Re: the suspiciously accurate joke photos in my pre-tourney photo gallery--

heh-- there's a simple explanation--

The first two photos are ACTUALLY from the <real Galway>...

I was wrong, though, to say that Black should have castled instead of playing 11...Bg8. As <Eyal> pointed out, 11...0-0 loses to 12.Nxe6 Qxe6 13.Bd5 Nxd5 14.cxd5, winning a piece and carrying on with the attack.

I hadn't seen this, but I was planning to play 12.Nxe6 anyway - in order to emphasize my domination of the light squares. So - heh - I'm sure I'd have found 13.Bd5! as well.

The position up to 9.Rb1 has been played in several master games. As far as I can tell, Black has *always* played 9...a5 to prevent the advance of the deadly b-pawn. So the awkward 9...Be6 is really his first mistake.

It only slightly spoils things to learn -- as both Fritz and Eyal point out -- that I should have played bxc5 a couple of moves earlier. Fritz also preferred the immediate retreat 14.Nf3 to my dashing 14.Nb5.

We're all familiar with the attacking maneuver Ng5 h6, where white leaves the knight on g5 to be taken. Usually, Black has castled kingside and White hasn't -- so (often with h4 played as well) White's sac opens the h-file for an attack on the black king.

Here it's the other way round. White has castled kingside and Black hasn't. So ...hxg5, which Black could have played anytime between moves 13 and 16, would actually have opened the file for *black's* rook against the white king.

Funny, I just happened to think about it as well as I looked at Jess' comments... The problem with Be6 is not only that it fails to prevent b4, but also that it weakens b7 - so that with White's LSB on the long diagonal and the rook on b1, the pressure on that point becomes menacing very quickly. Qd7 is, in a way, a natural follow-up, since apparently it "defends" b7 in case White plays bxc5.

An indication of how bad 9...Be6 is - after 10.b4, Fritz considers Black's second-best move to be 10...Bc8... the best one is considered to be 10...cxb4; which makes sense, because at least the b-file is kept closed for the moment, though White should still have a strong initiative after, say, 11.axb4 0-0 12.b5 Ne7. I happened to find in chessbase a game that reached this position (by a somewhat different move order), where White quickly got a winning position:

[Event "Internet Section 08A g/8'+2""]
[Site "Dos Hermanas"]
[Date "2004.03.08"]
[Round "9"]
[White "Sega,Carlos Alberto"]
[Black "Pendergrast,Scott"]
[Eco "A35"]

1.c4 c5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 d6 4.g3 e5 5.Bg2 f5 6.d3 Nf6 7.0-0 g6 8.a3 Bg7 9.Rb1 0-0 10.b4 cxb4 11.axb4 Be6 12.b5 Ne7 13.Ba3 Qd7? (again, not a good move...) 14.Ng5 h6? (even worse) 15.Nxe6 Qxe6 16.Qb3 (nothing wrong with simply Bxb7 as well) e4 - and here White missed the nice 17.Bxd6!, as well as several other tactical opportunities in the following moves, and the game finally ended in a draw.

Maybe it has more to do with his choice of boring openings. But he correctly perceived that 'boring' openings were Kasparov's Achilles heel -- none of his beloved complications, just a frustrating grind.

And Kramnik played some truly amazing games in the 1990s. He still does, given the chance.

Should be a good match. During the 16 years when I didn't play any chess, the only events that grabbed my attention were world championship matches - I even attended some of the Kasparov-Karpov and Kasparov-Short games in London.

I must be some kind of traditionalist when it comes to matchplay. I once played a mini-match of four games: I lost the first two while, um, 'getting the measure' of my higher-rated opponent; then won game three with a sac; then had him on the ropes in game 4, but he escaped with a draw, winning 2.5-1.5.

But I thought I'd explore the wacky world of brand names. You can find a list of them at http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php..., although the criteria for inclusion seem rather vague. The trend for products that 'do exactly what it says on the tin' gave us Death Cigarettes, and Barf Soap. There's also a game you can play by sticking two or more of these names together to form sentences ...

Sentences? You could probably write a novel like this. You could certainly write a screenplay. Sample dialog: - Gee, Your Hair Smells Terrific, I Can't Believe it's not Butter.

You thought Van Gogh and Euwe were Dutch Masters? Nope, it's a brand of cigar.

Speaking of which (as noted earlier, it's a pity you can't 'have a fag' during a chess game anymore), here are some tobacco-related chessplayers (there are also cigarettes named after a square, F6, a piece, King, as well as Player and Club):

Richmond:
Richmond

Player:
Edmund C Player

Carroll:
C Carroll

Craven:
Earl Cravens

Nil:
Jessica Nill

West:
Vanessa West

King:
Daniel John King

On a less cancerous and more recursive note, there seems to be a 'brand' named <Grow-a-Frog>.

