Tournament of Lepers, Week 2

Week 1 Results

Since all the games are finished, I’m posting it early. Great stuff the first week…you can bounce around the players’ blogs to get game details. Think I remember someone mentioning keeping a record of the game scores in a central location. Good idea or not? If so, any ideas about how to do it? The forum came to mind, but there must be better ways.

Week 2 Matchups

(This podcast probably did not turn out any better than the first one. I was too embarrassed to listen to it to find out.)

Mascot: You never told us about your mom! It’s a wonder gorckat was able to get in touch with her. Can you find some pictures; we’d all be interested! I couldn’t find her in the crowd on Saturday.

February 17th, 2008 11 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Chess, Tournament of Lepers

Live blog: Week 1 game.

16:30 It’s a good 30 minutes before the final match of Week 1 is expected to be played, me vs. Wahrheit. As the crowds tailgate outside and the fans start buying “RLP” foam fingers, I wait in the crappy visitors’ locker room (having the Black pieces), going over last-minute strategy and warming up. Having the #1 seed, the drunknknite vs chessloser game got the good announcing team of John Madden and Al Michaels. No one cares about the mediocre seeds, so we get Emmitt Smith and Bob Dole to cover our game.

In a pre-game scrimmage with a 1900 rated player, I had a fairly easy draw. Which means I shouldn’t have a problem with a mere 1671. (Yes, I’m hoping my opponent reads this before we start and starts shaking from intimidation.)

17:03 There’s been a delay, as the field is still not ready after a major snowstorm. Talk about “icing” the players.

I wonder how long I can keep up the cheesy (American) football analogy?

17:12 Gorckat’s stopped by the locker room and told me he got tickets for the Mascot’s mom, so I will have to look for her in the crowd. She’ll be rooting for me. Thanks, gorckat! (The Mascot is actively rooting against me, even going so far as buying one of the aforementioned RLP foam fingers.)

17:21 RLP starts with d4. I counter with my typical turtle defense (King’s Indian).

17:24 With f4, RLP chooses an aggressive setup. I hate it, and never remember how I’m supposed to deal with it, and possibly castle into a crushing attack. With c5, I try to break up his center. Maybe I can sac with b5, but don’t really know how to get good compensation.

17:24 7. … Bd7? What did I just do? Now I have to try to get b5 in without sacing, which I guess was the point.

17:33 I screwed up. I have no clue what to do.

17:42 RLP saves my bacon. Or, if he has a pretty finish, I at least want to see it.

17:49 Now, when I said “saves my bacon”, that was relative. I’ll only be down a pawn in a losing position instead of a piece in a losing position.

17:58 Second time I’ve played a move then half a second later: “NOOOOO!!!!”

18:04 Desperately hoping for perpetual check. Won’t get it.

18:15 If this were a football game, it would have been about 21-3. Wahrheit punished my mistakes efficiently, minus the going up a piece. (I may even be wrong there, but don’t have Fritz or anything on this laptop to double-check. Probably should work on getting something sometime.)

February 16th, 2008 9 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Chess, Tournament of Lepers

How you got here

Searches used to stumble onto LEP recently:

• chavez using drugs on tv
• what does it mean when a testical goes into the stomach
• “scot pollard” 2008 pic club
• rpgle number divisible by 10
• does liquid rotton a egg
• superbowl winners determined by an egg
• image in woman piece super the one which

February 16th, 2008 5 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Blog News

Swoon your sweetie

Hey, guys! Were you one of those losers who forgot to give your girl something for Valentine’s? No sweat; I’m here to save your bacon.

First, you need to get a piece of cardboard and fold it in half. Or you can use a postcard.

Print out this first one. Then stick it on the front of the cardboard or postcard. You should use scotch tape instead of duct tape so it looks better. You could use glue, except the paper will crinkle up.

Then put this next one on the back or inside (depending on your style of card).

Your girl will be so impressed, she’ll forget you didn’t get her a real present!

February 14th, 2008 9 comments
Posted by Liquid E. P. Mascot Filed under Uncategorized

“Resistance is futile”

In honor of Polly’s Wacky Wednesdays, here is my most humiliating loss on record.

Known as Basman’s Defense, the Reverse Grob, or the Borg (Grob spelled backwards, get it?), 1. e4 g5 is not used in serious play. For a while, I was entranced with this opening, seeing if I could make it work at the class level of play. The concept is to have a ready-made “spike” against a King castled Kingside, although the intent is made obvious way too soon.

This was my final attempt at using the Borg. The second move should be h6, but I forgot.

I haven’t tried this opening since, not even for fun.

February 14th, 2008 8 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Chess, Patently Ineffective

The future is now

At 28 years old, I’m still a relatively young person, but old enough to have seen significant changes. This past weekend, returning from Houston, I started noticing all the “cool stuff” that might have been out of sci-fi novels of old. Kiosks allow you to check-in and get your boarding pass without having to interact with a human. And they have moving walkways that are pretty nifty.

Besides that, there’s plenty of other everyday stuff: Instead of businessmen carrying briefcases full of paper, we carry computers. (I remember the days when my dad had a briefcase as a symbol of work. As the next generation, I have a laptop.) We have big-screen, flat TV’s at home. There’s Wikipedia, which is something like the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You, as a civilian, can now make reservations for sub-orbital flight. With GPS, a machine in your car can tell you exactly how to get to where you want to go. Animals have now been cloned. The list goes on.

If you put yourself in the right mindset, you could start thinking, “Dude, I’m living in a sci-fi novel!” Maybe we are.

February 13th, 2008 7 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Science/Technology

Election 2008 impressions…and prediction

My parents and I got a chance to listen to portions of speeches by Clinton, Obama, McCain, and Huckabee tonight.

