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| Dec-14-06 | | themadhair: Summary of Qb6 incase I am delayed:
The idea that strikes me most is that we are delaying simplification with this move as opposed to Qxe8 being championed by others. Now after 37.Qb6, if a win was found in the <Rookfile> line then we can play 37.Qb6 Re3 38.Qb7+ Qe7 (practically forced) 39.Qxe7 with an almost identical position to <Rookfile>'s line. But ignoring the simplification - Qb6 is strong because it immediately pressures blacks queenside and is a good try at forcing a concession out of black. Why would we want to exchange our much more active queen without conclusive analysis that we gain a win in doing so? This is a good logical try for the win in a very unclear endgame and carries no risk of loss while possibly preserving winning chances better than almost any other move. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | Eyal: <Could you post something like that on the main page by Thursday/Friday?> Done. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | Eyal: BTW, looks like some of the discussion relating to 36.Qf4 overlaps with the one in my forum (see <Tabanus>'s posts following mine on pp.907-8) - worth bearing that in mind. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | acirce: <No matter, the global warmers are the same people who 40 years ago said there'd be no edible fish by the year 1990 because of global cooling.> Typical attempt to confuse the issue, and it would make some sense except for the little trifle that "global cooling" never had anything near the overwhelming scientific support that "global warming" has. http://www.realclimate.org/index.ph... |
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Dec-14-06
 | | Domdaniel: <Ohio> Cancel my previous request. Tabanus will be here for the weekend after all - he doesn't leave until after Monday. I don't see how any further subdivision of forums would help at this point. The sequence will almost certainly go like this:
thurs 14 -- ...Rxf3
sat 16 -- Rxf3
sun 17 -- ...Kxg7
tues 19 -- 36.b4/Qd8/Qf4...?
So the voting doesn't become 'live' until Sunday. Depending on the direction that analysis takes, we may need an extra forum then. You'll be first in line. (btw, I don't usually go for conspiracy theories either - with the stuff that twinlark and I were ranting about, I wish there *was* a conspiracy somewhere. It'd be more organized...) |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <acirce> Thanks for dropping by. Much as I'd like to engage with the topic, I'd better keep this place free for the Nickelodeon. Any further thoughts I have will go to your forum or twinlark's. Tack. |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> Great work with the forum, plus the report and appeals on the main page. Being strict but fair with the pack of rowdies seems to work. I tend to be too polite. Maybe we should work up a nice cop/nasty cop routine...? You could play it as a Kafkaesque official, with me as a shambolic Pynchonian dopehead. Hmmm... Seriously - great work. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | Eyal: <I don't usually go for conspiracy theories either> Are those the words of a Pynchon fan?! |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> A sceptical Pynchon fan: conspiracy theories as narratives, social constructs, cultural manifestations - yes. As 'true' explanations of a complex universe - no. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | Eyal: <Dom> Yes, that's what I figured (BTW my "amazement" was jokingly meant, of course). Actually, there seems to be some really deep ambiguity about where Pynchon stands on the issue, especially in Lot 49. |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> True, but I avoid that corner of the Pynchonist scene. Apart from loving Gravity's Rainbow, it was the absence of biography that led me to write a thesis originally. No life/work issues: just raw text... I stopped wondering about the actual author a long time ago. All I want to know is what he was doing on his 21st birthday, as I was busy being born at the time... And I admit it would be interesting to learn why somebody would develop a pathological distaste for celebrity as far back as 1962. |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <twinlark> "Vulgarism" is actually a much better word for Howard the Duck than the more obvious "Vulgarian". He's the fart, not the farter. As it were. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | Eyal: <No life/work issues: just raw text...> Yes, I fully sympathize with the sentiment. I often think Kafka criticism would have been much better off if it didn't know so much about his life. When I said "where Pynchon stands" I was actually using "Pynchon" in the sense of "implied author" - what the text means. I don't really care what he thinks in his private life (whatever it is, it's probably much less interesting than his novels). |
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| Dec-14-06 | | jepflast: <Domdaniel> I've been thinking about doing the report on 36. b4, but things are changing pretty fast as new wins are found for White all the time. So I'm not sure at the moment what the best line is. Everything looks winning at the moment. I have a ton of stuff I haven't posted yet.. I'm trying to get organized. Other than that, much of what you said about 37. Qb6 can also be said about 36. b4: White is in control and has many attractive options, Black is on a knife-edge much of the time (but must work hard to find that edge!), we maintain the pressure, leave the queens on, and so forth. We must, however, still be careful due to the large number of variations that all look about the same at first, since Black is more or less forced to drop a pawn quickly. So some replies, such as 36...Qb8 or Qd7 drop the pawn sooner rather than later, but end up being just about as good. It's the precise tactics, far down the line, that will ultimately decide which reply is best. I can add that 36. b4 gives us the opportunity, probably more than any other 36th move, to <<find the win>>. When you play around with 36. b4, you just know it's there somewhere. But I know 37. Qb6 may be very similar in that sense. |
