Phony Benoni Member since Feb-10-06 · Last seen Jun-11-22 Greetings, O Seeker After Knowledge! You have arrived in Dearborn, Michigan (whether you like it or not), and are reading words of wisdom from a player rated 2938--plus or minus 1000 points. However, I've retired from serious play--not that I ever took playing chess all that seriously. You only have to look at my games to see that. These days I pursue the simple pleasures of finding games that are bizarre or just plain funny. I'd rather enjoy a game than analyze it. For the record, my name is David Moody. This probably means nothing to you unless you're a longtime player from Michigan, though it's possible that if you attended any US Opens from 1975-1999 we might have crossed paths. Lucky you. If you know me at all, you'll realize that most of my remarks are meant to be humorous. I do this deliberately, so that if my analysis stinks to High Heaven I can always say that I was just joking. As you can undoubtedly tell from my sparkling wit, I'm a librarian in my spare time. Even worse, I'm a cataloger, which means I keep log books for cattle. Also, I'm not one of those extroverts who sit at the Reference Desk and help you with research. Instead, I spend all day staring at a computer screen updating and maintaining information in the library's catalog. The general public thinks Reference Librarians are dull. Reference Librarians think Catalogers are dull. My greatest achievement in chess, other than tricking you into reading this, was probably mating with king, bishop and knight against king in a tournament game. I have to admit that this happened after an adjournment, and that I booked up like crazy before resuming. By the way, the fact I have had adjourned games shows you I've been around too long. My funniest moment occurred when I finally got a chance to pull off a smothered mate in actual play. You know, 1.Nf7+ Kg8 2.Nh6+ Kh8 3.Qg8+ Rxg8 4.Nf7#. When I played the climactic queen check my opponent looked at the board in shocked disbelief and said, "But that's not mate! I can take the queen!" Finally, I must confess that I once played a positional move, back around 1982. I'll try not to let that happen again.

Phony Benoni has kibitzed 18634 times to chessgames   [more...]

Jun-11-22 M Blau vs Keres, 1959    Phony Benoni: Not a good recommendation for the DERLD. Out of 59 moves, White makes only three in Black's half of the board. And two of those conist of 3.Bb5 and 6.Bxc6.      Jun-11-22 chessgames.com chessforum    Phony Benoni: Er, it's back. Karpov vs Timman, 1988      Jun-10-22 Orlo Milo Rolo   Phony Benoni: Marco!      Jun-10-22 Lilienthal vs Bondarevsky, 1947   Phony Benoni: Another one for you King Hunters. Black's monarch travels fron g8 to b8, then takes the Great Circle Route back to h3 before calling it a day.      Jun-10-22 GrahamClayton chessforum    Phony Benoni: <GrahamClayton> I've posted a question for you at L T Magee vs J Holland, 1948      Jun-10-22 L T Magee vs E L Holland, 1948    Phony Benoni: <GrahamClayton> The source you cite, <Chess Review, May 1948, p. 24>, gives Black's name as <E Holland> "Chess Life" (June 5, 1948, p. 1) has a table of results giving <E L Holland>. That form also appears in USCF rating supplements for a player fro ...      Jun-09-22 Biographer Bistro    Phony Benoni: SkinnVer Here Among the Fold?      Jun-09-22 Flohr vs Bondarevsky, 1947    Phony Benoni: Black's bishop makes me think of Godzilla emerging from the depths of the ocean to wreak havoc. However, in the end it's his Two Little Friends who steal the show. Well, maybe not so litt.      Jun-06-22 W Ritson-Morry vs G T Crown, 1947   Phony Benoni: it was the last round. Rison-Morry was mired in last place. These things happen.      Jun-06-22 W Adams vs M Kagan, 1947   Phony Benoni: Some more informztion. The game was published in <Chess Review>, March 1948, p. 23. Black's name is given as "M Kagan", and the location as "Massachusetts". There is no other game data, but I think we can now safely assume Black is <Milton Kagan>. Earlier in the ...

