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Oct-01-08
 | | Domdaniel: <jess> in re: photos Heh. Here's another.
http://www.sebastianguinnessgallery... |
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Oct-01-08
| | Domdaniel: <mack> - Happy Ryanaeroflotting.
<I wouldn't be surprised if I put in my first ever 0/6 performance this weekend.> Totally out of the question. After all, you'd meet me on 0/5. *thinks* ... he's expecting something weird ... should I play normal moves and really spook him out? But I don't know any normal moves.
[that figures] |
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Oct-01-08
| | Domdaniel: <m> So the extra-time premiumosity you got by volunteering to be a test guinea pig wore off, did it? Get a government to bail you out. It's all the rage, apparently. |
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Oct-01-08
| | Domdaniel: I quote from a letter in today's Guardian newspaper on the subject of <toads vs frogs>: GIRLS LOVE TOADS
"Toads ... also have beautiful eyes. And whereas frogs are slimy-skinned and will always jump to escape, the toad is dry-skinned and will rest quite comfortably in the palm of your hand. Though some may recoil at first, most children, particularly girls, love toads." Obviously I've been a toad all along and this place should really be called *toadspawn*. |
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Oct-01-08
| | Domdaniel: <mack> I actually entered for the Galway thing just now. I hadn't, um, really exactly got around to doing that until now. Now ... how do the horsies move?
See you there. |
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| Oct-01-08 | | Red October: he may be a Republican, but he's the only one who seems to know whats really happening in the financial crisis http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITIC... |
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| Oct-02-08 | | mack: <Now ... how do the horsies move?> The KNIGHT, a problem child, extends (according to decree) To the diametric corner of a figure two by three.
- DB Pritchard
I'll sithee. |
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Oct-02-08
 | | jessicafischerqueen: <Domdaniel: <Jess> Is WWP cool? > Yes, he is.
I hope that's cleared things up. |
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Oct-02-08
| | Domdaniel: <To the diametric corner of a figure two by three.> Sounds a bit like my planned route to Galway, which involves a side-trip to Limerick. To see a man about a horse sculpture. "Here comes the equestrian statue
Prancing up and down ..."
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Oct-02-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: May the chess gods favor our <Dom n' Mack> (lights incence, reads appropriate passages from the <Tibetan Book of the Dead> and the <Upanishads>) |
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Oct-02-08
| | jessicafischerqueen: Oooh just found a good one in the <Upanishads>... (did you think I was kidding?)
OK <Dom n' Mack>, possibly you might garner advantage before the first piece moves by kindly informing your opponent that <I am become Death, destroyer of worlds> Of course, that's a lot to live up to. |
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| Oct-06-08 | | wasspwot: sound event at Galway. I think your trumphant games should be posted on here for all to see. Did you have a good evening on Sunday? Did our colleague actually bother to read my texts?I was asking him to pick up my sets,boards and clocks which I left behind but he never responded, draver. See you at Bunratty. Photos will be posted when I get home. |
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Oct-06-08
| | Domdaniel: <wasspwot> Well, *I* just got home. And last thing I saw - ie, 11am on Monday - <m> was safely tucked up in a cab heading for the airport. So that's all right then. Er, photos? I vaguely imagined that all that business with the camera - despite your undoubted skills in that department - was a kind of apotropaic ritual. The prospect of actual photos emerging from same is, well, scary. <mack> and yours truly finished on the same score, 2.5/6. So honour was satisfied, parity was conserved, and the universe remains on course. I lost idiotically in the last round (a tradition) while mack drew. Since I was actually the bottom seed (fnarr) and lowest-rated player, I'm accepting 2.5/6 - ie not coming last - as quite OK really. The games themselves were rather better than the results. I may post one later. <Jess> Your photo gallery was spookily accurate, all things considered. As if anyone ever really considered *all things* ... |
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Oct-06-08
| | Domdaniel: I've been absent for a few days not simply due to a chess event in Galway, but because the hotel offered me a choice between a room with broadband and one with smoking allowed. I chose nicotine over CG. |
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Oct-06-08
| | Domdaniel: Right, here's a game. It starts with one of the world's more boring openings, the Symmetrical English. Black gets ambitious. White - me - leaves stuff en prise in the quest for greater somethingness, and, lo, it is all over. White: me
Black: the other guy
1.Nf3 c5
2.c4 Nc6
3.Nc3 g6
4.g3 Bg7
5.Bg2 d6
6.d3 e5
7.0-0 f5
8.a3 Nf6
9.Rb1 Be6
Maybe ...a5 would have been wiser.
10.b4 Qd7?
Seems harmless, but black is now in deep trouble.
