Phony Benoni Member since Feb-10-06 · Last seen Jun-11-22 Greetings, O Seeker After Knowledge! You have arrived in Dearborn, Michigan (whether you like it or not), and are reading words of wisdom from a player rated 2938--plus or minus 1000 points. However, I've retired from serious play--not that I ever took playing chess all that seriously. You only have to look at my games to see that. These days I pursue the simple pleasures of finding games that are bizarre or just plain funny. I'd rather enjoy a game than analyze it. For the record, my name is David Moody. This probably means nothing to you unless you're a longtime player from Michigan, though it's possible that if you attended any US Opens from 1975-1999 we might have crossed paths. Lucky you. If you know me at all, you'll realize that most of my remarks are meant to be humorous. I do this deliberately, so that if my analysis stinks to High Heaven I can always say that I was just joking. As you can undoubtedly tell from my sparkling wit, I'm a librarian in my spare time. Even worse, I'm a cataloger, which means I keep log books for cattle. Also, I'm not one of those extroverts who sit at the Reference Desk and help you with research. Instead, I spend all day staring at a computer screen updating and maintaining information in the library's catalog. The general public thinks Reference Librarians are dull. Reference Librarians think Catalogers are dull. My greatest achievement in chess, other than tricking you into reading this, was probably mating with king, bishop and knight against king in a tournament game. I have to admit that this happened after an adjournment, and that I booked up like crazy before resuming. By the way, the fact I have had adjourned games shows you I've been around too long. My funniest moment occurred when I finally got a chance to pull off a smothered mate in actual play. You know, 1.Nf7+ Kg8 2.Nh6+ Kh8 3.Qg8+ Rxg8 4.Nf7#. When I played the climactic queen check my opponent looked at the board in shocked disbelief and said, "But that's not mate! I can take the queen!" Finally, I must confess that I once played a positional move, back around 1982. I'll try not to let that happen again.

Phony Benoni has kibitzed 18634 times to chessgames   [more...]

Jun-11-22 M Blau vs Keres, 1959    Phony Benoni: Not a good recommendation for the DERLD. Out of 59 moves, White makes only three in Black's half of the board. And two of those conist of 3.Bb5 and 6.Bxc6.      Jun-11-22 chessgames.com chessforum    Phony Benoni: Er, it's back. Karpov vs Timman, 1988      Jun-10-22 Orlo Milo Rolo   Phony Benoni: Marco!      Jun-10-22 Lilienthal vs Bondarevsky, 1947   Phony Benoni: Another one for you King Hunters. Black's monarch travels fron g8 to b8, then takes the Great Circle Route back to h3 before calling it a day.      Jun-10-22 GrahamClayton chessforum    Phony Benoni: <GrahamClayton> I've posted a question for you at L T Magee vs J Holland, 1948      Jun-10-22 L T Magee vs E L Holland, 1948    Phony Benoni: <GrahamClayton> The source you cite, <Chess Review, May 1948, p. 24>, gives Black's name as <E Holland> "Chess Life" (June 5, 1948, p. 1) has a table of results giving <E L Holland>. That form also appears in USCF rating supplements for a player fro ...      Jun-09-22 Biographer Bistro    Phony Benoni: SkinnVer Here Among the Fold?      Jun-09-22 Flohr vs Bondarevsky, 1947    Phony Benoni: Black's bishop makes me think of Godzilla emerging from the depths of the ocean to wreak havoc. However, in the end it's his Two Little Friends who steal the show. Well, maybe not so litt.      Jun-06-22 W Ritson-Morry vs G T Crown, 1947   Phony Benoni: it was the last round. Rison-Morry was mired in last place. These things happen.      Jun-06-22 W Adams vs M Kagan, 1947   Phony Benoni: Some more informztion. The game was published in <Chess Review>, March 1948, p. 23. Black's name is given as "M Kagan", and the location as "Massachusetts". There is no other game data, but I think we can now safely assume Black is <Milton Kagan>. Earlier in the ...

