No surprise there- not to me, anyways.

They were!

<That may be a very good idea, akshly, along with some general and further-back history.>

Unfortunately I flushed the evidence.

Maybe we wuz innocent, once upon a time, assuming that because most of 'us' were good people that anyone posting on CG would be the same. Or at least potty-trained.

Sadly it was not to be.

And why have I started using fecal metaphors?

<And it might be a bit much to ask CG "please send me some old crap so I can present it to the sniffer dogs".>

*Hope*? I might even break a lifelong habit and try *prayer*. If imaginary friends are ever useful, it's times like these.

<cheat> to deceive, defraud ...

<cheat>: another name for chess [origin obscure].

Why, this explains everything. All allegations of cheating, by anyone, ever, become allegations of playing chess. Which is usually undeniable, if it has a PGN and kibitzing attached.

A 37-year-old male has been arrested there, following a house fire in which a child died. This is a comment on the paper's website:

<these 2 babys were left in a van on there own, fact. if you could reach one you would be able to reach the other they should not have been left in the first place.social services should be investigating neglect things like this should never happen. god bless isobel little princess x>

No connection here with Pockmark, of course, despite a few stylistic similarities. This writer displays a capacity for empathy, for example.

Annoyingly, I was planning to watch Topalov's clock simul against the Irish olympiad team - happening live, now, 20:30 GMT, 200 miles away in Dublin - but the transmission is kaput.

'Briste' in Irish.

Good boy. ;)

<Some retrospective tweezering might still be on the menu, though.>

Tweezers, light, action! =)

Heh, akshly (yes, I'm trying out another new spelling...) I think the subject was pretty much exhausted months back. Not that complex a specimen, after all.

<I prefer the non-imaginary kind.>

Good call. The imaginary kind tends to demand daily prayer... whereas the non-imaginary kind rather prefers email, and may even allow for a somewhat lower frequency. A note of warning though, below a certain frequency level, one risks a drift of individuals from one status to the other. ;p

You want waves that look like waves, try the ocean. I'm more of a random quantum event.

Glad to hear, though, that it's just 'drift'. Drifts can be reversed with belated yet sufficiently determined action. Unlike the dreaded *anti-tsunami*, when the tide goes all the way out and stays there.

What jolly nautical metaphors. I should offer a starfish to Poseidon in thanks. And maybe a Tridentine Mass to Neptune, and maybe also Atlacamani, Huixtocihuatl, Mannanan Mac Lir, Gong Gong, Ahti and Yam.

Also *Doris*, who was the deity in charge of bits of the Mediterranean.

If you include rivers, springs, ponds and fish, along with the actual sea, there must be more watery gods than any other kind of deity.

Sky gods? Pooftahs. A meteor every now and then, otherwise the same old nightly light show. It's pretty, but what does it *do*?

The sea, conversely, is right there in front of you, full of known unknowns and benthic unknowns, and highly dangerous. Also, it swallows stuff, as befits a deity.

I "deleted" my infected hotmail account but you have to "not sign in" for 279 days for it really to be deleted.

In the mean time it's busily sending viagara ads to the CG.com administrators, my Mom, you name it.

Annie has my safe email-

<Annie> would you please pass that to <Dom> in the next flight?

And that is what friends are for .

Just to update you a bit, I closed my forum as I now am quite involved in investigating and mapping out (young) child abuse cases in the Netherlands and of course its international ties (Brian Gerrish?), and it's the biggest most ugly dossier I've ever faced in my life but i have vowed to be there for the children and parents, and timewise it atm more or less excludes contact with my old cg friends, unless of course they deem or inform me otherwise.

But I just HAVE to stay pragmatic, not a strong suit by any means of me.

I don't know if you saw, but the appalling ex-Lemming - before being thrown out again - repeated his accusation that I had 'done time' for 'child abuse'. This time, at least, I knew that nobody believed him, but it's still sickening.

I can safely say there is no crime I am *less* likely to commit.

The scale of the problem - on the web, among certain clerics and sports coaches etc - is hard to believe at times. Can that many people - that many *guys* - truly be so sick?

<I don't know if you saw, but the appalling ex-Lemming - before being thrown out again - repeated his accusation that I had 'done time' for 'child abuse'.> I noticed it at one point, yes, and to say I was apalled would be an outrageous understatement. I'm still enraged by that idiot, and the hints you got from a few visitors to not raise your voice too much sent me spinning outta here for a while.

<This time, at least, I knew that nobody believed him, but it's still sickening.> The lowest one can go, and types like that @#$%head deserve nothing but condemnation and punishment for their accusations. Sickness or whatever the cause, just leave the building.

