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May-31-20
 | | Annie K.: <Phony> Good one! :) I don't always capture en passant, but when I do... I occasionally get accused of cheating - because my opponent doesn't know how it works. ;s |
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Jun-02-20
 | | Phony Benoni: Of course you can win a game of chess by resigning. It may not be the one you're playing at the moment -- but, hey, there's always another game. Losing is a traumatic experience which it takes a little time to recover from. Especially in weekend Swisses (if these still exist) the rounds come fast and furious. Dragging a game out beyond the bitter end can deny you a chance to refresh yourself and reset your mind, reducing your chances to win the next game. I was always happy to see my opponent rushing toward our table with a sloppy burger and a bag of greasy French fries. This meant they were still irritated by the previous game as well as hungry -- not a good combination for concentrating on a new task. By the way, in such a situation it is wise to insist on using the opponent's equipment. You don't want all that glop and gunk on your set and pieces. |
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Jun-02-20
| | Phony Benoni: To be fair, I must acknowledge that the Never Resign School has one very powerful argument. This is attributed to the multi-time State Champion team of Kearsley High School in Flint, Michigan. Assume your position is such that your chess judgment tells you to resign.
However, clearly your chess judgement must be faulty to have gotten you into this mess, so why trust it now by resigning? |
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Jun-02-20
| | Phony Benoni: A chess player needs a good mental coin.
At some point during the game, there will come a situation when, no matter how hard you analyze or agonize, you just can't make up your mind between two moves. At that point, you need to get out your mental coin, assign the choices to "heads" or "talils", and flip the coin. Then whichever choice comes up, do the opposite. No flipping coin knows more about chess than you do. |
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Jun-12-20
 | | jnpope: <This is attributed to the multi-time State Champion team of Kearsley High School in Flint, Michigan> Ah, the Skidmore maxim (or was that a dictum?). |
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Jun-13-20
| | Phony Benoni: It's right up there with other Pearls of Wisdom from chess in Michigan, such as "How to Draw Bobby Fischer" and "That Rzeschewski kid is pretty good, but he's no Vadim Tsemekhman." |
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Jun-13-20
| | jnpope: <Vadim Tsemekhman> (aka Eric)!! I bumped into him at MGM Detroit a few months back. Still has that same smile on his face. Nice kid. I also keep bumping into Steve R., the Calton family friend, he plays Blackjack now. I don't think he's seen around chess events these days... |
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Jun-13-20
| | Phony Benoni: Doesn't make me feel any younger to realize that eric is now in his mid-40s. I've had almost no contact with MCA or live chess players for twenty years now. When I showed up for a couple of tournaments in 2014, I chatter with kevin Noren for five minutes before he realized who I was. Must be the beard. |
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Jun-13-20
| | jnpope: I only ever see former players at various casinos. I've bumped into a few folks from the Grand Rapids mini-swiss days, Smeckert and Triplett, out at Firekeepers. I'm rather surprised Noren didn't recognize you. You were such a central figure in the MCA. Now me? I'm shocked whenever anyone remembers me from my playing days. |
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Jun-13-20
| | Phony Benoni: Well, it had been 15 years, and my appearance has changed dramatically. That portrait on player page is ten years old, and I've gone downhill considerably since then. I've occasionally bumped into people online, and their comments are generally gratifying. Oh, yes, Dennis Smeckert. We put his picture on the cover once. He was holding a trophy high in the air, staring at it with a "I Can't Believe I Won the Whole Thing!" expression. Great shot. Interesting how casinos draw chess players. I' not a gambler myself, but others seem to have the anowski gene. |
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| Jun-13-20 | | Deus Ex Alekhina: I wonder how many of those old tournaments were held in casinos or spas? Par exemplo, Monte Carlo 1904. Were the Carlsbad 1907, 1911, etc, tournies held in casinos? Janowski and others would gamble away their winnings. |
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| Jun-13-20 | | thegoodanarchist: Do you mind if I call you <Beaker>? Owen vs Burn, 1875 (kibitz #18) |
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| Jun-13-20 | | thegoodanarchist: < Phony Benoni: Given the opportunity, players invariably capture en passant. Everybody loves to show off their knowledge of the rules.> I maintain <tga>'s rule of thumb:
