First of all, thank you for your contributions yesterday on how to handle unwanted suitors and stories of unrequited gay love.
Catching up on other chess blogs, I was struck by an observation: most of them are trying to get better at chess.
Yes, I enjoy the game and want to be good. I have a (fairly) competitive spirit. But the amount of time I dedicate to chess improvement has been close to nil for a long time.
I started competitive chess in 1998, playing until 2000, when I took 5 years off before jumping back in. Several months were (relatively) hardcore, actually playing 40 or so rated games before tapering off again. Even then, almost all my time was spent playing; studying was relegated to when I was taking a dump in the lavatory.
Right now, I’m 1600-ish, the same as 10 years ago without putting effort into improvement. What would happen if I tried? Does the thought of “maybe there’s an Expert somewhere in here” motivate me enough to work?
More likely, the “I’m sufficiently skilled so most people can’t dismiss me; that’s good enough” win out (again).
As we gaze through the mists of history, we see the hand of inevitability as the course of weeks marched on.* Other bloggers met. Victorious victories. Embarrassing losses. Vanishing tournament participants.
Nine of us slugged it out, and four of us poseurs demonstrated a semblence of strength in our four-way tie for second (placed in no particular order, BTW; I did no tie-breaks).
But drunknknite stands alone as the victor of the very first Tournament of Lepers in history. His name will now be known world-wide as a champion (technically, anyway–LEP has a single reader in countries like Australia and the Netherlands). Even the jokers of Wikipedia will not defame his name, when (if) the Tournament becomes significant enough for its own Wikipedia entry.
Only the heroics of l3rucewayne prevented him from earning the right to a McDonald’s Gift Card of Perfection.
And, drunknknite, as for your prize…due to the mysterious and abrupt departure of gorckat, the original prize–some random item that had a connection to Seirawan–is no longer in play. So you will be the proud recipient of a gift certificate for the USCF store. Valued at whatever’s left in my checking account (not that much). It’ll be arriving via e-mail.
The Mascot has also offered you one of his T-shirts or mugs (with the ability to customize), so I guess you can e-mail about that. He also left you this message of congratulations:
Hey, drunk! You weren’t perfect, but that’s OK. You know the old saying: “To err is human; perfection is eggish.” Anyway, you probably didn’t know this but I’m making a movie. Your victory in the Tournament of Lepers has earned you a great cameo spot! Check out this trailer, and let me know if you want me to stick your mug in there. Although there’s a chance you may be a dashing blonde already, so you won’t need to come in for filming.
….
Anyway, thanks to everyone who made this possible and helped out!
Wahrheit: For convincing me to go through with this and coming up with the time control.
gorckat: Offering what was going to be the main prize.
Allen: Offering a McDonald’s gift card for perfection.
I didn’t find the themes that came with BabasChess endearing, so I made a few of my own. Note that these were created for BabasChess 4.0, and may require the additional Graphics Pack. It’s possible they will work in an older version, but I can’t guarantee it. The zip file should be extracted to your base BabasChess directory.
Use the Themes option in the File menu to load, but you should export your original settings first just in case. Loading them won’t change the window layout, or overwrite other settings unrelated to appearance (such as custom buttons, auto-save, etc.), but if there is an issue, let me know.
For some reason, when you change themes, the text style in the console doesn’t update until Babas is restarted.
Click on the name to download. Thumbnails are also clickable for a closer look. My favorite is the Refinery theme, probably because the idea is the most original and the colors ended up complementing each other very well.
So things do come down to the final game. With l3rucewayne’s upset victory over drunknknite, the Wahrheit vs drunknknite match will decide the winner. Wahrheit needs a straight-out win, but he does have the White pieces.
To add to the drama, these two recently dueled in a tense OTB encounter at the Reno Chess Club.
You can’t script things much better than that.
Allen is probably breathing a sigh of relief, as he no longer has to worry about spending $5 on a McDonald’s gift card.
Here is the aforementioned game which held my interest. As prodded by a recent Wahrheit post, I’ve tried to include some actual variations. But it’s still mostly prose.
As I calculate it, drunknknite only needs a draw in his last two matches (counting the week 7 match) to clinch victory. Wahrheit is still mathematically alive; he’d win based on head-to-head victory if drunknknite loses his final two. EDIT: Polly is too, I think. If she can beat Tacticus and chessloser AND drunknknite loses his next two, Polly, Wahrheit, and drunknknite will all have 6 points. I’m not sure how to do that tiebreaker yet, since drunknknite beat Polly, Polly beat Wahrheit, and Wahrheit will have beaten drunknknite.
Unfortunately, gorckat’s disappearance means the original “big prize” is not going to be distributed. I’ll have alternative arrangements ready for the coronation next week.
l3rucewayne got the better of Wahrheit in a tactical match when they were both rather tired, going to sleep immediately after finishing. There were a couple interesting puzzle-like positions which I’ll extract and post for your consideration.
I was going to post the Tom-l3ruce match but don’t have the pgn. Do either of you guys have it?
As far as my match, I sacrificed an Exchange for an unclear attack, but with better results. Crafty actually agreed with all my moves after the sac, but Fritz (which I finally retrieved this weekend) found some White resources. Both computers still had the position as =/+ even after the sac, which was surprising. But neither thought the sac was worth it.
This game was pretty straightforward. chessloser and I hacked and slashed, often spending not nearly enough time thinking. The tactics fell my way as his pieces were not quite prepared for a Kingside assault attempt that fizzled.
It’s the next to last week of the tournament, and the deciding match may just come down to the final week. You can’t ask for anything better than that.
The results from last week’s matches are coming in slower than Zimbabwe’s election results, so the standings table hasn’t been updated yet.
chessloser and I had an unaesthetic slugfest, where the opening sucked. Then I won a Pawn, then an Exchange, then it was an avalanche after that.
Mr. loser also accused me of cheating, alleging the Mascot ran Fritz and fed the moves to me. This is a slap in the face; chessloser apparently thinks I’m too incompetent to cheat on my own.
I had the opportunity to watch Tom’s victory, which was quite compelling. He sacrificed an Exchange to complete powerful Queenside attack which netted him material. The material imbalance in the endgame was something like a Queen and Pawn versus Rook and Knight. l3ruce’s forces were mostly consolidated in the center and it took a while for Tom to break through. With their permission, I would like to post their game via Chess Publisher on this page.
drunknknite and l3rucewayne have a pre-arranged draw, so that should be exciting.