<I can safely say there is no crime I am *less* likely to commit.> Funny, Dom, but over the years one does form some sort of map of a "virtual person", after having had conversations week after week after month, after year, and that map at some point shows quite well-discernable lines and features - and with you especially, I have had the same "feeling", knowledge, that indeed "there is no crime you are less likely to commit." Hence the accusation had us both enraged.

<The scale of the problem - on the web, among certain clerics and sports coaches etc - is hard to believe at times. Can that many people - that many *guys* - truly be so sick?> I can't get into too much detail, but the scale is huge, and recently a Hollowood child star now in his 30s I guess, said that "Paedophilia is Hollywood's biggest problem."

What is even more scary and "troublesome" - oh I hate that word - is the fact that tons of (it's really a maligne growth) high placed federal officials are knee-deep or more into paedophilia, childporn/prostitution and worse even, the "snuff movies" ... Either implicated directly, actively, or indirectly, with equally horrendous consequences.

<Take care out there.> That indeed is a necessity. Thanks mate.

< I think you might be some kinda quiet hero for taking this on.> There can't be enough of those heroes, Dom, the lid needs to be blown off this one, and there are some that simply won't allow it. Striking at those will indeed get you killed or locked up in a mental with a nice Haldol cocktail dripping in your veins all day.

- - - - -

<Dom> - I won't use your forum again to "report" on this tragedy, and feel free to delete this, but I really appreciated your attitude and post and this is my lengthy reply, for this once. Future conversation on this is upto you, of course, and Jess has my email address, in case you ever feel like contacting me while my forum is closed.

encrypted, hehe, it's something like this:

n..r.o..h..o...f.at..gma..il.co.m

I've made a note of the encrypted address - if you ever want the post deleted, let me know here.

1) Commons' opponent in the 1971 US Open was <Stewart> Schwartz, not <Stuart>. I was flipping back and forth between screen windows and I morphed one into the other. Sometime I should really try this when I'm awake.

I tend to upload one at a time, not in batches, filtering the PGN through Fritz or Chessbase, and moving at whim between games from other databases, old 'zines, and sometimes one of my own. I *think* all have turned up within a few weeks, but I've seen the complaints of more heavyweight submitters such as yourself.

I do think, however, that those of us who care should keep on submitting 'historical' games - essentially anything before the foundation of CG itself. New games are being scooped up all the time, so they gradually come to occupy a larger percentage of the database, unless we keep digging up the older stuff.

I know I'm a shallow digger, but every little helps.

I also try to upload only games where both players are already known to the database - a rule both for my own games and others, unless I have definite info about the 'new' player. No sense in creating more 'ghosts'.

Even with the Commons games from Ventura '71 (US open, thanks again), I couldn't identify 2 or 3 of his opponents (inevitable, I suppose, with a big open from 40 years ago, though it's slightly odd to find American players not represented here at all). Another game ended suddenly around move 35, in what looked like a non-resignable position. It could have been a loss on time - but it could also be an incomplete score. So I've held all of those back for now.

But I just submitted a Browne-Lombardy game from the last round of the same event. Another little gap plugged, though Browne-Gheorghiu remains MIA.

I have mostly been submitting games missing from specific matches or tournaments. They aren't always of stellar quality, but I think they're historically important. The sad truth is, back in the day, some game scores were never published and were lost to the ages. I suspect the Browne/Gheorghiu 1971 Ventura game is in that camp. I checked the usual suspects and did not find it. Sometimes a good games collection has a missing gem, but that's a long shot.

I do upload one at a time. I'm convinced the "email batch" method doesn't work at all, and with no notification, it's like <Waiting on Godot's Gamescore>. I get everything ready in my database, then spit out individual PGN files for each game and copy and paste those from Notepad into the upload utility window. I then copy the PGN files to a temporary folder as I go, so I know what I've sent and what remains to be uploaded.

Funny, that ... I've just been discussing the same phenomenon elsewhere. We've all seen opponents who crunch the scoresheet into a ball and trample it underfoot afterwards. I know I have.

I don't suppose it was quite so easy for master games to vanish, but some certainly did. Maybe there are indecipherable scoresheets still out there, in library drawers and old men's attics.

In a way, I lament more the vanished endgames of the period 1993-2009, approx -- between the end of adjournments and the widespread adoption of increments. If a game was below the level where sensory boards or human recorders were in use, and got down to mutual time-trouble in a sudden-death finish, then chances are that nobody ever wrote the moves down. Or got them wrong. Even at surprisingly high levels, on occasion.

Increments have really changed things for the better. I saw the difference in my last tournament, where two of my opponents hung on for draws on increment time. Under sudden death rules I'd have won easily. So it goes.