I don't play black side with my dog Boo,
I don't play black side with pieces made of goo,
I don't play black side with a cow that goes moo.
jessicafischerqueen, I am.

Of course they've all improved in the meantime, and I haven't. But I might not have performed as abysmally as I thought I would.

Me, I'm proud of lots of drawn games, mainly because I draw so many of them. In fact I think the 4-queen game took place in the only tournament where I failed to draw any games at all. After that first round win, I reached a dashing and anti-climactic 2/6. But it WAS my first grown-up tournament.

Fine things, fighting draws - not the pusillanimous sort. But when you cling on a pawn down in a knight ending, or work up a perpetual just before you get mated... then you can feel you've done well.

Which took many nights of toil, turning up at unheated community centres, achieving utterly won games against weaker players, and then nodding off and allowing a mate in one.

Eventually the club 'demoted' me from a low board in their A team to top board in the B team, which played in the same league. Since I was now statistically certain to lose all my games, I started to win some.

PSYCHE!!!

Simple little mechanisms, us males, really.

To keep things in chess mode - this week's fetish - I was reading a book by Jaan Ehlvest where he referred to men as 'the sterner sex' - not the kind of phrase anyone could use in English. I wondered if it was an old Estonian saying, or a dodgy translation, or just a remnant of how these things went in the old East Blok days.

*puts on stern look* So there. Hmph.

I mean this in the best possible taste, of course, and no slights or insinuations are intended ... but might there be a workable niche halfway between stand-up comedy and motivational speaking?

I've said this elsewhere (in a quasi-secret location) so I might as well say it again here (in quasi-public).

Dvoretsky's Endgame Manual by Mark Dvoretsky is the best chess book of any kind I've seen in about 20 years. Possibly ever, although Nimzo's My System has to keep the top spot for sentimental reasons.

I bought a few books recently - more opening stuff that I don't need or won't use, Keene's Petrosian book because he told me I'd like it, Speelman on analysis (pretty good) - and Dvoretsky. Which is just phenomenal.

Apart from the general quality and depth of analysis, which seems faultless, the layout, design, use of terminology, teaching methods, choice of examples etc etc are all wonderful.

He illustrates important endgame ideas with a 'tragicomedy' - like a position from a GM game where White offered a draw despite having a forced win. Or grandmaster games with horribly misplayed endings. So many games where strong players threw away the good work they'd done earlier. Really striking examples.

Dvoretsky's point is that these little tragicomic dramas actually stick in the mind better, and are thus useful teaching/learning aids. And I think he's right. Several of the examples have lodged in my brain much more forcefully than the usual endgame positions do.

It's a very astute piece of psychology, maybe connected to our human urge for narrative. Or drama?

And any of you who harbour the weird desire to improve your chess should get this book.

I still do, of course, but I feel motivated nonetheless.

It's only 21 moves I think and I made an attempt to make funny annotations.

So I'm a bit unclear. You like the book, you're saying?

<End of Civilization> Damn! Civilization started and I didn't even notice. Now it's gone. Wah!

However, I don't think it's egotistical to post one's own games for friends. In fact, it could have an ego-deflating effect. The moves I'm so proud of are no doubt theoretically unsound, and my opponent's missed opportunities to have won an easy game against me will be exposed by analysis.

Especially by you guys, who are so <wise in the ways of science>.

<Jess>, please do post the game, that's if you haven't already deserted my den for the charms of that nice Mr. Mack.