Hopefully Robert Cowley, who plays chess for “mental exercise, social interaction, discipline and prestige”, has been able to improve the discipline part of his game since this incident in 1998.
He played for an Australian state championship versus one Ms. Ngan Koshnitsky, and lost 4-2. He complained that her cleavage was a distraction, preventing him from fully concentrating.
By the way, you can note that Koshnitsky’s breasts are not significantly sized.
ChessChick’s take
(As an aside, if any of you ladies try this “strategy” against me, don’t bother, ’cause it doesn’t work. Complete nudity may; I’ve never played chess against a nude chick before.)
August 27th, 2007
6 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Babes & Alleged Babes, Chess
First of all, thank you for reading the post concerning the Vick dogfighting story. Or, maybe that should be thanks for not reading it, because your response had little to with what I had to say.
However, if you’re going around to blogs and copy/pasting the same response to everyone who doesn’t respond to the story with the correct formula, it’s no problem. I’m lazy too.
When the story first broke, certain animal rights organizations treated Vick as though he were already guilty before the public had much evidence. (The fact that Vick has confessed guilt does not excuse this.) These kind of statements open up criticism which unnecessarily detracts from the work animal rights groups perform.
I do feel slightly bad for creating a new post simply to lambast you, and you seem well-meaning, so I will help you as well.
As seen above, you mistyped the name of your website AnimalChaplains.com. I took the liberty of correcting this, along with blotting out your e-mail and IP in the picture to preserve your privacy.
I’m not sure who created the website, but two important suggestions:
1. The term stuffing at the bottom hurts the website ranking. Search engines can recognize this, and penalize sites for this tactic.
2. All the pictures are of more “sympathetic” animals: horses, dogs, and the like. Add in some cockroaches and spiders. They are just as sentient, and people don’t give a second thought to squashing them. (Personally, I just put annoying insects outside instead of killing them.)
August 27th, 2007
6 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
Not only is a story about Hulk Hogan’s son, whose first name is unknown, getting more visits than the Gonzales story, it’s the first and fourth most popular story on CNN this morning.
I really need to get those “Not-so-proud to be American” bumper stickers made up soon.
August 27th, 2007
2 comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under In the News
Normally, I don’t like picking up stories that you can find all over the place unless I have a novel twist on it, or they’re really good. (For example, Alberto Gonzales’ resignation could be mentioned here, but everyone else has that story, too.)
This is more a story of the dangers of the “reply to all” button on your e-mail client’s menu. Just read it, and be marginally entertained.
August 27th, 2007
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Bad Ads, In the News
A chess master is a chess player of such skill that he can always beat players of the general strength found in chess clubs, who themselves typically can nearly always prevail against the level of play generally possessed by the average player in the general population.
Master #1, 2000:
The first master I had the “pleasure” of playing was Selby Anderson in the 2000 Waco Open. The tournament was a four round Swiss, and my first two games were excellent, drawing an expert with the Black pieces and easily defeating a Class A player. My good results meant that my round 3 match-up would probably be against someone else with 1.5 points.
That someone else was Anderson, the highest rated guy in the tournament.
Before the game, he asked who I’d played, and gave a grunt of minor respect when mentioning my draw with the expert. This quickly turned into complete disrespect as the game started. He opened with e4, and started reading a book! I went with Basman’s Defense (1. … g5) for a surprise factor–yes, I’d been practicing this opening–but in retrospect, it was probably best to try for a more solid, orthodox game. He had an easy game, although towards the end, he briefly set the book aside for one or two moves when I managed to get a piece or two in the neighborhood of his King. (Stream of consciousness at the time: “Take that, Selby! You actually had to pay attention for a couple of moves!”)
More than one person expressed to me their dismay at Anderson’s classlessness afterwards. But what do you do except laugh? (He also made Sam Sloan’s Hall of Shame, not that having a point of view in common with Sloan is necessarily something to brag about.)
Master #2, 2007
My friends were either busy or working on Saturday, which gave me a chance to visit the Houston Chess Club. They are quite active, holding some sort of event most of the days of the week, and I hope to be involved with them whenever I’m in the area.
On Saturday mornings, Life Master Larry Englebretson gives lectures at the club, followed by a three round G/60 tournament. I’d been sick, feeling awful, and was wavering as to whether to play in the tournament at all. Only five players had shown up, so I decided to enter so that no one had to take a bye. (That altruistic gesture was for naught, as one more player showed up for round 2, and someone had to take a bye anyway. And I had the bye for Round 3.)
My first game was against a Class A player. Although I didn’t play particularly well, I managed to win the Exchange, and should have won. I plead rustiness and sickness as reasons, not excuses, for the endgame loss.
The second game was against Mr. Englebretson. Around move 10, I dropped a Pawn (seeing the mistake after hitting the clock), and immediately I had to try to create some sort of imbalance that would at least give me a chance at counterplay–except for his extra Pawn, the pawn structure was symmetrical. At several points during the game, I kept telling myself, “OK, here’s something I’d like to do, but how can I force it? I know this guy’s seeing everything that I do, and more!” While parrying my plans to force a weakening his pawn structure, he was able to constrict my space and implement a plan of his own, ramming a central passed pawn down my throat. Recognizing that the most important square for a passed pawn is the square in front of it, I attempted a blockade, and for a little while, I was able to hold. However, he was preparing to blast his d4 passed pawn through by landing a supporting Pawn on e4. Realizing this, I got as much stuff as possible to try to defend the e4 square. However, due to his well-posted Bishop and superior space, I was not able to match his buildup, and he was eventually able to have 5 pieces eyeing e4 compared to my 4. At move 29, my position was resignable, but I played a few more moves just to be able to say I survived 30 moves with a master. (Non-chesser’s note: a move is considered one play for each player).
After the game, Mr. Englebretson motioned me to step outside. He was very friendly, and we discussed what happened during the game. He was complimentary of how I handled the game after losing that Pawn early, saying I played “tough” (probably partially true; I’m sure part of it was him being nice, but it felt good to hear it anyway). He talked about the parts of the game I handled well, and mentioned a couple specific moves where I could have played better. I told him seemed like he saw everything, and he did a great job of restricting my pieces.
Even if we hadn’t chatted, I’d visit the Houston Chess Club again, but his friendliness not only makes it a lock I’ll return, but would actively recommend it.
August 27th, 2007
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Chess
I’m so excited! A non-regular visitor has responded very intriguingly to Liquid Egg Product, and I am trying to determine the best way to mock her. In the meantime, 160 new work e-mails deserve my immediate attention.
August 27th, 2007
no comments
Posted by Donnie
Filed under Uncategorized