Capturing e.p. is the strongest move 96% of the time. Super-GMs are distinguished by two things: Knowing when NOT to capture e.p., and the best-of-the-best zwischenzugs. Well, three things: Outstanding opening prep is #3 |
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Jun-14-20
| | Phony Benoni: One of my favorite en passant stories involving en passant starred the computer program Sneaky Pete (not the CG kibitzer) which played at the US Open back at Columbus 1977. At the time, computers were not very strong. If you were caught using a computer during a game, the punishment was to force you to keep using it. Sneaky Pete was no advancement. It lost its first seven games before winning in round 8. This is from round 9 against another player rated around 1200. After <61.Ka4>
click for larger viewThis position occurred after adjournment. . Everyone agreed that Sneaky would be plugged in all night analyzing the position, but there was no agreement whether this was a good idea. Of course Black wants to play 61...b5+, but this position is one of the 96%. Instead, Sneaky trusted in the #1 rule against 1200 players: "Always Give Them A Chance To Blunder." <61...b6!!>
Now 62.cxb6 produces the exact position as after the en passant capture following 61...b5+. The difference is that it's not forced, and thus White has a chance to blunder. <62.Nxc6?? b5+ 63.Ka5 Ra3#!> After a game, Sneaky Pete printed out the game score on a state-of-the-art clickety-clack printer. This took a good five minutes -- and I could have sworn the thing was chuckling the whole time. |
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| Jun-14-20 | | thegoodanarchist: An outstanding anecdote! I thank you for it. |
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| Jun-14-20 | | thegoodanarchist: <Phony Benoni: That portrait on player page is ten years old, and I've gone downhill considerably since then. > Speaking of going downhill:
offramp chessforum (kibitz #96) |
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Jun-14-20
| | Phony Benoni: Always blunder before resigning. It feels much better to attribute your loss to one random tactical misstep than to have no earthly idea what happened. |
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Jun-15-20
| | Phony Benoni: If you really want to get your picture in a chess magazine, don't bother working hard to win a trophy in a tournament. Just become the person who hands out the trophies. |
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Jun-23-20
| | Phony Benoni: Whenever an annotator begins a comment with the word "Obviously", I have to wonder why they're wasting their time. If the variation is "obvious", why bother pointing it out? |
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Jun-30-20
| | Phony Benoni: I didn't mind when my opponent prolonged a lost games. Winning is very enjoyable, and I didn't do enough of it to sacrifice a single moment of such pleasure. |
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| Jun-30-20 | | Tiggler: < I didn't mind when my opponent prolonged a lost games. Winning is very enjoyable, and I didn't do enough of it to sacrifice a single moment of such pleasure.> Once at 1:30 am, Sunday morning at a weekend Swiss, my opponent left the board in a lost position, with over an hour left on his clock. Tournament director and I were not amused at having to wait until his flag fell. |
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Jul-01-20
| | Phony Benoni: < Tiggler> Such offenders should be thrown out of the tournament. While care must be used in enforcing the "annoying or distracting" rule, that is a clear violation. |
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| Jul-01-20 | | Tiggler: <Phony Benoni> There was no need for that. This was the 4th round of a 6 round Swiss. My opponent was a USCF Master, and I was an A-player. The td told me that night, "he won't be back, either tonight or tomorrow. I'll do the next round pairings on that assumption." He was right, of course. The position, by the way, was K vs K, B, N. My opponent entered this voluntarily from a very bad but not totally lost position. He obviously figured that I would not get the job done within 50 moves. When he departed, I still had about 12 moves left and I had mate in 5 or thereabouts. |
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Jul-01-20
 | | saffuna: That brings up a question.
Say white has a mate in five, and black has a single forced move all four times. What if there is a mate in two? Does the white player still have to wait until black's clock flags? |
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Jul-01-20
| | Phony Benoni: <Tiggler> My favorite story about KBN vs. K involved a Master and a young C-player in the first round of tournament with a sudden death time control. The Master had K+B+P, but the kid wouldn't resign. With about five minutes on the clock, the Master finally promoted the pawn to a knight, thinking he was teaching the young kid a good lesson. Yup -- he couldn't mate before his time rand out! |
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