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Gypsy
Member since Mar-17-04 · Last seen May-19-25
"There Would be No Game"

--

As he got to know him, Joseph and Mary regarded Doc with something akin to love---for love feeds on the unknown and unknowable. Doc's honesty was exotic to Joseph and Mary. He found it strange. It attracted him in spite of the fact that he could not understand it. He felt that there was something he had missed, though he could not figure what it was.

One day, sitting in Western Biological, Joseph and Mary saw a chessboard and, finding that it was a game and being good at games, he asked Doc to teach him. J and M easily absorbed the characters and qualities of castles and bishops and knights and royalty and pawns. During the first game Doc was called to the phone, and when he returned he said, "You have moved a pawn of mine and your queen and knight."

"How'd you know?" the Patron asked.

"I know the game," said Doc. "Look,, Joseph and Mary, chess is possibly the only game in the world in which it is impossible to cheat."

Joseph and Mary inspected this statement with amazement. "Why not?" he demanded.

"If it were possible to cheat there would be no game," said Doc.

J and M carried this with him. It bothered him at night. He looked at it from all angles. And he went back to ask more questions about it. He was charmed with the idea, but he couldn't understand it.

Doc explained patiently, "Both players know exactly the same thing. The game is played in the mind."

"I don't get it."

"Well, look! You can't cheat in mathematics or poetry or music because they're based on truth. Untruth or cheating is just foreign, it has no place. You can't cheat in arithmetic."

Joseph and Mary shook his head. "I don't get it," he said.

It was a shocking conception and he was drawn to it because, in a way, its outrageousness seemed to him like a new strange way of cheating. In the back of his mind an idea stirred. Suppose you took honesty and made a new racket of it---it might be the toughest of all to break. It was so new to him that his mind recoiled from it, but still it wouldn't let him alone. His eyes narrowed. "Maybe he's worked out a system," he said to himself.

John Steinbeck, "Sweet Thursday"

----

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

general Sun Tze: "The Art of War"

>> Click here to see Gypsy's game collections.

Chessgames.com Full Member

   Gypsy has kibitzed 10277 times to chessgames   [more...]
   Feb-08-23 R M Bruce vs R Bruce, 1957
 
Gypsy: I think the basic sentiment of Kipling poem goes to to the saying of American settlers: <Don't get between a bear cub and its grizzly bear mom!> (Kipling got painful issues from a nasty boarding school arrangement. Probably reflected on the role of mothers a lot.)
 
   Nov-21-22 Hromadka vs J Dobias, 1943 (replies)
 
Gypsy: <Who did he serve under?> John Steinbeck?
 
   Oct-26-22 Klaus Junge (replies)
 
Gypsy: <Plus what does the Red Cross have to do with political ideology?> To me, Red Cross is in a big part a life affirming symbol. Symbol that individual human life is worth preserving even in the face of danger. The totalitarian regimes have a tendency to discard that individual ...
 
   Sep-29-22 Niemann vs Carlsen, 2022 (replies)
 
Gypsy: An assessment by The Behavior Panel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4r...
 
   Sep-21-22 Sinquefield Cup (2022) (replies)
 
Gypsy: <perfidious: <Geoff>, never knew that line was so strong, even as often as I used it during my playing days.> The line is still playable at my level. But, clearly, at the highest echelons of chess, they know the gig is up.
 
   Sep-16-22 Tarrasch - Schlechter (1911)
 
Gypsy: <FSR> Schlechter also drew a 1901 friendly match with Duras 1-1. Schlechter was in Prague at the invitation of Prager Schachklub. He gave a simultaneous exhibition on Dec. 1, 1901. On Dec.2, he played two games against then 19-year old Duras. Schlechter lost the first game and ...
 
   Sep-14-22 Magnus Carlsen (replies)
 
Gypsy: <Suspend Magnus Carlsen pending either:...> It seems to me that Mr. Davies has made a rather absurd jest.
 
   Aug-12-22 Kenneth Rogoff (replies)
 
Gypsy: < saffuna: The point, <gypsy>, is that Bobb, given the clear opportunity, did not deny there were documents related to nuclear energy. > She did not confirm it either. What she said -- if now I may try to abbreviate -- was that after they did their examinations and/or ...
 
   Aug-07-22 Chennai Olympiad (2022) (replies)
 
Gypsy: Ouch: Americans are playing as if they were members of the current administration. More seriously: Great on paper, but all out of form? (Ok, So is holding his standard, more or less. But the rest!?)
 
