aquarian Era for hippie cavepersons and practitioners of alternative cave lifestyles?

And they passed their secret knowledge on to the Druids, who gave it to the Merovingians, who bequeathed it to <Frogspawn>. And now 13 of us rule the world in secret.

<How to Rule the World in Secret>: retire to your bedroom and lock the door. Get one pencil, one 12-inch ruler, and one world atlas. Then, with your back to the <acolyte bulb>, you ...

I have a notion about a potion
but no eye of newt....
I heard that a portion of this lotion makes one cute..... But I cannot deny.. seeing a newt with one eye...
Might make me double up and puke...

btw -- I'm reading an odd new book, 'The Immortal Game: a history of chess' by David Shenk. Not your standard history -- actually begins with Duchamp and goes into chess as metaphor. Definitely speaking my language, in places.

Unfortunately, the other places consist of an extremely basic move-by-move run-through of Anderssen's Immortal Game, plus those mandatory first-person journalistic interludes that now pollute most nonfiction books aimed at a 'general' audience. Shenk goes into detail on his struggle to become a beginner, which is not very interesting.

En passant: some guy in the kib cafe recently didn't know the word 'patzer'. I found this almost cute, and found myself wanting to preserve his happy innocence.

"He seldom goes to bed till daybreak, drinking coffee almost every half hour, and playing at chess. Next day he is never visible till noon, and then disagreeably so ... His house is a receptacle for all foreigners; and, as every such visitor strains his genius to entertain him, no wonder, by such a quick succession of all the several inhabitants of the four quarters of the world, that Voltaire has such an universal knowledge of mankind."

Of course we are gonna post there- after getting our teeth into it, we should take a bite as well - then, after proper digestion, we'll put the recidu on that page.

It should be the measuring stick for all kibitzing.

Am I overreacting? Overstretching? I don't care - I really want to get to the bottom of the position after 68.Kxe5 now.

For that to happen I will now concentrate on the lines and your subsequent post on BOOC endgame positions -- If anything worth posting comes from that I will report- and if I have (yet another) question I will ask you.

Are we cool? Am I?

click for larger view

<Dom> I have put up the position on my wooden board and just started moving the pieces with only one objective: Activity and Optimal Coordination of the pieces - as powerful as I could, by playing through many long lines for over two hours.

Though the White King is in the middle of the board, there are many resources to fend of any threats, but at the same time only ONE mistake can be disastrous.

Let me try and give a few examples...

1. Kxe5 Rh1 2. Kf4 Be6 3. Rb2 [ here I deviated from your line (Bd7) and decided to give a few checks and reposition the Black pieces ]

3...Rf1+ 4. Ke5 Re1+ 5. Kf4
(5. Kd4 is losing to Bc4 and the h4-pawn becomes too fast) 5... Bd5! and now 6. Rxb5 would run into a tactical shot 6...Re4+ 7.Kf3 and loss of Rb5.

So 6. Be3 (intercepts the threat of the R-e4) 6...Rf1+ And I now give you the line that gives White a dynamic, flexible position, probably enough for a draw, but there might be improvements - I ran it through my engine these last 30 minutes and it's close to midnight here now, so maybe you can take the baton. I will do a full check tomorrow morning.

My line (with many subtleties) continues like this: 7. Ke5 Bc6 8. Rh2 Rf3 9. Bf4 h3 10. Rd2 Kf7 11. g5 Rf1 12. g6+ Kg7 13. Kf5 b4 14. Kg5 Rg1+ 15. Kh4 Rxg6 16. Kxh3

click for larger view

I'll try and get some sleep now and return refreshed tomorrow morning.

Good lord there's an <air raid siren> just going off here this minute (not kidding).

And here I was thinking peace had just been declared after 60 years.

Maybe it's a nuclear meltdown?

I'm sure it will all work itself out.

I still don't have a phone even.

I read that <Immortal game book> too, Dom.

