We found "Porky Dog" in the Vancouver phone book and almost busted a gut.

A N A N D
N A G E L
A G O R A
N E R D S
D L A S Y

O L L
L E E
L E I

A N T
N O A
T A L

A N A N D
N A N J O
A N T I C
N J I R K
D O C K S

Note that Docx was slightly adapted to a more "Dutch" spelling: KS for X

And since I set out to start at the top with the current WC Anand (which turned out damn hard) I had to put up with a slight deformation, resulting in NJIRK.

On a scale from 1 to 10 - considering the various categories for gaining extra points (humor, inventiveness), I give my "solution" a grade: 6.5

Since JA is sort of a superfluous affirmation in Dutch I took it out!

<Dom> Graag gedaan. Het was leuk om te doen.

Overprotection might do it ...

I'm in a (phony) fight with him as we speak... Articulate fellow.

I remember you responding that if he'd: produce the excreta, you'd be happy to slice and dice it for him...

I'm still waiting for the right time to use it and then laugh my head off...

"Most of the time
I'm halfway content ..."

... which sorta reintroduced me to his bobness after a long absence, by both us.

BTW, there's a photo of Bob playing chess - or staring profoundly at a board and giving a mean impression of one who understands what's going on - in the CD booklet with Another Side of Bob Dylan (1964-ish, last pre-'lectric LP). Can't remember if it was on the vinyl sleeve, prob'ly not.

Great photo, too. Not the usual photographer wizard wheeze, "sit by this game thing, it'll make you look serious".

Last week's Cork tourney started an hour late for various reasons. One was computer problems. Another was the Lord Mayor, who showed up, noticed the absence of photographers, and vanished until a few could be summoned. Once they were present he came back and gave his speech.

I've heard this potted-chess-history by dumb pols too many times anyhoo, but this was unique. "I don't know much about the game of bridge", he began - going on to mention bridge three more times before somebody sidled up and nudged him - perhaps indicating the 100-odd chessboards laid out before him. Standing next to me, Stuart Conquest giggled.

Levon Helm, of the same outfit, is making a comeback: check out 'Poor Old Dirt Farmer'.

Last time I checked, there wuz about ten people named <mccarthy> on the FIDE rating list, and none of 'em was me. But after years of Pynchonesque invisibility some of my games are starting to show up in the bigger online databases.

So if anyone wants to know what - one a specific day in 2007, turning up late and feeling weird, I played against the Orangutan: it's there in the records.

Even Eyal, I believe, said at the time that he found the game perplexing. I won a pawn on move 5, spent ages trying to sac my queen, got into insane time trouble, and got mated. Only to find I'd misread the clock and hadn't been in time trouble at all.

"I said to Len Cohen,
'Am I better than Jess?'
Len Cohen hasn't answered yet
But I can hear him coughing
All night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me
in the Tower of Chess.

I've been practicing writing this placename in 'Koreaans' ... but all the letters look kinda like old-fashioned TV sets with squiggly aerials or 'rabbit ears' on top.

korean rabbits:
so there's, like, a ± with a Í on top.
And a Ì on top of a ^ above a ¬ ... more or less.

Sheet, most of that doesn't come out right.

This <three encyclopedias in the head> thing might almost be worrying, if (a) I was the worrying kind, (b) hadn't written an MA thesis on Encyclopedic Fiction, and (c) hadn't spent 20 years pretending to compose my own vast edifice, The Final Cyclopedia, to terminate that genre forever - making my critical work both definitive and redundant.

But the way things are going now, *knowing stuff* will soon be defined as a mental illness. Everyone will have access to Geurgle and a vast reservoir of ignorance, plus whatever political and philosophical POV is currently favored by the Masters (of the Universe, of Those Who Know, of Chess, of Rugby College, whatever ...).

Am I paranoid, too? Anyone curious enough (memo: put curiosity on the symptom list, citing feline mortality studies) to look up stuff will always get the approved answer.

b e e r
e mm a
e mm s
r a s a

N I M Z O
I L Y I N
M Y H R E
Z I R - Y
O N E Y F.

All bleedin perfect except THERE MUST BE A FREAKING Persian or African chessplayer with the name Ziray?? (Or whatever)

Damn it I bet I could find one in Hil-billing-Libya if I looked long and hard enough !!!

HUH??

<Hai Sharky> The Tao of chess, the Zen of chess ... 3x3 is all very well, but we're going to have to work on the big <8 x 8> monster eventually, aren't we?

I think these things with letters are called <Latin Squares> btw, but I could be wrong. There's something similar in matrix mathematics.

An obvious tip: if you want to use a particular name (say NIMZO) then each of the other four names must begin with letters from N-I-M-Z-O. So you zip through the player directory, noting down 5-letter names starting with the appropriate letters.

This is how I learned that 'X' was unusable. The only 5-letter name starting with X is Xinix, which would need a 2nd x-name to work. There goes my Nixon idea.

I decided to use FROG in a 4x4 and came up with this name-list: GROB, OHME, OMAR, ONEY, FROG, OWEN, OVOD, OSTL, ORSO, OREV, OREL, ORAL, ORAK. GOLZ, GARA, GOUW, GRAF, GRAU, GRIN, GROB, GETZ, GILG, GILL, GLEK, GUID, GLUD, GYSI. RADE, ROCA, RAHN, RAIN, RODI, RAMA, RATH, ROIZ, RAUD, RAVI, ROMI, ROMO, RAVN, ROOS, ROOT, READ, REEH, ROSS, ROST, ROTH, ROUT, ROUX, ROWE, RETI, RETY, RUCK, RUDD, RUEB, RIFF, RIGO, RYAN, RIOS.