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Living in the Past

< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 161 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing> Mar-25-10    Phony Benoni: <JB> Those are the ones. Caused quite a stir on several listservs I frequent. Mar-29-10    Deus Ex Alekhina: <Phony><Actually, I have a nice view> Of what? Detroit? You better have that eye surgery pronto. Unless you're pointed to Windsor or the many stadiums. Mar-29-10    Phony Benoni: You forget, I work on a univsrsity campus. There's several trees and a fountain in clear sight. In addition, I can't see the Administration Building, which is a nice plus. By the way, I've been relaxing with my old Strat-O-Matic card game of late, waiting for the real season to start. I had an interesting game last night, with the 1974 Dodgers beating the 1920 Indians by a score of 5-2. Cleveland left 17 runners on base, including nine in the last three innings against Mike Marshall. Even he had to be tired after that outing. How often does your lead-off hitter get six at-bats in a nine inning game, but you only score two runs? Mar-29-10    Travis Bickle: Hello Mr. Benoni. I have an intriguing idea. How about if you play the 1984 Cubs against The 1984 Detroit Tigers? Ya know the World Series match-up of '84 that should have been. Instead of them lucky fluke Padres. Mar-30-10    Phony Benoni: Sorry, Travis. This is a really old game; I've got no teams after 1976. I could play the 69 Cubs against the 68 Tigers, except that the Cubs' cards will probably disintegrate due to fatigue. Mar-30-10    Phony Benoni: By the way, what's the word on the Cubs' chances this year? The Tigers are banking on the weakness of their division, heightened by the Twins losing their closer (Joe Nathan) for the season. Mar-30-10    operative: Do you really think that the loss of Joe Nathan will really hurt the Twins? I don't. They're so stacked with pitchers-barring a few unsures-and new players. This is going to be a great year! Mar-30-10    Jim Bartle: The Twins usually had a big advantage at the Metrodome. It'll be interesting to see how they do in the new stadium. Mar-30-10    playground player: <Phony Benoni> Wow! You make me want to break out my old Strat-O-Matic set and play some funky matchups. I stopped ordering cards after the Mark McGwire-Sammy Sosa Steroid homer race, but I still have a huge crate full of them which my wife is always agitating for me to get rid of. (And to think she used to play whole seasons with me!) Mar-30-10    Phony Benoni: <operative> Yeah, you can't count out the Twins no matter what. They remind me of that Monty Python knight who kept finding ways to fight on even as his limbs were severed. Mar-30-10    Phony Benoni: <playground player> I haven't had any complete season sets since the mid-60s. The closest I ever got to finishing was about halfway through the 1964 season. The big bugaboo for me was keeping and calculating statistics. Remember, this is the mid-1960s, before hand-held calculators. I did have access to a large desktop adding machine, which literally did nothing but add. I did figure out a way to calcaluate batting averages with it, but it simply got too cumbersome. Now, all I have have is a couple of miscellaneous sets totalling 78 teams from 1906-1976. At the moment, I've got a schedule set up where each team will play a two-game series against each other, making a convenient 154 games in all. Thanks goodness for spreadsheets. Mar-31-10    playground player: <Phony Benoni> You gotta really love baseball, to replay a whole season AND try to keep the stats. I never did find a way to keep batting averages, but I did keep ERAs--by doing the arithmetic on paper. Now that's work! Much easier to keep RBIs, homeruns, stolen bases, etc. But I did find that when I played a real schedule, used the lineups that were usually used, and didn't make any trades that weren't made, those ERAs came out amazingly close to the real thing. But doing it all in longhand... I think maybe I'm too old for that anymore. Mar-31-10    Travis Bickle: Hey Jim Bartle and all you sportsfans out there. We have to chip in and buy Ol' Phony a new Stratomatic baseball game with new card updates for the 1984 Cubs and Detroit Tigers to play out The World Series of '84 That should have been. Instead of them stinking lousy no pitchers lucky fluke padres who lost in 4 straight to The Tigers! P.S. Since Leo Durocher isn't with us any anymore I'll take on the Cubs managerial duties vs Dr. Benoni! Maybe will even play a double header one day 'cause Ernie likes to play 2!! ; P Field Of Dreams game! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqR8... Mar-31-10    Jim Bartle: I am curious why the draft seems so much more of a crapshoot in baseball than in other sports. I'm looking at 1990. The consensus best player is high school pitcher Todd van Poppel, but he #14 because he says he's going to college. He turned out to be lousy. #1 was Chipper Jones, best in the draft, followed by Mike Lieberthal and Tony Clark, average major leaguers at best. A couple good players among the first ninteen picks, but Mike Mussina #20? Here's an experienced college pitcher who has shown how good he is, and teams are picking high schoolers ahead of him? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_M... Then round 4 through 9: Garret Anderson, Ray Durham, Bret Boone, Mike Hampton, Troy Percival, Fernando Viña. 20th round and beyond: Andy Pettitte, Jason Varitek, Jorge Posada, Scott Erickson. Mar-31-10    Jim Bartle: Of course the teams do better some years, such as 1985, when first six were B.J. Surhoff, Will Clark, Bobby Witt, Barry Larkin, Kevin Brown, and Barry Bonds. Mar-31-10    Travis Bickle: Hey Phony here's my favorite outfielder! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzR5... Mar-31-10    Jim Bartle: Travis, did you see Clemente's nephew Denis playing for Kansas State in the NCAAs? Good player. Mar-31-10    Jim Bartle: At 2:00 is the play we talked about, where Mantle stayed at first on a ground out to first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0zL... Looks to me as if the first baseman was confused, thought to throw to second for an instant before realizing the force was off. Enough time for Mantle to sneak back in. I've never seen a play like that before. Apr-01-10    Travis Bickle: <Jim Bartle> No Jim I missed that game. Well this Denis kid sure has the genes to be a great athlete! Apr-01-10    playground player: <Jim Bartle> I think the reason the baseball draft is such a crapshoot is because baseball players tend to mature later than players in other sports. Baseball takes more skill than the others. So you have first-round drafts like Shawn Abner (Mets) who never amount to anything in the major leagues, and low-level picks like Orel Hershiser who are late bloomers. Some players are already as good in college as they're ever going to be, and they don't get any better. And others just need a lot more growing time. Apr-01-10    Jim Bartle: Definitely true of high school players. The most interesting draft story of recent years was Josh Hamilton, taken #1 just before the "other Josh" who soon become a Series-winning pitcher. Hamilton turned to drugs and collapsed totally, almost out of baseball as shown in a long SI story on Beckett and him. Then he somehow came back years later to become a major star. Apr-02-10    Jim Bartle: No reason for this, just seems like a great photo of Ernie Banks: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mu... Apr-02-10    chancho: I still get ill whenever I see this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN-2... Apr-02-10    dakgootje: Got to love the Onion News Network: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PnN... Apr-02-10    Travis Bickle: Here's a trailer on a film I never got around to seeing called This Old Cub about Ron Santo. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vf3u... Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 914) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 161 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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