The annotations are geared for the <low level> or beginner, but the in-between sections has some interesting info, I thought.

I borrowed it from the Liberry in Chilliwack.

Very entertaining game from ESSENT, Hoogeveen

T Hillarp Persson vs S Kuipers, 2007

-- Showing that psychology, zeitnot and plain pressure can cause a GM like Hillarp Persson to lose the thread (moves 33 and 34) - in my view underlining <Jess>' thoughts about the HUGE difference between playing an engine and playing, (even) a GM, OTB.

Sorry - Grand Master, over the Board... (These 'breviations seem simply unavoidable!!)

Playing my lines, last night, behind my own real board was so much more effective, at least as a learning experience - not having the lure of continuously looking at those evals on the flat screen, alla time.

<I often wonder how good computers are at recalibrating their objectives. In our 'start' position for this ending (move 68), White has rook, bishop and pawn -- and can justifiably 'play for a win' despite being a pawn down.

But let's assume, hypothetically, that all such active strategies fail eventually, and white will lose if he plays like this. Therefore he should *immediately* look for ways to draw. One possibility is to exchange one pair of pawns, then sacrifice the bishop for black's last pawn, reaching a pawnless R+B vs R ending.>

I think I am beginning to appreciate more and more, that you formulated *exactly*, what this ending is all about.

Working it out, though, concretely, on the board, is a formidable challenge...

For me, personally, this experience is indeed very special.

In my first years at University I was lucky enough to find a chess mate, a very good club player (2200 at the time) and played countless rapids, with a clock, and at some occasions, if we both had the time, we'd take a position from one of our games- and tried to analyse it as far as we could...

That was back in '89-'92. Only recently, in the treatment center I was at, earlier this year, did I meet a young man, genius at Math, who saw me playing over a few Corus games, with my own Chess set- and joined me at every opportunity to really analyse, in depth.

Quite challenging, considering his brain power and imagination, but to me it truly was an experience I really relished.

A few hours later we'd laugh hysterically at one of the worst jokes ever made by one of the lunatics, carefully assembled there, in that setting, for <optimal therapeutic effect>! (Right)

Man, it was one crazy ride - we both felt terribly out of place there.

Okay, Dom, I'll end this little biographic tale here- and should probably transfer it to my Bio.

"Après-vous, monsieur."

<So I took my king and queen and went down to a bar, nearest bar I could find. I walked in the bar and I ordered a pint. I..I got on the bar, "Bartender", I says "Can I have a pint?" I'll be damned if he didn't give me a pint. He asked me for the money. I gave him my king and queen. I'll be damned, you know he took that king and queen, threw it under the counter, and brought me out four pawns, two bishops, and a rook for change.>

http://www.bobdylanroots.com/east.h...

<a pawn is worth 1 point a knight is worth 3 points a bishop is worth 3 points also a rook is worth 5 points. the queen is worth 9 points. the king is worth 200 points!>

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/groups/honor...

Therefore:

king + queen - a pint = four pawns + two bishops + rook

200 + 9 - a pint = 4 + 6 + 5

209 - a pint = 15

A pint = 194 pawns

The world is so bloody intractable compared to chess.

Milena Odd

And by the way, you're right-- those last two moves make no sense at all... Maybe 14.d5! *was* played in that game...

I think we're entitled to some answers.

I don't know why I call him Gerald.

Here he is singing about <Bob Dylan>:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOok...

OK if there's a man more beautiful looking than <Sid> when he was a <Kid> I'd sure like to see him.

I discovered all kinda things about <Sid> while surfing aimlessly on the Net after work.

Who knew?

<Dom>, you sprang to mind as the first person I know (or the only even) who would be familar with <Sid>.

Do you know how I can get his two solo records?

Both 'Barrett' and 'The Madcap Laughs' are going cheap on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Barrett-Syd... http://www.amazon.co.uk/Madcap-Laug...