Did you play yet? Is it good news?

I just lost to my engine set on <stunned rating> so you'll have to play for the both of us.

Another quote: "People who worry about losing their edge usually lost the *blade* long ago..."

Chabon also wrote 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay' which is superb. But this one is awesome in the original sense of the word. Published 2007, should be easy to find...

That sounds like the best "prep" for chess if you ask me.

I often "prep" for teaching-- not by constructing a lesson plan (how jejune)-- but rather by re-reading <A Clockwork Orange>.

they won't know what hittem tomorrow!!

Shicksa hard rain a' gonna fall...

- The best chessical novel since Nabokov.

- The best 'alternate history' since Philip K Dick.

- The best detective story since ... <Lev Itate>, maybe.

Meanwhile. In my haste to do something stupid I knocked over my laptop and somehow smashed the screen display. I'm typing this more or less blind, having worked out from glimpses of display that information is intact and I'm still logged on etc. But the picture's gone all broken.

I may have to vanish until I dig out the spare comp and see if it can still talk.

However, congratulations on your draw-- I think drawing against a player that high rated is a good result. <Dr. Euwe> has posted a <French Advance> game in his <Center>, coincidentally.

I know you love the French- I hate it- but I have to play against it. However, it's a fascinating opening.

Any chance you might post your game in <Frogspawn>?

I'm sure <mack> would love to have a look at it as well, as a fellow <Frogophile>. Not to mention the <usual gang of Froggers>.

I'm going to attempt "educating" myself about the <French Advance> right now. I've never played it before--I always play <Winawer> when given the chance, but I'm not sure why as I generally lose with it.

I hope you can get yourself "working equipment" soon.

Ah, the Advance French. I'd actually been reading a recent book about it - The French Advance, by Sam Collins - not so much to study it but because it's well written, I know the author slightly, and I was interested to see how he dealt with it.

You know how some people, hoping to draw with a stronger player, opt for every piece exchange going and wind up in a lost ending? I guess I've made that mistake a few times too. In yesterday's game I played a line that exchanges the LSBs early on, but that does not mean Black keeps exchanging. At some point I felt I was getting an illumination about positional play, outposts, good and bad exchanges - all very Nimzo. Here's the start of it:

1.e4 e6
2.d4 d5
3.e5 c5
4.c3 Qb6 [Wade Variation]
5.Nf3 Bd7
6.a3 Bb5
7.b4 cxd4
8.Bxb4+ Qxb4
9.cxd4

This much you'll find in the books, probably in a footnote. Black has tried various moves here, eg 9...Nd7 and 9...Ne7. I thought my 9...Nh6 might be a novelty but I later found one game (a black win) in the chessbase database. The idea is common in other lines of the French -- I'd avoided it in the past due to irrational fear of Bxh6: black actually gets good compensation if white does that. In this position, with the white bishop heading for b2, I correctly figured he wouldn't exchange. And h6 is a better square than e7 for other reasons, like not blocking the Bf8.

9...Nh6
10.Nc3 Qa6
11.Bb2 Nd7
12.b5 Qa5
13.0-0 Rc8
14.Qd3 Be7
15.Nd2 0-0

And Black is fine. White got a rook to h3, but I put a knight on c4 and took over the c-file and he had to retreat. Drawn on move 30 when the queens were about to come off.

I gotta go catch a train to the metropolis now -- Lublin, isn't it? -- and look at some <art>. My new vocation as art critic proceeds...

Thanks mate! OK good luck getting the "number one" engine back on line--

I worked all day "analysing" a very interesting <French Advance> game <Dr. Euwe> posted at the center.

I just told the <Center> about your game post here.

I'll go through your moves and notes carefully tomorrow after <physiotherapy> and lots of coffee...

IT'S A MAN'S LIFE in the British army...

Oh wait ok this is <Frogspawn>.

FROGS.... ADVANCE!!!!

(1) Responding to "Scuse me while I kiss this goy" with <Shicksa hard rain's a-gonna fall> fits precisely and exactly into the contours of my personal definition of genius. Brilliant, babe. Like you were made for one another.

