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 82 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing> Aug-15-09    Jim Bartle: Before deciding, we need to know...are you an A-Rod Yankee fan, or a Jeter Yankee fan? We were talking about the absence of triple crown winners. Let's take a look at Barry Bonds in 2004. He won the batting title, and had 45 home runs and 101 RBIs. Yet he did this with only 373 at-bats while playing full-time. Let's figure a hitter of his quality would typically be walked 100 times, so let's turn 130 of his 230 walks into at-bats. At the same rate that would have given him 12 more home runs, and 28 more RBIs. This would have given him the HR title and put him neck and neck for the RBI title with Vinny Castilla. Aug-15-09    Phony Benoni: Lions win their first preseason game! They're unstoppable, I tell you! Unstoppable! Aug-15-09    WannaBe: Detroit Lions is the only team that anyone with a religious belief can root for, because even the Christians can beat up on the Lions!! Ba-Da-Bum!! Aug-15-09    Phony Benoni: I took my pills, and I'm feeling better now. Getting back to the Triple Crown, here's a recent article with a few stats: http://www.wezen-ball.com/2009/05/y... Apparently, it's not hard to win HR+RBI, or even BA+RBI. But BA+HR seems to be the sticking point. Aug-16-09    WannaBe: No, the sticking point is winning the Belmont... Derby and the Preakness are easy... Especially if you are a baseball player, and don't have a horse to ride on! Aug-16-09    A.G. Argent: Good find, PB. Aug-16-09    Phony Benoni: Most dominant offensive performance not to win the Triple Crown: how about Stan Musial in 1948. He led the league in runs, hits, doubles, triples, RBIs, batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage. And a lot of the cetegories weren't even close; for example, he batted .376, while second place was Ashburn at .333; had a slugging percentage of .702, with Mize second at .564. Alas, he hit only 39 home runs, while Mize and Kiner hit 40. Here's a summary of the National league batting leaders for 1948. I find it amazing what Musial did that year. http://www.baseball-reference.com/l... Aug-16-09    Jim Bartle: Not far from a typical Musial year, great year after year. Truth is, he never did lead the league in homers, and never hit forty. Aug-16-09    A.G. Argent: Yes <WannaBe> and isn't it interesting that in tennis and golf, winning the four majors within a season is called a grand slam. Because baseball rules. Aug-16-09    technical draw: My favorite teams per year: 1959-1966, Chicago White Sox 1967-1990, Cincinnati Reds 1991-Present, New York Yankees Teams hated: Atlanta Braves Houston Astros Boston Red Sox St.Louis Cardinals Teams OK: Seattle Mariners Chicago Cubs Los Angeles Dodgers San Francisco Giants The rest, indifferent Aug-17-09    Resignation Trap: It looks like you are compiling the games from the USSR Championships. Great! One journalist/historian who is trying to summarize these tournaments online is Sergey Voronkov. Here are his articles so far: 1920: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc20.sh... 1923: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc23.sh... 1924: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc24.sh... 1925: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc25.sh... 1927: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc27.sh... 1929: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc29.sh... 1931: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc31.sh... 1933: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc33.sh... 1934-5: http://www.chesspro.ru/book/rc34-35... 1937: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2006... 1939: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... 1940: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... 1941 (Match-Tournament): http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... 1944: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... 1945: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2008... 1947: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2008... 1948: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2008... And another article by Sveshnikov for the 1973 event: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... Don't get too discouraged by these long Russian articles. Just go to: http://translate.google.com/transla... . These articles are long, and your translations may stop in the middle of the articles. No problem! Just read the translations until where they stop, click on the google "Translations" thingy again, and it will translate more text. Aug-17-09    Resignation Trap: These are only computer translations, and sometimes they are quite funny. For example, it translates "Nenarokov" as "Unintentionally." You may find more games of the players by searching here: http://www.sport-stat.com/chess/sea... . Voronkov's articles have crosstables, photos and caricatures. This one of Levenfish really caught my attention: http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate... . Aug-17-09    Resignation Trap: There was also a "Tournament of Champions" in February 1933. It was intentionally forgotten since it was won by Fedor Parfenovich Bohatirchuk . Here's Voronkov's article on it: http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2009... . Aug-17-09    Jim Bartle: I just heard Vin Scully say there was once an all-knuckleballing starting rotation. Anybody know who it was? Aug-17-09    Phony Benoni: Washington Senators, 1945. http://www.baseball-reference.com/t... It worked well; they finished second, just 1.5 games behind the Tigers. Their regular catcher was Rick Ferrell, who may have made the Hall of Fame solely because of this season. Aug-18-09    A.G. Argent: Ahhhhh! Memory fails. Who did the Senators become? The Twins? Aug-18-09    Jim Bartle: The original Senators became the Twins. The next Senators became the Rangers. Aug-18-09    A.G. Argent: Thanks Jim and also; my wireless connection is wonky so I'm on my back-up dial-up connection ergo any download off the Senators link will take weeks so I ask if a starting rotation back then was same as today; 5 guys? However many, that's a lotta knucklers in one city. But I guess the knuckleballer wasn't such a freak back then, much more common. I would wager that was one thing that Scully was saying. Aug-18-09    Phony Benoni: I heard that trivia question about the knuckleballing staff years ago. Apparently, it's not completely accurate. The 1945 Senators had five regular starters: Roger Wolff (29 starts), Mickey Haefner (28 starts), Marino Pieretti (27 starts), Dutch Leonard (29 starts), Johnny Niggeling (25 starts). Of these, Pieretti was <not> a knuckleballer. http://www.thebaseballpage.com/play... All of these pitchers had some relief work as well. Oddly enough, it was the non-knuckleballer Pieretti with the most relief appearances, with 17. He probably should have been a knuckleballer, as he was only 5' 7", 155 lbs. In the offseason he worked in a slaughter-house where he killed cattle with a baseball bat. Hey, it's on the Internet. http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ball... It's got to be true. Aug-18-09    positionalgenius: <PB> If you want, we are having one final tournament on QA for the cycle 2008-2009, i invited you to it so let us know if your game. Aug-20-09    Travis Bickle: Hey Phony here's the "Big Train"! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHV0... Aug-20-09    Travis Bickle: Phony Jim A.G.Argent here's a pretty good ball player too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYi6... Aug-20-09    Jim Bartle: At the end of that Mays video, safe or out? Only Hall of Famers involved, pioneering black players in the majors: Mays sliding, Campanella tagging, Robinson arguing. Aug-20-09    Travis Bickle: safe! Aug-20-09    A.G. Argent: Phony, O Czar of the Stat Research, a request. I think I remember that in the Ken Burns Baseball film, the segment on Micky Mantle, it was stated that he held the all-time record for getting to first base the fastest in beating out a ground ball and that record still stood, at least at the time of Burns' film. Even with his bad knees. I want to believe it's true. My childhood idol, the Mick was. Jump to page #   (enter # from 1 to 914) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 82 OF 914 ·  Later Kibitzing>

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