Webmaster's Page
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- Created on Friday, 07 October 2011 19:37
- Written by Chesster
Webmaster's Chess CV
Is available here... CV (in need of update as at 7 Oct 2011)
Quotes & Aphorisms
(Unattributed contributions are the Webmaster's.)
| Only an optimist would play chess |
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Definition: Optimist and Pessimist... The optimist believes that we live in the best of all worlds; the pessimist is afraid that this is so - Anon |
| The invention of the first telephone by Alexander Graham Bell was an excellent achievement; the trouble started when he invented the second one. - Anon |
| No-one is completely useless - they can always serve as a bad example. - Seen on someone's T-shirt in Tottenham Court Road |
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How to mix a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster: Take the juice from one bottle of that Ol' Janx Spirit, pour into it one measure of water from the seas of Santraginous V - Oh that Santraginean sea water, Oh those Santraginean fish!!! Allow three cubes of Arcturian Mega-gin to melt into the mixture (it must be properly iced or the benzine is lost). Allow four litres of Fallian marsh gas to bubble through it, in memory of all those happy Hikers who have died of pleasure in the Marshes of Fallia. Over the back of a silver spoon float a measure Qualactin Hypermint extract, redolent of all the heady odours of the dark Qualactin Zones, subtle sweet and mystic. Drop in the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger. Watch it dissolve, spreading the fires of the Algolian Suns deep into the heart of the drink. Sprinkle Zamphuor. Add an olive. Drink... but... very carefully... - Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's guide to the Galaxy. |
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There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. - Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe. |
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Definition: Drama and Melodrama... A man is playing Russian roulette. He points the gun at his head and pulls the trigger. If the gun fires and kills him, that's drama; if it doesn't, that's melodrama. - Anon. |
Miss Pillow, Webmaster's schoolteacher. |
| A mistake is a sign that someone has tried to do something. - Anon. |
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First character: "Yes, I can." Second character: "I hear you can foretell the future." - BBC Radio show "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" |
Selection of graffiti written upon the walls of life:
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| Anarchy is just a stone's throw away. - A thought the Webmaster woke up with one morning... is it original? |
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If you could tell the result of a chess match just by looking at the two teams on paper, chess would be a dull game indeed. - Harry Woolverton. |
A selection of Groucho Marx one-liners, from Marx brothers' films:
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| "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same..." - Kipling |
| A thought to guide you next time you are contemplating a risky combination: The question "Are you sure about this?" cannot be answered "I think so...". |
| The art of diplomacy is that of letting other people have your way. - Anon |
| "The sun will rise on Monday." - Tiger Woods, interviewed before the event, on how he would deal with failure to win the 2001 US Masters (thus missing the "Grand Slam"). |
| The mortar in a brick wall not only keeps the bricks together, it also keeps them apart. - Anon. |
| Losing is always painful. The moment it stops being so, you cease to be a chessplayer. |
| On the subject of inflation: There is only one rule for inflation: it always occurs outside your control. The second of the three rules is that, by the time you agree to pay for the goods, the price has gone up. The only other of the five rules you need to know about is the seventh, which is, never lose sight of Rule 10... |
| Never argue with a fool - they drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience. - Dilbert |
| You're never as good as you think you are. You're never as bad as they say you are. Keep an even keel. -Michael Strahan, New York Giants' Defensive End. |
| Here's a thought: the more entries you post in a spellcheck dictionary, the less useful it becomes. Rationale: the more different spellings for a word that you accumualte, the less able will the spellchecker be to tell you when you have typed the wrong one. |
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The World Wide Web is the only thing I know of whose shortened form [WWW] takes three times longer to say than what it's short for. - Douglas Adams, The Independent on Sunday, 1999 |
| Sebastian Vettel, interviewed on the grid prior to the 2011 Japanese F1 Grand Prix, where any points finish, for instance one point for finishing 10th, would give him the 2011 F1 World Championship, was asked by Martin Brundle: "Going for glory today?" Perhaps wishing to avoid becoming a hostage to fortune, Vettel answered with a beautifully crafted piece of reverse logic: "If our target was to finish 10th, that would be a different target than we have today." |
The day I faced the "a3 attack" and won...
The a3 Attack was a pet line of R.E."Nosher" Rushbrook, who played for the Stock Exchange in the London League. He once famously essayed the line in a consultation game in the radio chess programme that once was broadcast on the BBC's Third Network (now Radio 3). That was in 1964 and pitted F.A. Rhoden and R.E. Rushbrook playing in consultation against Leonard Barden and John Littlewood. The opening exchanges went like this:
RHODEN: Well, we're up against it today, Rushy, there's no mistake about that. We've got the white pieces; that's something, anyway.
RUSHBROOK: Yes.
RHODEN: But don't you think it would be rash if we played P-K4 or P-Q4? Because Barden and Littlewood know everything there is to know about these things.
RUSHBROOK: We don't want to get into the encyclopedic knowledge of Len Barden, do we? I would like to introduce my gimmick P-QR3.
RHODEN: Of course that's Staunton's old move, isn't it? It's not a bad idea, you wily old...
RUSHBROOK: Well, I've played it on many occasions in ordinary club matches. What generally happens is that the man with the black pieces gets a premature attack - playing moves that he wouldn't do with white. I get a transposition into a favourable opening, after having a lot of pieces developed on the back rank for a long time.
RHODEN: We are not likely to fall into any opening traps are we? I'll tell you what, without any preamble, we'll start with P-QR3, shall we?
RUSHBROOK: Fair enough.
RHODEN: Right, White's first move is 1 P-QR3.
LITTLEWOOD: He's played it. We thought he would.
BARDEN: Yes, John, this is the Rushbrook patent - the one which is called the a3 attack, or the Rush Hour Opening, on the London Stock Exchange. I think Mr. Rushbrook has the idea that this leads to a kind of queen-side offensive for White, or that if Black plays his opening moves carelessly then White can get into one of the known 'book' openings with a move in hand... etc.
Acknowledgement: Chess Treasury of the Air (a Penguin Handbook)
Well, that's not the game you're getting here. You're getting a totally different game:
Oh, the Rhoden/Rushbrook v Barden/Littlewood game? Black won that, too.
The nearest I have come to a Philidor's Legacy...
(...excluding those who simply defended against it)
Please wait...