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Living in the Past

< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 486 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing> May-25-13    Shams: <JB> Kinda like having the most Number 2 hits, without ever having a Number 1. (That would be CCR, from your neck of the woods.) May-25-13    Jim Bartle: CCR never had a #1 hit? I thought every single shot straight to the top. May-25-13    Phony Benoni: Steve Carlton might be a good starting point, with 6: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Go about half-way down to the section "Low-hit complete games". Honorable mention to Grover Cleveland Alexander, with five lifetime and <four> in one season, including three in the span of a month: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Most one-hitters lifetime, Nolan Ryan and Bob Feller with 12: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... May-25-13    Jim Bartle: I wonder if Ryan has any no-walkers. Or how many. May-25-13    Jim Bartle: Oops. Drysdale has only one one-hitter. But 45 four-hitters or better. No suspense in his one-hitter--leadoff hitter Curt Flood singled. Looking at Ryan's record, he had 10 games with 9 or 10 walks. And an ERA of 2.35 in those games. May-25-13    Phony Benoni: Just look at a game like this: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... Ryan may have thrown in the neighborhood of 200 pitches. And came back on three days rest for his next start. May-25-13    Phony Benoni: OK, I was wrong. It was 259 pitches. http://mopupduty.com/do-pitch-count... May-25-13    Jim Bartle: That was one of the games on the list I saw, 19 K's and 10 walks. 29 batters didn't put the ball in play. May-25-13    OhioChessFan: Travis' forum is closed, so I'll drop this amusing link here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/... May-25-13    perfidious: <Phony Benoni>: Believe I watched that Ryan-Tiant duel, but don't remember anything about the winning pitcher. No surprise there-it was his only career win. Here is another pitcher whose only career victory is one I well remember, though: Craig Minetto. http://www.baseball-reference.com/b... May-25-13    Jim Bartle: Tiant went 14 innings in that game. He probably did look at every spectator at least once during a windup, as was often alleged. In the Minetto win, a shutout was about the only way to get a win with the A's that year. May-25-13    perfidious: <Jim>: That Oakland lineup was surely a far cry from the halcyon days: only a few years on, but light-years removed from three straight titles after Charlie Finley borrowed a page from his predecessor Connie Mack and sold or traded everything but the kitchen sink. From 1977-79, that team was horsebleep. May-25-13    Jim Bartle: Free agency, at least limited free agency, arrived, and the whole team from the championships left one way or another. Hunter became a freee agent when Finley didn't pay him a bonus he was owed. May-25-13    Phony Benoni: Probably the most obscure pitcher to have four one-hitters. Note that he <totalled> five strikeouts in those games: http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/... May-26-13    perfidious: <Phony Benoni>: Had heard of Raffensberger, but knew nothing of him. 'Course, that will happen when one is a journeyman who toils for mediocre teams over fifteen years. May-26-13    perfidious: Addendum on Raffensberger: the only team he pitched for with a winning record was the 1939 Cards, for whom he had a single relief appearance, and only one other team managed to win 75 games. May-26-13    Phony Benoni: This is not a walk-off hit: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/inde... By the way, Pagan missed today's game with a bad left hamstring. May-27-13    Jim Bartle: PB, you once said great defensive plays fell into a few repetitive categories. Check out this glove-to-knee relay: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?t... May-27-13    Jim Bartle: And here's a really strange one: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?t... The pitcher catches the relay in front of the first baseman, but the ump calls the runner out. The reason is that umps look at the base and listen for the sound of the ball hitting the glove. Since there are almost never two players able to catch it, he doesn't need to see it normally. This is a case where the other umps should be able to reverse the call. May-27-13    OhioChessFan: <The reason is that umps look at the base and listen for the sound of the ball hitting the glove. > I've always thought that was a total canard by the umpires. We expect them to call 95MPH fastballs, 88 MPH sliders, close tag plays at every base, catch/trap plays 100 feet away in the outfield, but they can't <see> whether a throw beats the runner? When I umpired, I never did that, and was shocked to find out everyone else did. May-27-13    Jim Bartle: I was taught to look at the base, make sure the fielder's foot was on the bag, and listen for the ball hitting the glove. If the fielder came off the base, then you had to look for the tag. May-27-13    OhioChessFan: Why one, and only one, call would you not look at the play instead of listening to it? I've never been on board that program. And there will always be throws not loud enough to pop the fielder's glove, usually first baseman to pitcher. I suspect the blown perfect game last year happened because of that. May-27-13    Jim Bartle: I'll try to look at the umps when I watch a game, see where they're looking. That play I posted is pretty crazy, though, isn't it? The pitcher must have thought it was a wild throw the first baseman couldn't reach. I wonder what the ump would have done if the pitcher had immediately thrown to third to try to pick off the runner. May-27-13    Jim Bartle: Here's an interesting article on the play by a knowledgeable writer. He calls the umps looking only at the bag a "dirty little secret." <Here's the same link, with video included; you can and should see the play for yourself. Nelson's explanation was that he was looking at Moreland's foot on the base and waiting to hear the sound of the ball hitting the glove. Heard that sound before Sucre reached first base, and so he made the call. Perfectly natural and reasonable. See, it's a dirty little secret but the first-base umpire simply can't focus on the first baseman's foot on the base and the baseball hitting the glove. Usually, it's fine; sometimes everybody except the umpire knows what happened. In this case, there was just a really strange situation and Nelson couldn't or didn't see what happened, and neither did anyone else. Here's the thing, though ... If you watch that clip again, you'll see that Nelson makes an emphatic call ... and then turns his back and strides off into foul territory. Hey, here's an idea! There were two fielders in the area! How's about you stick around and make sure the right fielder's got the ball in his glove?> http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?t... May-27-13    OhioChessFan: <I wonder what the ump would have done if the pitcher had immediately thrown to third to try to pick off the runner.> That would be hilarious. However, the out call would have to end the play. The runner at third could claim he gave up on the play upon seeing the out call, likewise the pitcher. Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 914) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 486 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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