[Event "Midnight Sun Chess Challenge"]
[Site "Tromsø Norway"]
[Date "2006.06.26"]
[Round "3"]
[White "Tabanus"]
[Black "Edakina, Anastasia"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1890"]
[BlackElo "1146"]

If you think of yourself as a sort of trophy for your opponent, it can ease the pain. Or it might make it worse.

I once had a totally winning position after 20 moves against a 1400-ish opponent. I'd blundered my Queen against him in a previous game, and this time I was determined to crush him - without falling into the traps of carelessness or overconfidence.

So I got a won game. Totally won. Material still level, but all my artillery was aimed at his King, and the only way to avoid immediate mate was to give up his Queen. He was taking a long time to think. I was pacing up and down, expecting a resignation...

I had a response ready for any move he might make. If he tried ...h6, I simply had to exchange queens and play Rxh6 mate. And if ... finally he moved. It was ...h6.

Without even sitting down I leaned over and snapped off the h6-pawn with my rook. In the same instant I realized I should have swapped Queens first. He played ...Qxh6 and I was a Rook down.

I can remember - physically - the sensation of the board swimming before my eyes. I couldn't calculate. I resigned.

Later I saw that I was still winning. It wasn't forced, but it was certainly worth playing on - my attack was still good compensation for the rook. But my mind was gone.

I *did* learn not to resign too quickly. In my first tournament back after my long vacation from chess, I dropped a rook, played on, and mated my opponent.

The moral is our worst games might turn out to be our best games, because they imprint on the nervous system.

<Dom> (& <Tab>) - ouch agreed. OK, if you need cheering up <now> ;)... and <Dom> did make the mistake of inviting more blitz games... here's another one.

A little background: my opponent played the opening very slowly, so I used the free time to check out his profile. It included (among other things) the following charming comment:

"my technique is unique so what you are saying is obsolete"

What can I say? I just had to beat him. :s

Event: FICS rated blitz game
White: AnnieK (1469)
Black: NN (1546)
Result: 1-0
Time Control: 600+0
Date: 2010-03-04
White Clock: 4:43
Black Clock: 1:11

At least I hope it's a system for naming years. Rather than something people go on. It'd be a bummer to think people would sink so low.

But I've never made that particular error. Until now, maybe. Did something non-relevant somehow attach itself? I've never addressed anything 'to all concerned', but then again ... as Robert Anton Wilson used to say, communication is only possible between equals.

I don't think so... :) Was just remarking on your comment WRT it not being supposed to make sense, and free-associating from there.

Well, if you're going to bring in Indian music, I'll bring in some Israeli music:

Ofra Haza, with 'Shir HaFrecha' - 'The Song of the Frecha'*

(Frecha is translated here as "tease", but it was actually a stronger pejorative word for a "loose" girl, a bad flirt)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k78j...

... and some Hungarian music, for good measure :)

Omega, with 'Gyöngyhajú lány' - 'The Girl With Pearl's Hair'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jgK...

Which is pretty much what received musical opinion said about ragtime and jazz, 100 years ago. What admirers of Gershwin, and Tin Pan Alley, said about the young Sinatra and his bobbysoxers [I presume, btw, we've had a Fischer GOTD entitled 'Bobbysox (it to 'em)'... ?]

Skip decades. What 'they' said about Dylan, Elvis ... R&B, punk, metal, rap, grunge, grebo, industrial ... (and are still saying, it seems).

Grex Venalium vs the Avant-gardeners. 'Pop will eat itself'?

So mote it be.

John Cage: "Every sound we make is music and everyone is in the best seat".

They have so much in common structurally and formally - not to mention distinguished practitioners such as Mark 'I still have my music' Taimonov - it's odd that chess and music should have parted company so drastically on the cultural level.

Some will argue, perhaps, that the link between the two - and between them and mathematics - remains deep. All are formal systems of language-like complexity, and all occasionally produce child prodigies. But the music - so this argument runs - must be of a certain type: Bach and Mozart (and Philidor) are in; the Sex Pistols and Chuck Berry (and John Cage) are out. Brian Eno, Terry Riley, and Glenn Gould humming along to Bach are borderline.

Musical purgatory, if you like.

The counter-argument to this is a <reduction ad absurdum>. What that great definer <notyetagm> might term "23.Nh1! - <REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM> for <REDEPLOYMENT>!!"

In plain: would you say that all games played by anyone or anything other than an elite GM (or software equivalent) are just "not chess"?

*Attempted chess* maybe. A wild stab in the general direction of chess, but simply not the genuine article. Ersatz chess, counterfeit chess, *les echecs naifs* ... <Douanier Rousseau et le Gambit du Roi>?

Some might say this ... I wouldn't. It's all chess, up to the point it becomes Shatranj or Nine Men's Morris. Even the abominations in my games don't disqualify them from the Caissaverse ... er, do they?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAqk...

this is a crude translation since one really needs to know the nuances of Hindi to get it right, I got this off the net:

<
i dont wait for anything any longer
i dont wait for anything any longer
the waterfalls (of tears) which used to be there are no longer

In the village of eyes, dreams used to come at nights, which flow when touched, which spoke when spoken to
but how can one trust inconstant dreams
i dont wait for anything any longer

the days when you were here, my eyes had sunshine
now there are cobwebs everywhere and even they are going to go obsolete the catharsis after pain that used to be there is no longer i dont wait for anything any longer

i dont wait for anything any longer
i dont wait for anything any longer
the waterfalls which used to be there are no longer

>

<chancho> this one I liked. :) Interesting sound. The singer does remind of Janis Joplin, but Janis had a more powerful voice.

<Dom: <*Ceci n'est pas une defense*>>

Oh, good. ;) Heh... I'm hardly a musical snob, and I can prove it too, just by stating that I haven't much use for classical music either. :p

Or any other kind of instrumental. As you may have noticed, ;) for me the lyrics are a very important part of anything musical. I like to know what exactly the composer was trying to express, and I don't care for the "leaving the meaning up to the listener's interpretation" approach. Any musical genre that refuses to communicate clearly just makes me want to say "well, nice meeting you, let's talk again when you've made up your mind about what you want to say".

Keeping in mind that I'm tone deaf too and never tried to play any instrument, so I don't know what is easy, or fiendishly difficult, to play - therefore I can't be impressed by the performer's technical virtuosity per se (although I do love 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia', but that's a special case) :D - I simply go by whether or not something is "pleasant to hear".

I think virtuosity can be overrated by the "in crowd" anyway - you get something similar in architecture, one of the fields I'm more familiar with - architects can get so carried away with appreciation for someone finding a solution to a difficult technical problem, that they become entirely blind to the fact, obvious to laypersons, that yeah, it *could* be done, but the building is one ugly monster to look at. Sortof a lot like "the operation was a success, but the patient's dead". :s

(Sideways note: according to a long-standing university joke, the difference between architects and doctors is that the doctors' mistakes are buried underground...)

But more back on track, I just think a *great* song is one with a pleasant melody, a singer with an expressive voice, and interesting lyrics. A song that lacks one, or even two, of the three, can still be quite enjoyable, if the remaining "redeeming aspect(s)" is/are good enough. :)