SUBJECT I.

<MOOT>.

I don't know what causes the problems with the word moot.

Here are some recent examples:
<Out of curiosity, how does the Petroff fare in your CC database? Is it employed at the highest levels? The question is probably <moot> because I doubt our distinguished opponent would want to be seen as unsportsmanlike....>

<It's a moot point though, as Black can force a perpetual earlier by playing 43...e3 instead.>

Both these examples the writer seems to think the meaning of moot is "irrelevant".

So what does moot mean?

A dictionary helps out, Chambers.

moot
verb (mooted, mooting)
1 to suggest; to bring something up for discussion.
2 intrans to dispute or plead, especially as a form of academic exercise. <adj (mooter, mootest) open to argument; debatable • a moot point.> noun 1 historical in Anglo-Saxon England: a court or administrative assembly. 2 a discussion of a hypothetical legal case, especially as a form of academic exercise. ETYMOLOGY: Anglo-Saxon as mot assembly.

A moot point is a point up for discussion.

I think people get confused in their heads between moot and mute, as in unstated.

No it's not!

<However, since the game theoretical value is not known for chess, with or without knight odds, the whole discussion is rendered moot.>

No! How can it be?

And now look at this one:
Lasker - Janowski (1909) <May-30-14 ughaibu: ... Reti too, might moot from beyond the grave, his right to speculate. I'm not a lawyer, but I'd prefer evidence a little harder.>

<Chandler’s formula of 1/2 gin and 1/2 Rose’s seems pretty steep, since a gimlet is basically a martini with Rose’s Lime Juice rather than vermouth. The 1954 Esquire’s Handbook for Hosts, published in London the year after The Long Goodbye, cites the Savoy Hotel’s recipe of 3 parts gin to 1 part Rose’s. Esquire also notes, “A true Gimlet must be made with Rose’s bottled lime juice, which vanished like nylons during the war but is now seen around again.”>

<all hail tal: Strange that the article says Tal crushed Polu in Riga but the record of +2-8=24 doesn't jive with that.>

I had my own opinions about this book, which I posted on the Amos Burn page:

<I have seen Richard Forster's book on Amos Burn but there is no way I would ever buy it. It is almost as directionless and futile a waste of resources and brainpower as the autobiography of Pal Benko.

All Amos Burn needed was a 32-page A5-sized home-printed smudgy crappy-diagrammed buck and a half paperback, on yellow paper that looks like toilet paper. Nothing more.>

Although Abrahams stated that Alekhine faced 60 opponents, the master’s score given on page 403 of the November 1923 BCM and page 197 of the Skinner/Verhoeven book on Alekhine was +24 –1 =6. The exhibition took place on 29 September 1923.>

That is a fascinating story.
Here are the parts I find very interesting:
<At a simultaneous display in Liverpool in autumn 1923 Abrahams, then aged 16, was the last surviving player:

‘And there was Alekhine, standing over the board, insisting on instantaneous replies. He thought, then made his move, rapped sharply on the table and made impatient sounds in Russian.

The position was hard. Pawns wedged with pawns, and my king bishop and knight, endeavouring to be on guard at all moments against his king, and two fantastically wheeling knights. After 12 lightning moves under these conditions the boy went wrong, found a pawn indefensible, and resigned. The grandmaster swept the pieces aside brusquely, and stalked away. He was, let me emphasize, entirely within his rights.’>

So that was on 29th September 1923.
Then, 13 years later, at Nottingham, 1936, Alekhine says: <[The frozen blue eyes stared at me for some seconds.] “Yes”, he said, I remember, Liverpool 1923. You had pawns, bishop and knight against my pawns and two knights. You should have drawn that game.”’>

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