Ice cream

We went out for some ice cream this evening, which we rarely do. It is going to be snowy and messy here tomorrow, so what better way to start the week than with a Duster Sundae.

By the way, ice cream sundaes were invented in my hometown of Ithaca, New York.

King and Pawn puzzle

Here's an interesting game I played back in October. It lead to a pure king-and-pawn endgame. A key position is displayed here - it is not too hard to find the winning move for white, although I didn't find it in the game.

Click here to replay this game. Notes here are mostly by Dennis Monokroussos, although he incorporates some things that I said (referring to me as RB in his notes, and himself as DM).

Dinosaur Days

This week, my five-and-a-half year old son was out of school due to Winter Break. We enrolled him in a two day course about dinosaurs. He seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and learned some interesting facts. For instance, there are two types of dinosaurs classified by what they eat, vegetarians and carnivals.

Well, I thought it was funny.

The Police - What Else?

Well, one of the things I have pined for many years about doing is seeing The Police live in concert. In case your head has been under a rock (or you've paid no attention to the media), The Police Are Back and touring starting in May 2007. I had an inkling that it would happen some day, but I couldn't have guessed when.

Anyway, I joined the tour fan club, of course, and got a code for the Best Buy presale tickets, but only managed to score one ticket for August 3rd at Madison Square Garden. I have to use my fan club membership to try and get to the other show at MSG.

I would say that it was one of the top five things I've wanted to do, and this summer, it happens.

The Police Tour

A short game

I saw this today on Chess Cafe.

Jain-Norinkeviciute, Hastings 2007
1 e4 g6 2 d4 1–0
Black’s mobile phone went off.

Oops.

Despair, sadness, grief... is it heartache?

Despair, sadness, grief... even suicidal thoughts. Could it be heartache, that most despised, yet expected demon?

Not even close. Not heartache... Hard drive.

Yes, I had a terrible hard drive crash last week that had apparently devastated my all my data for the past four years. Documents, email, geneological research, chess games.... What a disaster.

I am now trying to recover from it. I talked to some drive recovery people at drivesavers.com, and they were very friendly and realyl a low-pressure sales approach, but the cost to recover was estimated approximately $2000. Ouch.

So I took it to a local guy here in New Jersey. Rey at Intertech was a good guy, who tried his best, but even he said the disk was so far gone that it needed the services of a full-time disk recovery company. We'll get the results in a few days, after their analysis.

For some funny stories about disk crashes, you can read this article in Time magazine.

So, watch and wait for the experts with their clean rooms, the men with their sales. Buffy reference - Season 4 finale... Sorry... Mind has been elsewhere this week.

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So, sage wisdom... Back everything up - today. Don't wait.

A pretty ending

(244) NN - Bernard,R (1402) [B06]
Metro Chess Club G/25+5 delay (3), 16.01.2007

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 c5 4.c3 d6 5.Bc4 Nf6 6.0-0? Dropping a pawn for nothing... 6...Nxe4 7.Bxf7+?! Morphy-wannabee 7...Kxf7 8.Ng5+? Just exchanging off this knight for nothing. 8...Nxg5 9.Bxg5 Rf8 10.Qf3+ Kg8 11.Qd5+ Kh8 12.Re1 Nc6? [ 12...Rf5 This wins a piece... For instance... 13.Qe4 Rxg5 14.Qxe7 Qxe7 15.Rxe7 Rf5 16.Re8+ Rf8] 13.Nd2?? Rf5 but now it comes a move later... 14.Qe4 Rxg5 15.Nf3 Rf5 16.d5 Ne5 17.Nxe5 Rxe5 18.Qf3 Bf5 19.Rxe5? Tranding pieces while down... not a good idea. [ To be considered would be 19.g4!? Bd7 20.Re3 Qf8 21.Qxf8+ Rxf8 22.h3-+] 19...Bxe5 20.Re1 Qf8 21.Rf1? Just bizarre 21...Bd7 22.Qxf8+ Rxf8 23.h3 Bb5 24.Re1 Bc4 25.b3 Bxd5 26.c4 Bc6 27.g3 Rf7 28.f4 Bd4+ 29.Kh2 g5 30.Re6 [ 30.fxg5 Rf2+ 31.Kg1 Rxa2+ 32.Kf1 Bg2#] 30...gxf4 31.g4 And here's where I saw it. I prayed he wouldn't resign, and he would play into it. 31...f3 32.g5 [ 32.Re1 Be5+ 33.Kg1 f2+ 34.Kf1 fxe1Q+ 35.Kxe1 Effective, but not nearly as pretty...] 32...f2 [ 32...Be5+ 33.Kg1 f2+ 34.Kf1 Bg2+ 35.Ke2 ( 35.Kxg2 f1Q#) 35...f1Q+ 36.Kd2 Rf2+ 37.Ke3 Qe2#] 33.g6 f1N# and he did! [ I should have played... 33...a6 34.gxf7 f1N#] 0-1

I am not Topalov

Well, Topalov won his first game yesterday. The games, frankly, go over my head, but only because these guys are double my rating.

Indeed, many of my own games go over my own head. I played a couple of games last night at the Kenilworth Chess Club. I lost both of them, and did not play well in either one. I could make a lot of excuses, (tired due to long and eventful day at work, recovering from birthday, blah, blah, blah) but the end result is that I stunk up the board. I am trying to procure a Java applet to display the games here.

Send Yasser to Elista

Whoever made the suggestion to send Yasser Seirawan to Elista to save the WC&WCC (World Chess and Water Closet Championship) had the right idea. It was suggested on Chessbase, and I think it is a brilliant idea.

Yasser, Yasser, he's our man!
If he can't do it, nobody can!

We will all have to wait until 7am US-Eastern Time to see what has happened.

This whole situation is best summed up by Tim Rice the lyricist of the musical "Chess" in the song "Quartet". The whole lyrics are here. A fitting excerpt...

It's very sad to see
The ancient and distinguished game that used to be
A model of decorum and tranquility
Become like any other sport
A battleground for rival ideologies
To slug it out with glee.