   Jul-18-22 Keene vs Kavalek, 1981 (replies)
 
Gypsy: According to StockFish: White stepped off the path with an inconspicuous error <28.Nd2? ...>. This handed Black the reigns of the game at about -1.3 evaluation. The simple swap <28.Nxd6 cxd6> of minors would make things dead even on the account of a likely perpetual. And ...
 
(replies) indicates a reply to the comment.

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 9 OF 14 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Mar-24-07  Artar1: <Gypsy:>

Thank you for your kind words of support. They mean so much to me. I am feeling better now, and hope to return to my duties soon. Thanks again for your kindness and consideration. I really appreciate it!

Jun-06-07  vonKrolock: Hello, Gypsy - nice to discover that You have your own forum here! Knowing that You are very well informed about Bohemian and Slovakian chess-players, maybe You know something more about Rudolf Pitschak!?
Jun-06-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <vonKrolock> Until today, I wasn't actually aware that Mr Pitschak ever existed. Renaud/Kahn (The Art of the Checkmate) calls him "a very strong Czech player from Brunn" {Brno). I'll see if Brno chess-players still know of him. (I may be visiting there for a few weeks next month.)
Jun-07-07  vonKrolock: :) He played good chess - the Renaud&Kahn information is new on-line (I remember this book from a Dover Edition, but from memories of long ago...) His home city is given (as here) as Rumburk (or Rumburg) - of course that Brno is a biger city, and we can suppose that he was playing there in determinated time - later he was in the USA, but, besides of a game vs R J Fischer in the fifties, I'm not founding further informations - Bon Voyage, and Thanks for the 'in loco' research in Brno!! -
Jun-07-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <vonKrolock> Renaud&Kahn can not be relyed on too much; for instance they give Salo Flohr as born in Prague. But born in Rumburk but settling and playing in Brno is easy to believe. (Well, I give it about 50-50 that we will find something.)

Jun-08-07  vonKrolock: <Gypsy> Oh :) let's wait for some news... Renaud & Kahn was an excellent tool for mating attacks' training, and for this reason i always found it recomendable, not for complete beginners, but for average club players wishing to sharpen their tactical vision... But I never had this book, only saw in libraries - By the way, wich of Pitschak's games is featured there?!
Jun-09-07  syracrophy: Does anyone know when did Mr. Rudolf Pitschak died?
Jun-09-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <By the way, wich of Pitschak's games is featured there?!> Flohr vs R Pitschak, 1930
Jun-09-07  vonKrolock: Curiously, is a Game that is not in all on-line bases... <syracrophy> I can agree that someone born in 1902 can be 'statistically' dead, but the same about this person from my state, born in 1880, the same Year of a match Zukertort-Blackburne - She's statistically out of this world http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7090143/
Jun-10-07  vonKrolock: 1880 was the year of a Zukertort vs Rosenthal match; Zukertort vs Blackburne was in 1881

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...

Aug-31-07  vonKrolock: hi Gypsy :) - It ocurred somewhere a doubt on the right spelling of Anton Nowotny 's surname - It seems that being he a xixth Century personality, the Austrian form with 'w' and 'y' would be historical, but someone said that the Czechs would prefer to write Novotny with a 'v' - That's right?!
Sep-03-07
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <vonKrolock> Czech spelling is always <Novotny> (with 'v' pronounced as in 'victory', and with the long y'). It is one of Czech most common names. (I had a classmate of that name in elementary school; we still keep in touch sometimes.)

When Czechs move abroad, they often change the spelling of their names in order to keep the pronunciation approximately correct.

---

On a different topic, I still owe you my report on the little bit I learned about <Mr. Pitchak>. The conversation went something as follows:

--Dad, do you know anything about an old Brno chess-player -- Rudolf Pitchak?

-Yeah, <starej Kucik> ('old Kutchik' being an intellectually spray chess-player in his 80's) talks about him all the times. I can not ever get into a street car with him; Kucik is liable to yell at me randomly across the whole tramway: <Karle, ten Pitchak, to ti byl ale sachysta!> (Karel, that Pitchak, that was a chess-player!) So I have to drive him [Kucik] whenever we go to play somewhere together.

(The untranslatable point here is that 'Pitchak' is a rather unfortunate name to have in a Czech city. 'Pitchak', even if pronounced extremely diligently, is just a millimeter away from a very vulgar description of a man; one that derives from a part of a female-specific anatomy and one you would not use in a polite company, nor in one that includes ladies.)

