Another blunder on Saturday

 

29...Rfe8?? loses. no longer protecting f7. I get checkmated 4 moves later

29... g5 attacking the queen was correct. 

https://lichess.org/Pn0LEJVD/black#57

a blunder on Saturday

 

42 ... d4?? loses. 

42 ... Bc5 was the move. Went on to lose. https://lichess.org/FnGXg2Kg/black#83

Newscaster Wisdom

 "It's looking very like this..." 

local newscaster while commenting on four shots of the rainy weather. 

2026 World Cup England-Argentina Semifinal

 

Ovid Rocks

There is a road that slopes downhill, all gloomy with funereal yew.

It leads to the underworld, through regions mute and silent. 

There the sluggish Styx breathes forth its mists, and by that path descend the ghosts of those newly dead, the shades of mortals duly laid to rest in their tombs. 

Far and wide the desolate spot is wrapped in gloomy chill. 

The ghosts, but lately come, do not know where the road lies, that leads to the Stygian city, nor where to go to find the grim palace of dusky Dis. 

His populous city has a thousand approaches, and gates on every side, all standing open. 

As the sea absorbs rivers from all over the earth, so does that place receive every soul: it is never too small, however great the throng. 

New crowds arriving make no difference.

 Lifeless shadows without body or bones wander about, some jostling in the market-place, some round the palace of the underworld’s king, while others busy themselves with the trades which they practised in the old days, when they were alive. 

Others again, are subjected to punishment, each according to his crime.

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV

Don't let a stranger control your behavior.

Don't let a robot control even one thought.

-- Dan Manning 

no context

shell with ant.

to do

Puzzle on Thursday

puzzle on lichess https://lichess.org/training/pk3Na

bleh

https://lichess.org/lP0hKxEa/black#39  Here black should play 

20...Qf1+!
21. Rxf1 Rxf1+

22. Kh2 Bg1+ 23. Kh1 Ng3+ 24. Qxg3 Bf2+ 25.Kh2 Bxg3+ wins the queen! 

But who is going to see that?

uuuuhhhh

 I drew this as white with 50. Nxf5?

    Correct was 

50. h4 g3

51. Ne2

https://lichess.org/rQuD7PzU

99 percent accuracy

99 percent accuracy game https://lichess.org/2Fo8p53zJNlb

the trouble with billionaires running things

 

football bingo card

there will be a game 7

B9

Blue Jays challenged (force play), call on the field was upheld: Andrés Giménez lines into a double play (BP), left fielder Enrique Hernández to second baseman Miguel Rojas. Addison Barger out at 2nd.

Halloween 2025

Seinitz's Elements

Permanent advantages

1. Material advantage

2. Bad king position 

3. Passed pawns in the middlegame 

4. Weak pawns for the opponent

5. Strong and weak squares 

6. Pawn islands 

7. Strong pawn centre 

8. Control of a diagonal 

9. Control of a file 

10. Bishop pair 

11. Control of a rank

Temporary advantages 

12. Bad piece position

13. Inharmoniously placed pieces 

14. Advantage in development

15. Concentration of pieces in

centre (centralization)

16. Space advantage

Book First Lines

 "On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about half way between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, proud, rose-colored hotel. Deferential palms cool its flushed façade, and before it stretches a short dazzling beach." Tender is The Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1933

"In the week before their departure to Arrakis, when all the final scurrying about had reached a nearly unbearable frenzy, an old crone came to visit the mother of the boy, Paul."  Dune, Frank Herbert, 1965

“When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventyifirst birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton.”  The Fellowship of The Ring, Tolkien, 1954

"THE SNOW in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation."  The Secret History, Donna Tartt, 1992

"THE EMPIRE GRILL was long and low-slung, with windows that ran its entire length, and since the building next door, a Rexall drugstore, had been condemned and razed, it was now possible to sit at the lunch counter and see straight down Empire Avenue all the way to the old textile mill and its adjacent shirt factory."  Empire Falls, Richard Russo, 2001

"The drought had lasted now for ten million years, and the reign of the terrible lizards had long since ended."  2001: A Space Odyssey Arthur C. Clark  1968

"Hapcomb's Texaco sat on number 93, just north of Arnette, a pissant four-street burg about 110 miles from Houston."  The Stand, Stephen King 1978

"A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment."  Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy 1878

"I am a very old man; how old I do not know."  Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs 1912

"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories." Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, 1932

"Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy." The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S.Lewis, 1950

"In the hospital of the orphanage—the boys' division at St. Cloud's, Maine—two nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking that their little penises were healing from the obligitory circumcision." The Cider House Rules, John Irving, 1985

Sounds about right.

 "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." - Dickens 1859