11.Ng5 Bg8
His only way of preserving the bishop, but ...0-0 is better. 12.Qa4 h6
13.bxc5
The point. The Ng5 is untouchable because of the threat of Rxb7 and Bxc6+ etc. 13 ... Rc8
14.Nb5 dxc5
15.Nxa7 Nxa7
16.Qxa7 Rc7
16...b5 would've left me with some work to do. Now, however ... 17.Nf3 Resigns
1-0. |
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Oct-06-08
| | Domdaniel: "I am the chalk snake floating on Upanishads..." |
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Oct-06-08
| | Domdaniel: <Correction> Did I say a "Symmetrical English". The <Sym Eng>, as everyone knows, begins 1.c4 c5. This is actually a *Symmetrical Irish*, where White's first and last moves are both Nf3. |
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Oct-06-08
 | | Open Defence: you dont have to be Irish to be Irish |
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| Oct-07-08 | | wasspwot: an interestingly symmetrical start and finish as you rightly point out. I shall render that game the study it deserves later.
i cant find your quote anywhere. The closest Ive got is a Poem by Leonard Cohen entitled "to the Indian Pilgrims" - "I am the country you meant
I am the chalk snake
fading in the remote village".
will be investing in the works of Bob Pollard later as well. |
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Oct-07-08
| | Domdaniel: <wasspwot> That's the quote. I must have misremembered it. The version in my head went "I am the country you meant/ I am the chalk snake/ floating on Upanishads". Whatever that means.
BTW, I've no idea if <m> got your text messages, but I suppose that's been sorted by now anyway ... |
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| Oct-07-08 | | mack: 'The poised tongues on easy street
are shifting and delivering
the insidious snake and the meat'
R. Pollard, 'Unstable Journey'
'Mother, mother it's just not fair:
we were so close to death
when the snakes were at your breast'
- R. Pollard, '7 Strokes to Heaven's Edge'
'Cold hands touching my face
Don't hide - the snake can see you'
- R. Pollard, 'The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory' 'We market it as a nasty little nation
drinking from the fire in the well
extracting all the venom from the snake'
- R. Pollard, 'The Drinking Jim Crow'
'And he crossed that lake with his overpaid army
of rats and snakes on whiskey ships'
- R. Pollard, 'A Contest Featuring Human Beings'
Oh yes, I'm alive then. Thanks to the two of you for the subsidies and fags. It's always nice to add to the growing list of people to whom I owe money. Galway was an absolute blast, despite the fact I came dangerously close to quitting chess forever on the Saturday afternoon. More of which later. |
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Oct-07-08
| | Domdaniel: <notice to speakers of American>
Over the weekend, I must have given <mack> about three fags from my personal collection. Others may have contributed even more. It's a pity you can't have a fag during a game anymore. |
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Oct-07-08
| | Domdaniel: <notice to speakers of anything> The phrase "I came dangerously close to quitting chess forever" belongs to the same lexicon as "I often quit smoking". |
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| Oct-07-08 | | Eyal: <Dom> Very nice game from Galway - interesting to note how hopeless Black's position is after 17.Nf3, even though materially he's only a pawn down. A couple of comments: 11.bxc5 was already good on move 11 (and more forcing than Ng5) - 11...dxc5 loses to 12.Nxe5!; 11...O-O instead of Bg8 doesn't seem to be a good idea, since White wins a piece by 12.Nxe6 Qxe6 13.Bd5 (a lot of tactics going on this diagonal...) Nxd5 14.cxd5; and 12.bxc5 (again, the more forcing move) might have been more accurate before Qa4, since the latter allows 12...cxb4. Btw, to repeat something I've posted here about a week ago, following your comment about alternative universes being back in fashion - Have you read Philip Roth's rather recent "The Plot Against America"? I Haven't read it myself, but I happened to hear quite a lot about it. The premise is that Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, and America is swept by a wave of anti-Semitism. |
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Oct-07-08
| | Domdaniel: <Eyal> Thanks for the comments. I didn't fully realize at the time how hopeless the black position was after 17.Nf3 - I thought he could struggle on with something like 17...Nh7 or ...Nh5. But I played through a few lines on Fritz, and it's a massacre. The very best black can do is an ending about four pawns down. Fritz also recommended 11.bxc5 - ie, before Ng5 and Qa4. I'd seen the whole idea by then - leave the N on g5 and prepare to play Rxb7 - but I chose a slightly inferior move order. I had a hunch he'd play ...Bg8, counting on ...h6 to evict my knight - but of course it's unwise to play hunches. I haven't read the Roth book - though I've noticed more and more of these alternate reality novels creeping out of the sci-fi ghetto and being marketed as thrillers (or even literature). The main difference seems to be that the SF versions provide a quasi-scientific explanation about Schrodinger's Cat, the multiverse, or Turing gates, while the others just tell a story. In 'Cowboy Angels' by Paul McAuley, one version of America invents the gates - Turing emigrates to the USA instead of killing himself. This version calls itself 'The Real' and names other Americas according to their government, eg the Nixon Sheaf and the American Bund. I liked the idea that *we* weren't in The Real. But of course they have agents here, and black ops... |
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