Perhaps by the Creator God, Daw-K'inze, Who Carries the Holy Meme Hammer in his Right Hand and some of his Genes in the other, Righter still, hand. For, like the Prophet Onan, he spills his seed in a cultural desert, on hard soil.

(2) "You hate to watch another tired man lay down his hand, like he was giving up the holy game of ... poker."

(3) "Please understand I never had a secret chart to get me to the heart of this or any other matter."

That Lenny. Wow. (Current audio track: L. Cohen, 1967, 2007, <Songs Of> with extra stuff from the fabled vaults.)

(4) In the Advance (aka Nimzowitsch) line of the French wot I posted lately: move 8 should read: 8.Bxb5+ Qxb5. *Not* 8.Bxb4+ Qxb4. I was copying from the scoresheet, where I'd written the moves down wrongly. Odd. I never do that. Normally.

(5) <Avanti! Vorwarts! En Avant!> Ah, the Advance Variation ... Sam Collins says he consulted various French devotees before writing his book, and almost all said the Advance was their favorite line to play against as black. I suspect this is "black propaganda": me, I'd prefer a Winawer, even a Tarrasch. In both cases black still has choices that push the game in different directions: open/closed, crazy/sane, theory/anti-theory, etc. But the Advance 3.e5 pretty much fixes the shape of things to come. There are various lines for both sides, but the essentials are already nailed down.

(6) Here's the rest of that game, sans comment:
<15.Nd2 0-0>
16.Rfe1 Qd8
17.Re3 Bg5
18.Rh3 Bxd2
19.Qxd2 Nb6
20.Ne2 Nc4
21.Qb4 Nf5
22.Bc1 Qa5
23.g4 Ne7
24.Bg5 Ng6
25.Qb1 h6
26.Be3 Nxe3
27.Rxe3 Qd2
28.Qb4 Qc2
29.Rb1 Rc4

And I offered a draw, which was accepted. All the other games had ended and the clocks were running down - although I had an extra few minutes there as well as a slight edge on the board. Ratings again, I fear: I'd certainly have pushed for a win versus a lower-rated opponent.

Heh well as <gentilemen> and <gentilewomen> I suppose it's important we include politeness in our humor. Ironically, and hilariously, your last post in my forum contains both the word <face> and the <word for donkey>. Was this intentional? Forgive me for finding that funny. I hope we "can all laugh about this now." I'm giggling at the moment. You know my old pal Andrew Sweeny in Montreal met <Cohen> three times eh? I think I may have told you this.

"What's he like" I said.

"He meditates in sunglasses", Andrew answered.

(we are both HUGE fans). However, that's what he said.

Andrew meditaed at <Cohen's> Zen center off St. Laurent Blvd. which was taken over by his friend Miokio. I never saw <Leonard> myself.

although he was SUPPOSEDLY coming one night to hear <andrew> sing, and hear me do <stand up comedy>, at this bistro on the Main, but he never showed. He did, however, send leftover <lamb chops> from a gourmet restaurant.

That's a true story. I think I told it to you before. OK never mind if I did.

OK back to serious post mode-

<Dom> thanks for the full score-- I'm going to spend the day with your game after I return from physiotherapy.

I believe I will post my comments at the <Max Euwe Center>.

That's where I put my recent analysis of a <French Advance> game between <Timman and Speelman>

Catch you later big fella.

Viktor Korchnoi

This noble General Bullfrog made the loudest croaks for some critical lines in the French Defence

AND he is one of the few who could defy the POLITBURO and survived to tell the tale

ALL HAIL Viktor Korchnoi

(I don't want <Deffi> threatening to have me executed)

ALL HAIL THE FROGS!!

heh I did it <Dom>!

I told that little red haired girl you liked her and...

oh wait no, that's not it..

Hang on...

Oh yes!! Heh I spent all day with your FAMOUS DRAW and posted the "results" in the <Dr. Max Euwe Center for Young Catholic High School Girls in Trouble>.