Congratulations <mack>!!

I haven't forgotten about you, though I wish you would open your forum again.

Of course I am also cheering for you in the upcoming <Easter Bunratty Tournament of Stars> as well.

I am a simple chess nerd with simple dreams.

I would like to have played in <Galway> with you and <Dom> more than anything you know.

More than winning the lottery.

OOh that reminds me time to buy my tickets...

At a glance, I see another of your trademark abstruse posts that will take time to parse.

Before I doe that, re: "updates are the new spam"

THEY FORCED ME to "upgrade" to <Yahoo Instant Messenger 9.0> by INVALIDATING MY OLD PASSWORD!!!@!

And the new "improved version" is so "top heavy" that it's actually slowing down my computer response time.

If I weren't getting all of this for free I'd be huffy.

HEH-- well I was wrong again.

Below is the only game from Galway about which I'm not too embarrassed. It's dull as ditch water, natch, but it's only fair I share my dirty laundry a bit. Playing black is Antony Fox (2088 ELO). He said that he'd 'usually have been quite surprised' by my first move, but apparently an Irish chess veteran had warned him that I play this sort of junk. Guess who?

1.d3 e5 2.g3 Nc6 3.Bg2 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.e4 g6 6.Nh3 Bg7 7.0-0 0-0 8.f3 h6 9.Be3 Bxh3 10.Bxh3 d5 11.Ne2 Kh7 12.Kh1 Qd6 13.c4 dxc4 14.dxc4 Qxd1 15.Rfxd1 Rfd8 16.Bc5 b6 17.Ba3 Nd4 18.Nxd4 Rxd4 19.Rxd4 exd4 20.Rd1 c5 21.b3 Rd8 22.Bb2 h5 23.Kg1 Bh6 24.Bc1 Bxc1 25.Rxc1 Kg7 26.Kf2 with a draw offer, which was accepted.

Truly an emotional rollercoaster, eh.

Thank heavens for that knight on h3, else we'd have ended up with a (hack, spit) symmetrical position. Beastly things.

8.f3 is slow, but is doesnae really matter. The problem in this game is that Fox is solid as anything, and isn't remotely provoked. Often I can get f3 in with tempo, when black plays ...Bg4, 'attacking' the queen. No such luck here.

I didn't like 9.Be3 that much at the time, but it doesn't look too bad in retrospect.

The point of 9...Bxh3 is, I assume, to allow black to play ...d5 and not get hit by f3-f4 after I take twice.

Don't ask me about 12.Kh1. I think I had vague ideas of dropping the bishop back to g1 should black have ever poked it with ...d4 (something I was desperate would happen all throughout this game). But I also had perverse fantasties revolving around a rook on g1, so who knows what's going on.

13.c4 was my last ditch attempt to provoke ...d4. My heart sank when mass exchanges ensued instead.

16.Bc5 is probably quite important in terms of holding things together slightly. Less accurate moves might leave me with a few weaknesses. Orr knott, I dunno.

mack-- Noooooo!

You wouldn't want to attract the attention of the Coppers.

IE-

"The boys in the NYPD choir, were singin' Galway Bay,

Although we get five days off for <Buddha's Birthday>

You'll be pleased to know that I just yesterday figured out how to load games in to my Chess Engine.

In fact, I've just loaded the game you posted into my Shredder Interface a few minutes ago and I"m playing through it.

It's a Bloody Miracle@!!

So <Dom> ratted you out to the guy eh? That you are a specialist in <rattish- hedghoggish> cagy flexible non-committal pawn moves in the openings?

Your opponent adopted a <prickish> set up with his center pawns-- d6 and e5==

The middle game featured simplifying exchanges-- one might even say "cagy" exchanges in that neither side garnered any kind of positional edge from the blood letting.

He <did> end up with the passed pawn there but the pawn structure was so locked down on both wings, with equal material equally active, that I'm not surprised he acceeded to your draw offer.

I don't see how he could make any progress with the passer.

Well done <mack> that's a fine game from the perspective of my playing strength.

If I managed to draw someone with that high a rating I'd be flinging chairs out the window and shouting Bloody Hallelujah.

I actually think the endgame would have been quite interesting without the rooks, but with them on it does seem drawish.

<MAURICE ASHLEY: This match has shocks everywhere. What does d2-d3 mean? I think we have a --