<My idea is that (the better) song lyrics (Cohen, Dylan, Costello, Cale, Bowie, Young, Mitchell, POLLARD, Stanshall, Reed, and, um, me) are comparable to the <Lost Postmodernity> of Silent Cinema.>

Emphasis mine. Are you now fully sold on Uncle Bob, or were you just giving the nod to an old comrade, knowing I'd get shirty if he was left out? Either way I wanna hear more, because your theory seems quite sound.

As is King's Horse Chess (KHC). It's really got me thinking, and I suspect I shall spend my Sunday composing problems to illustrate the groovy new dynamics. But one thing that should be pointed out is that effectively all endgame theory is shot to @#$%. What happens to classic king-and-pawn endgames now? How much harder will it be to force zugzwang? Do known winning positions become drawn or losing in some situations? I don't know, and I'm not sure if I've got the stamina to find out.

Incidentally, your newish job as an art critic isn't going to take you to the Dylan exhibition at the Halcyon is it? 'cause if you're coming over London way...

Anyone who sends flies through the mail ... could be quite innaresting, really.

Well, to attempt honesty, a novel experience, we're more in old comrade territory here than not. However, I should add that there was a lot of this on the list: my current 'great lyricists' set has Cohen, Dylan and my new squeeze, Costello - full stop. All of the others have turned a good phrase at times, but only at times. P'raps only Cohen is consistently great.

On t'other hand, everyone listed deserves recognition, if only to Pollard a FEN.

Meanwhile, back at <King Horse Chess Rancho Vicioso> - yep, both ending and opening theory change utterly, and it's quite unclear (to me) which checkmates can be forced and which material balances lead to draws.

Here's a minor case from the opening, using non-daft moves:

1.d4 e6
2.e3 b6
3.Bd3 Bb7
4.Ne2!? c5

This is a fairly routine set-up: the English Defence aka Owen's Defence (though the latter usually applies to ...b6 after 1.e4 while the former is ...b6 after 1.d4, without transposing to a Queen's Indian.

4.Ne2!? leaves the g2-pawn hanging, but this is a trendy position in such openings. Baburin played it against me in a Nimzo-Indian in March; I declined the gambit, got myself into space trouble, and lost by move 17.

Baburin told me that the main (Nimzo) line is ...Bxg2 followed by Rg1 and ...Bf3.

Anyway, the point here is that Black also refuses the gambit. 4 ... c5 attacks the centre, again standard. But there are differences here in KHC:

click for larger view

White to play.

Observe that:

- Black's ...c5 opens a spare escape route for his King at c7. If it turns out that moving the king this way is viable, he's made a useful advance.

- Can White play 5.0-0, which would be the normal move? Yes he can. Admittedly Black's bishop attacks f3, a square the king can currently move to. But it shouldn't matter - just as an attack on d1 doesn't normally prevent 0-0. Castling short would only be illegal if the king was in check, or f1 or g1 was attacked.

This *could* lead to an improbable endgame situation, something like this:

click for larger view

I'm sure I could construct something better, but this conveys the gist. Black looks to be winning with his advanced king (legally adjacent to WK) and c-pawn. White's pawn is in danger, and the threat is 1...Ra1+ winning the rook. As you suggest, the adjacency rule allows kings to hide in ways currently impossible - totally changing rook endings.

Inter alia, White can't castle.
1.0-0 is illegal because the black king hits f1.

<OWL>

by Allen Ginsberg...

Very entertaining and informative annotation of your quadraqueen triumph.

<Canadian Girls> are insane. All I can tell you for sure is that if they are young and in Montreal they are loose and drink a lot.

oops what a giveaway!!

Don't forget women are crazy and are frequently tempted to "gender self-loathing."

Something to do with cultural representation perhaps.

IE- I just watched the execrable and muddled <Backwoods> cuz it had <Gary Oldman> and <Paddy Considine> in it both of whom I love.

Unfortunately, the broad who played <Paddy's> wife was so unrelentlingly awful that I spent the second half of the film distracted by the strong urge to see <Paddy> blow her face off with his shotgun.

I read some of the user comments on the <IMDB> page and lo and behold there were dozens of others who had the exact same thought.

Are women really so awful? Well, yes, in this particular film they are.

sigh.

Ok now about this <hopping king>...

Cripe man- what about the hopping king rule in <3-D chess>?

Let a computer try to figure THAT one out...

Unpredictable behaviour is really frightening..

Guess what..

I am a premiere member now!!...

Well atleast for three months...

I took a survey for CG and they gifted a free trial and now I have my own forum..

Do visit it though I may not be there all the time..

Please post your valuable comments since there exists no forum without it's visitors...

"Well, my pieces are gone
And my king's bereft
But I got a couple of passers left
And I hope to get one promoted
To a Queen, or a Tower,
Because games like that get quoted.

So, lessee ... how's this:

1.d3 Kf6
2.Nd2 Kd5
3.f3 Kf4
4.g4 e5
5.Bg2 Qh4#

click for larger view

Yep, that seems to work. 5.a3 or 5.a4 etc also lead to the same mate, as the Kf4 covers g2 - but I don't see a way to shorten it by a move.

The black king isn't *needed* on f4, though it helps. But white has to play, in some order, d3, f3, g4, Bg2, Nd2. I think.

Like Steinitz said, the King is an attacking piece -- bet he never imagined anything like this, though.

I wonder if the *black* king can be mated on f4, like you'd expect a normal king to be ... or does it just bound away from trouble with springer-moves?

The strategy of King Horse Chess depends on the answer to this -- whether the king should be used to launch a mating attack in the opening?!

One way of analyzing a chess set-up is to note the weak points, especially in unmoved pawns along the 2nd rank. In standard chess, running horizontally from a2 to h2, this is the number of times each pawn is protected:

Standard: a2-h2

1-1-1-4-4-1-1-1

While in King Horse: a2-h2

1-1-2-3-3-0-2-1

Note that big fat zero at f2, normally weak cos only the king guards here, but here it's got nothing at all.

Which means, wait for it ...

1.d3 e6
2.Bd2 Bc5
3.Nf3 Bxf2#

Because the king can't capture one square diagonally. And the escape squares, c2, d3, f3 and g2 are blocked. Mate!

click for larger view

This seems the most consistent version of the rule. Is there a problem with it, apart from screwing up familiar endgames?

KHC has some interesting features in common with an old variant called 'refusal chess' -- your opponent could reject your move at any stage, but had to accept your 2nd offer. The trick was to tempt him with a highly rejectable nasty-looking threat while keeping the real threat hidden, and spring it on the 2nd go. The shared point is that, as in my ...Bxf2#, a king can be checkmated by an adjacent, unsupported piece. If you can play Qxh7+ against a castled king, you reject his ...Kxh7, and it's mate.