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 18635 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 173 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing> May-01-10    Travis Bickle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eLf... At 8-1 Super Saver is The Winner!!! May-02-10    keypusher: <I'm watching a documentary on the Dodgers in LA. Pretty good, but it claims the arrival of Lou Johnson during the 65 season saved the team, providing the necessary offense and leading the team in homers. He did lead in homers, with 12. And he hit .251 with 58 RBIs.> Follow-up on that, courtesy of Bill James again: Don Drysdale pinch-hit for the Dodgers a dozen times that year. Overall, he hit .300 with 7 home runs and 19 RBIs. He had a slugging percentage over .500; no one else on that team reached .400. May-02-10    Jim Bartle: Maybe Dark made that criticism of Cepeda around July 5, after a July 4 doubleheader: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Game 1: Giants 19 Cubs 3, Cepeda 5-for-5, 2 HRs, 8 RBIs Game 2: Cubs 3 Giants 2, Cepeda 2-for-4, 0 HRs, 0 RBIs. May-02-10    Phony Benoni: <keypusher> That's what I like about Bill James. You might not always agree with his formulas or his conclusions, but the man finds some incredible facts that nobody else ever notices. Naturally, I had to look up the Dodgers' team statistics for 1965: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... James is right talking about regular players, but there were a couple of seldom-used sluggers with trivial results. Like <Nate Oliver>, who had one at-bat and hit a single. Easy to calculate. Then there was Nick Willhite: 10 ABs, 4 hits including a double, and three walks. That's a BA of .400, an on-base percentage of .538, and a slugging percentage of .500. Unfortunately for Willhite, he was a pitcher. And with the 1965 Dodgers, it doesn't matter if your OBP is .538 when your ERA is 5.36. May-02-10    keypusher: Just because I was noodling around with the 60s Dodgers...here is a <seriously> bad game from centerfielder Willie Davis. 0-4 with two strikeouts is the least of it. He also committed three(!) errors in one inning, leading to three unearned runs. Oh, and it was in the World Series. http://www.baseball-reference.com/b... May-02-10    Jim Bartle: Painful to look at some of that chart: Tommy Davis, 60 ABs. A great player, he played for years but was never the same after breaking his ankle going into second base against the Giants. May-02-10    Phony Benoni: No wonder Koufax retired after that game. May-02-10    keypusher: <Jim Bartle: Painful to look at some of that chart: Tommy Davis, 60 ABs. A great player, he played for years but was never the same after breaking his ankle going into second base against the Giants.> Wow, 153 RBIs in 1962, never cracked 100 in any other year. When did he break his ankle? http://www.baseball-reference.com/p... I think 1963 was the year hitting dropped around the league, and stayed down until 1969. May-02-10    Phony Benoni: Tommy Davis' injury was in 1965. This page has some discussion about it: Phony Benoni chessforum May-03-10    Jim Bartle: The strike zone was expanded a lot before the 1963 season, and reduced (and the mound lowered) after the 1968 season. That's the reason for the lack of hitting from 1963 to 1968. It was so bad in 1968 that everybody was clamoring for something to be done. In September there was a lot of talk that the AL batting champ would hit less than .300. Yastrzemski won with .301. Willie McCovey had the most homers in the NL with 36. And of course Bob Gibson had an ERA of 1.12 and Luis Tiant a 1.60, yet both still lost nine games. May-03-10    Phony Benoni: Was the expanded strike zone a reaction to expansion-weakened pitching in 1961-62? May-03-10    Jim Bartle: Good question, don't know. What Bill James wrote was that the people who changed the rules clearly didn't realize it was going to have such a huge impact. The Giants, for example, dropped from 878 to 725 in 1963, with basically the same team. May-03-10    Jim Bartle: Here's a game with a record which I doubt will ever be broken: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Check how Boston scored its runs. May-03-10    keypusher: <Jim Barle> Looking at Boston's runs, hits and RBIs in the box score it's pretty obvious who was managing the Sox that day. Naturally he had the umpires in his pocket. May-03-10    Jim Bartle: According to Sports Illustrated, Hough asked the umps if he could pitch from a little closer. May-03-10    Phony Benoni: Instead of the "Go-Go Sox", I guess these were the "Stand-There-And-Take-It Sox." I found a little information on the 1963 strike zone change, and apparently one motivation was speeding the game up. Too many 3-hour games, I guess. May-04-10    Jim Bartle: Sometimes I just don't understand the physics of baseball. Look at this swing by Chase Utley, one hand on the bat as he hits the ball. I don't see how that was a home run. I always wondered the same thing about Kirk Gibson's homer. http://philadelphia.phillies.mlb.co... May-04-10    Deus Ex Alekhina: <I don't understand the physics...> Supposedly some flight engineers were examining a bumble bee and came to the conclusion that it simply could not fly. May-04-10    Phony Benoni: Kirk Gibson's home run was a certifiable miracle, a Wonderboy Express. Physics did not apply. By the way, this Anand - Topalov match has got me wondering if the DIRP is the future of chess. Lord help us all. May-04-10    Phony Benoni: Long gone, but not forgotten. http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=htt... May-04-10    Jim Bartle: Too bad. I hope the Dodgers game is on my TV tonight so I can hear what Vin Scully has to say. The Cardinals announcers talked about him for about half an inning tonight. May-04-10    WannaBe: I don't want to hear Vin sobbing like a two year old for 6 innings... =) May-05-10    WannaBe: http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/boxsc... Okay, maybe I would rather listen to Vin sobbing for 6 innings... Instead of listening to how the Dodgers played tonight. May-05-10    jessicafischerqueen: <Phony Benoni> Hey hey just hoping you and/or Benzol might have time to edit the summary for the <Steinitz-Lasker 1894 Match>. Lasker-Steinitz World Championship (1894) As <keypusher> pointed out on this page a while ago, the first <eight> games, not the first <six> games, were played in New York. In addition to the source he cites, I've got another here in my hands that confirms his correction: Kurt Landsberger's biography of Steinitz- it's got a contemporary New York Times article talking about the shift in venue to the Franklin Chess Club in Philadelphia after the completion of the <eigth> game in New York. If this page is not in control of "The Big Three," please let me know and I'll alert the admins. This wouldn't take very long to fix I bet. Thanks, JFQ May-05-10    Phony Benoni: <JFQ> The WCC Index was in place before I came here, so I guess you'll have to go the admins. The Cunningham book <keypusher> cites gives this breakdown: New York Games 1-8 Philadelphia Games 9-11 Montreal Games 12-19 The minimum they need to do would be to remove the words "in Philadelphia". Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 914) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 173 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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