In the rest of our conversation (and from Kalendovsky's Chess-player's Dictionary), I learned that:

1. Rudolf Pitchak once was the head of the Brno (Brunn) German Chess Club.

2. Despite of his long and prolific life Pitchak was indeed long dead (<Ty, ten uz je ale dlouho mrtvej.>)

3. And that I may get more info later, if 'old Kucik' can be found feeding pigeons by one of Brno's two meager rivers.

Sep-09-07  vonKrolock: Cher ami:
Ce sont vraiment des histoires extraordinaires que tu racontes là... Je voudrais bien te demander la permission de copier quelques morceaux - pas le tout - chez la page chessgames.com de Monsieur Pitschak - d'accord!?
Sep-09-07  brankat: <The untranslatable point here is that 'Pitchak' is a rather unfortunate name to have in a Czech city. 'Pitchak', even if pronounced extremely diligently, is just a millimeter away from a very vulgar description of a man; one that derives from a part of a female-specific anatomy and one you would not use in a polite company, nor in one that includes ladies.)>

Yep, the same in Serbian/Croatian :-)

Nov-04-07  brankat: <Gypsy> On Oct-21-07 You left a brief post for me at B.Kostic page, and I just saw it today. Here is one link with a bit more info on Borislav Kostic:

http://chess.vrsac.com/vrsac/BoraKo...

Dec-31-07  brankat: Hi my friend.

Just dropped by to wish You a very Happy New Year.

May it be joyful and successful!

I'm looking forward to enjoying more of Your well-informed and eloquent posts.

Cheers!

Jan-12-08  brankat: <Gypsy> Sad news yesterday. Sir Edmund Hillary passed away at the age of (almost) 89.
Jan-15-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <brankat> He led a great life. Hillary was such an inspiration to so many of us.
May-07-08  tihoracio: hi, i just want to congrats you for your really nice coments of the games. I discover duras because of you!
Sep-30-08
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <tihoracio> Thanks for stopping by to tell me that; it definitely cheered me up!
Dec-31-08  Karpova: Hi <Gypsy>

On January 6, 2005 you wrote the following on Georg Marco 's page:

<Gypsy: Marco was also quite capable of drawing brilliantly: <Marco-Schlechter, Vienna 1895> (currently not in the database) arrived to the position <Ka4 Pc5, Ka6 Ph6>, where White-to-move suprisingly keeps a draw by an exacting maneuver. The Marco-Schlechter position is widely considered to be the antecedent of the <Reti study: Kh8 Pc6, Ka6 Ph5>; probably the most famous of pawn end-game positions of all.>

Their game from Vienna 1895 is still not in the database and the large online databases I looked at also do only have their encounter from Hastings 1895 but not from Vienna: http://xoomer.alice.it/cserica/scac... Do you have the game score?

Happy new year!

Jan-26-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  Gypsy: <Karpova> Unfortunately, I also never came across the full score of that game. Its conclusion made it into a book about K+P end-games by Emil Richter.
Jan-26-09  whiteshark: Was there a Vienna 1895 tournament?
I found four games Marco-Schlechter, Vienna 1896, but no pawn endgame.

I checked the position in 3.8 million games Mega database 2008 and 800k UltaCorr ....blablabla....

Finally I found the position in a studybase (ctrl+V:):

[Event "tm51 @1"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1950.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "<Dedrle, F.>"] [Black "[=0000.11a4a6]"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "


click for larger view

"]
[PlyCount "9"]
[EventDate "1950.??.??"]

1. c6 (1. Kb4 $1 h5 (1... Kb7 2. Kc4) 2. c6 $1 (2. Kc4 $2 h4)) 1... h5 2. Kb4 Kb6 3. Kc4 h4 4. Kd5 $1 h3 (4... Kc7 5. Ke4) 5. Kd6 1/2-1/2

Maybe Richter was wrong ?

Jan-26-09  Karpova: <Gypsy> Thank you very much for the answer!
Jan-26-09  Karpova: <whiteshark: Was there a Vienna 1895 tournament?>

Yes: http://xoomer.alice.it/cserica/scac...

1°Marco 11/16
2°Weiss 10,5
3°Schlechter 10
4°Englisch 9,5
5°Zinkl 7,5
6°Judd 7
7°A.Schwarz 6,5
8°Meitner 2
9°Mandelbaum 0

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