And a mighty fun day it was too.

Very, very interesting take on the <Frog's Advance>, Dom...

I really enjoyed taking so much time with your game. A real pleasure!!

Mainly, a learning experience for me.

(don't mention <the war>)...

The war? Oh, right, the War. Scuse me while I summon up the Cohen Oracle, as he has All The Answers. Maybe they're wrong, but they're answers...

"The killers who run the other countries
Are trying to get us to overthrow
The killers who run our own.
I for one prefer the rule of our native killers."

or (with the W-word):

"There is a war
Between the left and right
A war between the black and white
A war between the odd and the even..."

(I think I've been drafted into the Odd Black Lefty Army ... as a dying captain, natch ... that's <Captain Natch of Natchville> to you, soldier ...)

"The Captain called me to his side
He took me by the hand
'Take these silver bars', he said,
'I'm giving you command'.
'Command of what?' I said to him,
'There's only you and me,
The rest are dead or in retreat,
Or with the enemy'."

Hmm. Why are they with the NME? Are we fighting the New Musical Express now? Never mind ... first we take Manhattan, then Tin Pan Alley.

Crikey! This Cohen guy had a band called The Army. And more <'war'> references than you could shake a RPG at. What use is an oracle that actually answers your questions?

Boom. Boom. Bang a bang.

Maybe <Delffi> would know. Or <Count Alberic O'Racle de Galway> the famous Belgian. Hey, the Belgics got Magritte and Poirot too: some deep mannikin-pis wellspring of ancient wisdom, there ...

Sorry I kinda disappeared just as we were plumbing the depths of Suttlesiana, albeit it with silicon protection. I've been off rediscovering the simple pleasures of life, such as feeding ducks and using prescription drugs for recreational purposes. At this moment in time I think I'm 'back', but I can never be too sure.

Duncan's basic premise - that there there are many more playable moves in most positions than we realise - is one I've been grappling with for a bit now. It's a tad depressing, of course, for this means that chess is even more complicated than we thought. But it also ensures, to my mind, that chess is not going to be played out for at least a squillion years because if this is true, and I think it is, then it means that even the most standard positions - mainline Ruys, IQP middlegames, the lot - can be reinvigorated through pushing flank pawns or developing knights to slightly unusual places. Breyer's ...Nb8 in the Lopez is a good example of this already in action.

I also really like how Harper describes Suttles as a 'positional Tal', not least because I've used those exact words before in trying to express my love for his play. Lengthy, convoluted *tactical* complications are still well within the boundaries of human understanding, because these remain patently calculable. It may just be a matter of time. But angular, original *strategies*? When I think about Duncan's (relative) success against the best of the best, it makes me think that in truth there genuinely haven't been that many great chess *players*, merely a lot of very fine technicians. Chigorin, Suttles, Nimzowitsch: each in his own way a valuable original because his strengths lay not in outcalculation but in treating that 8x8 board as something other than square and impressing new ideas therein, something you've mentioned before.

P.P.S. That thing we mentioned before might have to be put on hold for a bit. As much as I tried, your proposed slot has been filled by, er, Jeremy Paxman. Sorry about that. Will keep you updated.

And we know *The Trouble With Classicists*, don't we?

<The trouble with a classicist He looks at a tree
That's all he sees
He paints a tree.
The trouble with a classicist
He looks at the sky
He doesn't ask why
He just paints a sky.>

Cale & Reed, Songs for Drella.

I'd include Petrosian, BTW. Working through Mondo's recent book with Fritz running, I found that the engine routinely mis-evaluated positions: it thought Petrosian was losing almost to the point where his opponent resigned.

A friend of mine produced a book called something like "How to Turn Your Addiction to Prescription Drugs into an International Art Career". Great things, these how-to manuals.

I heard a slightly disturbing public announcement on a train yesterday. It said:

"Passengers are requested to remove all their clothing ... [*slight pause*] ... from the seats to permit others to sit down."

"She was a Southern Nymph, a Hellenic Dixiecrat, and she had been taught never to trust a nude eeler."