Clinton: Certainly not a bad speaker, but trying far too hard to smile all the time. A lot of “I”’s and usual promises.

Obama: Pushed the usual promises in better wrapping, actually said he’d have a tough time achieving his goals. As good an orator as advertised. Too much “hope” talk.

McCain: Was obviously reading his speech, and was completely laughable.

Huckabee: At least he didn’t use cue cards, but he was mainly talking about how he wasn’t mathematically eliminated. Not a good sign.

Oh, yeah, Obama and McCain swept the primaries tonight.

Prediction: Obama will be the next president. I’m confident enough to wager small amounts of money on it. This means that he will defeat Clinton, then McCain.

1. Why Obama will defeat Clinton

• The Clinton campaign expected to have the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday so spent a lot of money quickly. Hillary will be at a relative disadvantage in money the rest of the way.
• People tend to like Obama the person, and not everyone knows him. As more time goes on, more people will find out about him, increasing his strength.
• Clinton now seems to be relying on March 4, when Texas and Ohio go to vote. While she won’t be embarrassed, Obama’s momentum in carrying many smaller states will give him enough votes in these larger states to maintain an advantage. (Something like how Giuliani’s Florida strategy was a failure.)
• While Clinton currently has a large advantage in superdelegates, it’s hard to see her increasing her percentage of this group. Obama will steal some.
• Obama’s younger, a better orator, and is more likable. Yes, this stuff counts.

2. Why Obama will defeat McCain

• People like image. Reading from cue cards in an obvious manner just isn’t going to cut it.
• Conservatives are sabotaging McCain and will suppress the turnout he needs to win. Liberals have no such beefs with Obama.
• Bush gave his stamp-of-approval for the poor guy.
• Just being Republican will lose some votes this time around.
• McCain will be painted as “old Washington”, which will hurt more than Obama being portrayed as too inexperienced.

February 13th, 2008 16 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under In the News

Great Moments in History

J. Robert Oppenheimer was the director of the Manhattan Project. It was intended to develop the first nuclear weapons, as it would have been a Bad Thing if Hitler got them first. I don’t think the Japanese were really trying hard to get them.

By the way, they didn’t call it the Manhattan Project because they tested the first atomic bomb on Manhattan. (There are other explanations as to why it looks the way it does.) And the research took place at Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico, so I’m still trying to figure out what New York has to do with it.

Anyway, that quote from Oppenheimer is from some Hindu scripture or something (the Bhagavad-Gita). According to whoever edited Wikipedia last, it’s not even a very good translation. But it sounds cool, and that’s what he actually said, so we’ll stick with that.

Apparently he got into politics and some people thought he was goofy or rebellious or something. Then he retired.

He was a chain smoker and died from throat cancer at age 62. So don’t chain smoke; it’s even worse than eating eggs, but not by much.

February 12th, 2008 10 comments
Posted by Liquid E. P. Mascot Filed under History

Tournament of Lepers, Week 1

OK! Pairings are out! Please note there are nine rounds, so everyone will have an unbalanced number of times playing Black and White. I checked the ratings of all participants Sunday night, and gave the players in the lower half 5 Whites.

I stole how to do a round-robin from the Tournament Director for Windows site—figuring out how to get everyone with the correct number of Whites and Blacks is not trivial.

Here is a list of players with their FICS standard ratings. Exceptions: chessloser, since he only played one standard game (used blitz), and Polly with none (used USCF).

10: kevingafni (drunknknite)        1898
9:  NoTB (Tacticus Maximus)         1834
8:  ppwchess (Polly)                1700
7:  RockyRook (Rocky Rook)          1682
6:  LiquidEggProduct (Donnie)       1678
5:  RLP (Wahrheit)                  1671
4:  TheDarkKnightTwo (l3rucewayne)  1593
3:  Rhuiden (Tom)                   1530
2:  gorckat (gorckat)               1465
1:  mandalorian (chessloser)        1337

I only have a rough idea of your playing strengths, so this may or may not be an accurate reflection of ability, except I’m pretty sure Glenn and Kevin are the strongest (Vegas put each of them at 4:1 odds.

Note the number before your name, because that’s who you are in the following graph (the first player listed gets White):

Week 1 1:10 2:9 3:8 4:7 5:6
Week 2 10:6 7:5 8:4 9:3 1:2
Week 3 2:10 3:1 4:9 5:8 6:7
Week 4 10:7 8:6 9:5 1:4 2:3
Week 5 3:10 4:2 5:1 6:9 7:8
Week 6 10:8 9:7 1:6 2:5 3:4
Week 7 4:10 5:3 6:2 7:1 8:9
Week 8 10:9 1:8 2:7 3:6 4:5
Week 9 5:10 6:4 7:3 8:2 9:1

I will always announce the pairings for the week each Monday explicitly so there is no confusion!

Week 1 Matchups

February 11th, 2008 16 comments
Posted by Donnie Filed under Chess, Tournament of Lepers

Liquid Egg Forum

Wahrheit brought up an important point…what’s the best way to set up the games? It’s not like we’ll all be on FICS at the same time. And not everyone is comfortable giving out e-mail, which is understandable.

I’ve set up a forum at forum.liquideggproduct.com. I’m not really sure how helpful it will be, or whether it’s really any better than leaving information in comments. It might help that all the information is in one place instead of split among blog entries of rapidly-fading “now” status.

For the time being, I’ve made the forum so that you don’t have to register to make entries; it’s less of a pain that way. But if there are problems (with bots and such), I’ll have to change that.

Pairings will be up sometime tomorrow.

February 10th, 2008 1 comment
Posted by Donnie Filed under Chess, Tournament of Lepers