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| Dec-14-06 | | jepflast: By the way, kwgurge and isemeria posted some general points about 36. b4 on my forum. The main things I would reiterate from that is that we can strengthen our position while Black cannot with his tempo; and a new threat is instantly created: b5, which is very dangerous if Black's queen is not in the right spot. |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: <jep> The overall analysis seems to be going in waves - first that rookfile rook ending, and now the momentum is with 36.b4. I'm only just starting to look at it properly myself. If you think the midterm report would be premature, hold off until it clarifies a bit. Maybe in 24 hours it'll be clearer. And there's no need to be exhaustive at this stage -- a sense of how it's going is the main thing. btw, do you think 36.b4 should be divided into subforums at some point, or is it best to keep everything together? |
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Dec-14-06
| | Domdaniel: *MARKER DIAGRAM*
He has played 34...Rxf3 to reach this position (White to play):
click for larger view"Towers, open fire." |
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| Dec-14-06 | | jepflast: <btw, do you think 36.b4 should be divided into subforums at some point, or is it best to keep everything together?> I can best answer this question after a little more research. Let me get back to you. |
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| Dec-15-06 | | JoeWms: <Dom> I zapped your longer posts from my forum so I can have a little breathing room for my own work. I hope you don't mind. Dom, I also zapped your statement that I plagiarized the <Ahoy there!> joke from a 1960-era comedian. You do appear to know so many things, but in this case your knowing is faulty: I created the story in the 70's, included it in a 5,000-circulation newsletter under my own editorship in the 70's. Two other newsletters as well. BTW, if I <thought> you copied your material from another writer, I would not present that <thought> in an open forum. |
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Dec-15-06
| | Domdaniel: Hi, Joe.
Of course, zap anything from your funnyfarm. No permits required, but of course I appreciate the courtesy.I plagiarize people all the time. Sometimes I even admit it. I had not intended to suggest you were doing so. Sorry, I thought I'd made that clear. If anything, I find it even more impressive when two great minds have the same thought 40-odd years apart. |
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Dec-15-06
| | Domdaniel: FORUMS - Friday
OK - I've just posted the forum link on p.917
I'm handing over to <twinlark> now for a few days. |
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Dec-15-06
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> - <implied author> Indeed: there are multiple levels with TP, as you know. Gravity's Rainbow has a paranoid narrator voice, plus some irruptions from a different voice entirely. I started, but never finished, a PhD where the idea was to tease out the 'voices' in William Burroughs (with a nod to Barthes and S/Z): the junky slang, the gay underworld, the 'country simple' farmer, the oracle, the depraved germanic philologist in exile... Never could quite bring myself to <reread> everything by Burroughs. At least Pynchon is endlessly readable. Along the way I came up with the joke-concept of the <implied bimbo>: the assumed 'less intelligent reader' whose existence we implicitly postulate whenever we appreciate an irony. The sentiment being "I, being clever, get this - but the poor old implied bimbo doesn't..." I suspect - given the tone in which certain persons frame their game analysis - that the implied bimbo is alive and well. |
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| Dec-15-06 | | Eyal: <to tease out the 'voices' in William Burroughs (with a nod to Barthes and S/Z):> Sounds rather like the Bakhtin department ("Polyphony" etc.). Anyway, I haven't read much Burroughs – only "Naked Lunch" – but I remember one of the things which impressed me the most in this novel (besides the title) was the large number of distinct social voices represented and combined. I particularly liked the device of glossing specialized counterculture vocabulary, translating it into the language of the "straight" world (<People is New Orleans slang for narcotic fuzz> and the like) – which is supposedly helpful, but actually quite alienating for the reader. <I suspect… that the implied bimbo is alive and well.> Yes, and he would probably always be alive and well, because postulating him is one of the most basic pleasures we get from texts. As a matter of fact, the same book that put the "implied author" concept into circulation contains a very apt description of this dynamics, talking about the "Secret Communion" between author and reader: <Whenever an author conveys to his reader an unspoken point, he creates a sense of collusion against all those, whether in the story or out of it, who do not get that point. Irony is always thus in part a device of excluding as well as for including, and those who are included, those who happen to have the necessary information to grasp the irony, cannot but derive at least part of their pleasure from a sense that others are excluded.> And if we feel there aren't enough bimbos around, it creates a problem: <Indeed we are likely to reject simpler forms of irony, because they are too obvious – which is to say that the number excluded from the joke is too small> ("The Rhetoric of Fiction") |
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| Dec-16-06 | | jepflast: <Dom> I think now it is probably not necessary to break up b4 into different forums. The lines are dropping like flies and few good ones remain for Black. |
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Dec-16-06
| | Domdaniel: <jep> Thanks for that - I agree. twinlark is taking over for a while: I'll pass your message on. The vote on move 36 looks like it could be interesting. Assuming nobody actually demonstrates a 100% forced win, it comes down to preferences. And some want to get the queens off as strongly as I want to keep them on. |
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